Industry will get time to adapt to cookie deprecation: Experts on phase-out delay
Industry players say the delay will give Google more time to address concerns surrounding its proposed solutions
It wasn’t that much of a surprise, but the news that Google has (yet again) delayed the deprecation of third-party cookies is already doing the rounds in any business even vaguely related to digital media. The much-vaunted rollout of its Privacy Sandbox as a viable alternative to cookies has also been impacted in a move that had been long predicted by industry watchers, given the absence of an all-encompassing ecosystem to take the place of said cookies.
Gopa Menon, Head of Digital for South Asia at Mindshare, believes this gives the industry more time to adjust and allows Google to address concerns surrounding its proposed solutions. He identified several issues that still needed addressing, which this delay will now allow.
“The industry needs time as marketers and advertisers need time to adapt to new tracking methods, and privacy concerns. Proposed alternatives raise questions about user privacy and potential advantages for Google,” he said.
This is the third time that Google has pushed back the final crumble of the cookie, originally scheduled for 2020. The pandemic didn’t help, but since then, nor has the lack of a fully viable alternative to the ubiquity of the cookie, so precious to advertisers and marketers.
In a blog post on Privacy Sandbox, Google wrote, “We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers, and will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem. It's also critical that the CMA has sufficient time to review all evidence including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June. Given both of these significant considerations, we will not complete third-party cookie deprecation during the second half of Q4.”
Sajal Gupta, Chief Executive for Kiaos Marketing Pvt Ltd, also points out that UK’s competition controller, Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) made some observations on the tests on Google’s cookie-less solution called Privacy Sandbox. This move comes even as Google is set to declare its earnings for the previous quarter.
While Google may continue to benefit from user activity data while limiting competitors’ access to the same data, Google’s ability to control the inclusion of ad tech rivals on this list could advantage its ad tech services. Publishers and advertisers may be less able to effectively identify fraudulent activity.
According to Gupta, “More intensive work needs to go in by the team in Google to solve CMA’s concerns. The regulators got involved when there were observations of user privacy being compromised, this is getting addressed partially and gaps remain. Publishers and advertisers are concerned about measurement which will be broken in the cookie-less world, platforms and AdTech players have a roadmap yet.”
Agreeing that the development was unsurprising, Abhinay Bhasin, Head of Product Marketing for Profitwheel, added, “The main roadblocks I’d assume is reconciling feedback from the multiple stakeholders involved and keeping in line with the overall vision of the endeavour - to safeguard consumer privacy.”
Meanwhile, never one to lose hope, Google added in its statement, “We remain committed to engaging closely with the CMA and ICO and we hope to conclude that process this year. Assuming we can reach an agreement, we envision proceeding with third-party cookie deprecation starting early next year.”
