Google is clarifying its plans for targeted advertising as it phases out the use of browser cookies, saying in a new blog post Wednesday that it will not use other ways to “ track ” users around the web after support for cookies in Chrome ends.
Last year, the company said it would end support for third-party cookies, which power much of the digital ad ecosystem, on its Chrome browser within two years of January 2020. Instead, Google says it will only use “privacy-protecting technologies.” “that rely on methods such as anonymization or aggregation of data.
The blog post by David Temkin, director of product management for ad privacy and trust, says the company has been asked whether Google will “ join others in the ad technology industry who plan to replace third-party cookies with alternative identifiers. at the user level. “Ad technology players have been working on marketing methods that balance consumer privacy while preserving personalization in ads after they can no longer use cookies.
“Today, we are making it explicit that once third-party cookies are phased out, we will not build alternate IDs to track people as they browse the web, nor will we use them in our products,” the Google post said.
Cookies are small pieces of code that websites send to a visitor’s browser and hang when the person visits other sites. They can be used to track users across multiple sites, target ads and see how they are performing. Google said last year that it would end support for those cookies in Chrome once it figured out how to meet the needs of users, publishers, and advertisers, and with tools to mitigate workarounds. The company said it plans to do that within two years, beginning in 2022.
To do this, Google launched its “Privacy Sandbox” initiative to find a solution that both protects users’ privacy and allows content to remain freely available on the open web. In January, Google said it was “very confident” about the progress of its proposals to replace cookies, and plans to test one proposal with advertisers in Google Ads next quarter. Specifically, that proposal, called “Federated Learning of Cohorts,” would essentially put people into groups based on similar browsing behavior, meaning that only “cohort IDs” and not individual user IDs would be used to target them.
Google says this is about how its own ad products work, and not about third parties limiting what can happen in Chrome. The company said it would not use Unified ID 2.0 or LiveRamp ATS in its advertising products, but would not speak specifically of one initiative.
Unified ID 2.0 is an initiative that a number of leading advertising engineers are collaborating on and that would rely on email addresses that have been hashed and encrypted from consumers who have given their consent. Government company LiveRamp also has what it calls its “Authenticated Traffic Solution,” which it says consumers choose to take control of their data, and on the other hand, allow brands and publishers to use that data.
Temkin says in the post that other providers “may provide a level of user identity for ad tracking around the Internet that we will not provide – such as PII charts based on people’s email addresses.”
“We do not believe these solutions will meet the rising expectations of consumers in terms of privacy, nor will they withstand rapidly changing legal constraints, and therefore are not a sustainable long-term investment,” the blog post said. “Instead, our web products will be powered by privacy-protecting APIs that prevent individual tracking while still delivering results for advertisers and publishers.”
Google had informed a number of major advertisers and groups about the post before Wednesday, including George Popstefanov, founder and CEO of digital agency PMG.
Popstefanov said in an email that while this is a dynamic shift, “we’ve been preparing for it for a while”.
“After last year’s announcement to phase out third-party cookies, many of our customers have quickly moved to build their data infrastructures and invest in their CRM to make better use of their first-party data” , he said. “Most importantly, consumer behavior is not fundamentally shifting, but only our ability to track and measure behavior as we are used to. The importance of strategic planning and insights will be more important than ever for understanding audiences and making connections. the right moments and in contextually relevant ways. “
He added that he believes Google is motivated to design its products and solutions to solve the new reality.
“Marketers are already diversifying their spending in more areas up and down the funnel, so it will be up to Google for its solutions to engage brands and support marketers’ investments and impact,” he said.
Alec Stapp, director of technology policy at the Progressive Policy Institute, called the news from Google a step in the right direction for user privacy. The group has received funding from Google and other major tech players, Protocol reported last year.
“However, companies – even very large ones – can only do so much on their own,” he said in an email. “Policymakers must step in and formalize rules that protect users’ privacy, while keeping in mind that they are not burying users in an endless series of opt-in screens.”
Jon Halvorson, global VP of Consumer Experience Mondelez International, said the decision is consistent with consumer feedback on what they want and expect. He said the company will be doing some testing in “FLoC” and building it into business plans for this year.
“We don’t think it can be privacy or performance, advertisers need both,” he said in an email.