Why the end of cookies is the start of better engagement

An interesting thing happened to me this week. A lot of my friends and peers were at Mobile World Congress, and one by one I started getting asked for my take on one topic in particular: what does a “cookie-less” world really look like, and is it supportable?

For the uninitiated, third-party cookies are a reality of the modern web ecosystem. They drive things like targeted advertising, cross-site tracking, and user profiling. They’re also a consistent source of both accidental and intentional breaches of privacy, impermissible data sharing, regulatory violations, etc. As a result, Google has announced a phase-out of all third-party cookie support this year, which effectively signals the end of this “feature.” This has been written about extensively (e.g., here, here, and here, all of which ask you to acknowledge use of cookies).

Those same articles, however, make the argument that this is a blessing in disguise. When you loose third-party trackers you need to compensate by building better first-party interaction. This may take a little more work, but the result is stronger engagement. Why? Because now there’s a focus on acquiring specific and fine-grained consents, offering transparency about exactly how you (and possibly no one else) will use that data. This fosters trust, and over time leads to more data-sharing and more value. It also provides specific user-centric data that supports contextual engagement, so that rather than just guessing about trends someone might like when you pick an ad to show them, you have real hard evidence to work from.

Needless to say, I’m a fan of this perspective. I’ve spent the last several years building out the first System of Record for Data Context, specifically designed around enforcing consent and re-consent, and exporting transparency. We built it because we agree that this approach to engagement creates better outcomes for users and organizations, and we’re seeing that play-out now in requirements as diverse as the EU Data Act, the FTC’s Consent requirements, and California’s proposed ADMT rules. Third-party cookies are just another piece of evidence that this is the future trend for user-engagement and decentralized data use.

But back to the initial question: is this supportable? The answer is yes, but it’s not easy. It’s one thing to ask a user to consent, but another to show personalized terms that make it clear what they’re consenting to. Once you’ve done that, it’s harder still to enforce each specific consent, prove to the user that their preferences are met, and build platforms at-scale that respect each user’s agreements. With our latest release we can automate and enforce this at-scale. To all my friends at MWC this past week: I hope that you enjoyed Barcelona. Reach-out and we’ll get get you on the rails.