Business Tech: We're experiencing the slow phase-out of third-party cookies

Bahar Ferguson 

In the world of advertising, users are calling for an increase in privacy but have also become accustomed to and enjoy how tailored their current ads are.

Example: If you start looking up flights to Vegas, you will quickly be served ads for hotels along the strip. If you are looking up information on first-trimester pregnancy symptoms, you will likely be hit with baby clothing ads not long after. The list goes on, but third-party cookies have allowed for websites to share data among each other and better get an idea of the “identity” of each person behind the computer.

For the past couple of years, multiple web browsers have announced plans to phase out third-party cookies. Google even reported last year that Chrome would stop using third-party cookies by the end of 2024. This marks a big shift away from the customization and knowledge that many marketers have become accustomed to in the Digital Age. So, what does this mean?

The Basics

Cookies have been around for decades. These code snippets identify browsers and allow ads to follow users from website to website. This allows for those customized ads that target us based on our previous shopping or search behavior and items we have left in our carts. In other words, third-party cookies have kept our ads personalized and cohesive between websites.

Why Is Google Getting Rid of Cookies?

Google’s decision to get rid of cookies likely has to do with pressure from Internet users and other browsers (like Safari and Firefox) that have already blocked them. This also comes a couple of years after the iOS14 updates by Apple, which is when Apple began increasing transparency for users on apps and websites by asking them to consent to tracking once they left that specific site. (Changing from an opt-out preference to making users opt in to tracking.)

As people have grown more aware of how advertisers are capturing and using their personal data, they’re demanding greater privacy protections. One way that Big Tech is trying to meet these concerns is by removing third-party cookies.

How Will Phasing-Out Cookies Affect User Privacy?

Some people assume that blocking third-party cookies means that their online movements will no longer be tracked. That’s certainly not the case, though. It does make it so that code snippet cannot follow a user from website to website, but it does not limit a server from one site sending information directly to the Meta server, for example.

Many other tools exist beside cookies to monitor Internet users — from local storage and IndexedDB to Web SQL.

Advertisers can also use first-party cookies, which are stored on website domains and used for processes like onsite search optimization and recommendation systems. However, first-party cookies require consent (with the exception of “strictly necessary” cookies), making them less effective than third-party cookies have previously been.

How Will This Change Affect Advertisers?

Without the help of third-party cookies, advertisers (including online retailers) will likely turn to other Google services, including Smart Shopping and Performance Max. These services are “black box” advertising algorithms that handle advertising tasks for the retailer while not providing much information back to the advertiser. Advertisers will just have to “trust” that Google knows who it’s targeting without knowing exactly how they are doing it.

The problem with more advertisers turning to other Google services is that Google, as a whole, will have a lot of control over how retailers are able to promote their products or services. It also creates reliance on algorithms that don’t provide much data that advertisers can use to optimize their efforts on other platforms, therefore removing that customization that users have become accustomed to and enjoyed in recent years.

What Do Experts Have to Say?

Understandably, tech experts, privacy advocates and others have mixed feelings about Google’s decision to phase out third-party cookies.

For example, Ashkan Soltani, a privacy and security researcher and former Federal Trade Commission technologist, says that getting rid of third-party cookies is a “good step and a good signal.” However, he also wants to see the “final package of solutions.”

The Electric Frontier Foundation, a digital rights activist group, published a blog post imploring Google not to move forward with this decision and arguing that it will just lead to third parties using other invasive methods to track people’s data.

Jason Kint, the CEO of Digital Content Next, also addressed the issue of Google having too much power. Speaking to CNN, Kint described Google as the Internet’s “biggest tracker” and said the company is “competing in the same marketplace where they’re designing the rules.”

Third-party cookies have slowly been phased out over the past few years and will soon be a thing of the past. Although browsers like Google have some ideas for the next phase of online monitoring, only time will tell how this transition affects consumers and marketers alike.

Bahar Ferguson is the president of Wasatch I.T., a Utah IT service provider for small- and medium-sized businesses.