Google’s Cookie Plan Crumbles

This decision will not come as a surprise to many given the distance between the stated conditions for phase out with the industry accepting alternative solutions that preserve the capabilities of targeting and measurement and the current industry feedback One of the reasons for the last delay came as a result of the UKamp8217s Competition and Markets Authority CMA report who needed to report that Googleamp8217s cookie alternatives Privacy Sandbox met the industryamp8217s needs That is they replaced existing functionality and that Google was not creating a monopoly The industry has been increasingly vocal about shortcomingsThe CMA had three main concerns involving Privacy Sandbox transparency into what consumers were opting into antitrust concerns with Google taking in more firstparty data and a governance model that would make the product sustainable long term Advertisers and Publishers also expressed concerns with Privacy Sandbox with some finding that the product didnamp8217t deliver the same effectiveness as cookies while other tests found that websites running Sandbox had serious latency issuesRealizing that Sandbox wouldnamp8217t be an adequate replacement for thirdparty cookies Google is introducing an quotapproach that elevates user choiceamp8221 likely an optin or optout mechanism similar to that Apple applied with the 39do not track39 option for Apple appsWhile this may satisfy the CMAamp8217s concerns and marketers are likely breathing a sigh of relief the solution could still pose an obstacle for marketers It is safe to assume this is going to be a notification to consumers that they have to choose to accept cookies or not Therefore variables such as the language used the order of the options the color of the box consumer understanding and particularly the point in the user journey that this amp8220choiceamp8221 is given will all impact the percentage of people that choose to allow or deny cookies For Apple the choice to use the word amp8220trackingamp8221 almost prompts the user to make a certain decision Further pushing the consumers a study from the University of Bath School of Management found that 43 of users were amp8220confused or unclearamp8221 about what app tracking entails and 51 were concerned about privacy As a result according to Statista as of April 2022 the optin rate was around 25 percent So again Google holds the power here in this situationI predict that this will lead to a slow decline of cookie availability and the end state will be similar with an increasingly small potentially tiny group of users that can be reached through thirdparty cookies Googleamp8217s solution at the end of this four year long saga could be viewed as a more regulator friendly approach because it is hard to argue with consumer choice But it39s also more industry friendly as the phase out will likely be more gradual giving more time for advertisers and publishers to test solutionsFor now the reality of the situation is that in order to reach all consumers advertisers need to deploy cookie and noncookie based solutions Cookies reach an estimated 40 of consumers today and as this decreases the importance of having tactics for the majority as well as the minority will increase in order to maintain a conversation with the whole of the marketPosted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership selfpublishing platformClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageorgMyersBizNet

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Google’s Cookie Plan Crumbles

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Amelia Waddington

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Google’s Cookie Plan Crumbles

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Amelia Waddington

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