A HOT POTATO: For years, Google has been banging the drum about user privacy in its Chrome browser, promising to eliminate the third-party cookies that so many people have come to hate. It had intended to release an alternative solution to these trackers a long time ago, but the ad industry kept pushing back over fears of lost revenue. Now, Google appears to have caved to the pressure and will keep the third-party cookies. It has another plan for user privacy, it says, but hasn’t provided many details.Google pivots on user privacy, will now keep third-party cookies in Chrome
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Google just made a significant pivot in its approach to online advertising and user privacy by announcing that it is no longer planning to eliminate third-party cookies in Chrome, despite spending years preparing for their demise.
“Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we would introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing, and they’d be able to adjust that choice at any time,” Anthony Chavez, VP of Privacy Sandbox, wrote. He added that Google is discussing this “new path” with regulators, and will engage with the industry as it rolls this out.Google had received a lot of pushback from ad-tech firms,
Google had received a lot of pushback from ad-tech firms, publishers, and industry groups about the readiness of its proposed alternative, Privacy Sandbox, which Google began developing in 2020. The feature was based on a set of APIs that replaced third-party cookies by categorizing users into interest-based topics based on their recent browsing history. These topics would then be shared with advertisers to serve relevant ads without tracking individual users.Google pivots on user privacy, will now keep third-party cookies in Chrome
Throughout the development process, though, the ad industry kept expressing concerns about the revenue risk it posed to publishers and programmatic players, prompting Google to delay the release date in response. The ad industry was not assured, though, and perhaps for good reason: Criteo just forecast that publishers’ Chrome ad revenue would drop by 60% if third-party cookies were turned off. Google’s goal had been to limit the lost publisher revenue to a maximum of 5%.Google pivots on user privacy, will now keep third-party cookies in Chrome
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