Chrome VS Third party cookies
Google announced that their chrome browser no longer support third party cookies. They take this decision to fulfill the user expectation on User Privacy and also support the privacy law
As per StatCounter data, Google Chrome has 69% of market share on Desktop and 40% on mobile. On January 14,2020 google announced a news via blogpost that “Google Chrome Browser will not support third party cookies and this change will be applied within two years.This action is taken for its user privacy policy”. Due to its large presence, google’s decision on third part cookies will affect digital advertising since its one of the back bone for digital marketing.
“As a normal internet user i will be very happy but NOT as a employee of digital advertising company”
What is third party cookies?
Normally, Cookies are a simple text files that are created by a server of websites you visit. The cookie is placed there for the purpose of recognizing your specific browser or remembering information specific to your browser, were you to return to the same site. For example, If you visit techtamilan.in, simple text file created in your pc with the name techtamilan.in. This cookie called as First Party Cookie. Whenever you revist this site that file will be looked up for giving better experience.
If you visit a techtamilan.in site but cookie placed on a computer says stats-for-free.com then this is a third party cookies. Javascript embedded in techtamilan.in sets a cookie for another website stats-for-free.com. Normally, DSP’s partnered with sites and using javascript their third party cookies created on user computer when they visit a site.
Privacy Acts vs Browsers
European Union’s Global Data Protection Regulation & California Consumer Privacy Act are the two major privacy acts there for now. India also currently preparing its data protection law. So companies wanted to obey these laws. Nowadays users are also expecting privacy on the internet. Already Safari,Firefox implemented similar measures to prevent tracking users all over the web. Now Google Chrome make it that’s it.
How this update will affect Digital Advertising Industry?
Third party cookies play a major role in digital marketing. It will help to show advertisements for relevant people. The removal of third party cookies significantly affects digital marketing, there is no doubt on that. Not only advertisers loose its revenue instead all parties advertiser, publisher, also google going to loose its revenue.
What google Says?
In August, we announced a new initiative (known as Privacy Sandbox) to develop a set of open standards to fundamentally enhance privacy on the web. Our goal for this open source initiative is to make the web more private and secure for users, while also supporting publishers. Today, we’d like to give you an update on our plans and ask for your help in increasing the privacy of web browsing.
After initial dialogue with the web community, we are confident that with continued iteration and feedback, privacy-preserving and open-standard mechanisms like the Privacy Sandbox can sustain a healthy, ad-supported web in a way that will render third-party cookies obsolete. Once these approaches have addressed the needs of users, publishers, and advertisers, and we have developed the tools to mitigate workarounds, we plan to phase out support for third-party cookies in Chrome. Our intention is to do this within two years. But we cannot get there alone, and that’s why we need the ecosystem to engage on these proposals. We plan to start the first origin trials by the end of this year, starting with conversion measurement and following with personalization.
Users are demanding greater privacy–including transparency, choice and control over how their data is used–and it’s clear the web ecosystem needs to evolve to meet these increasing demands. Some browsers have reacted to these concerns by blocking third-party cookies, but we believe this has unintended consequences that can negatively impact both users and the web ecosystem. By undermining the business model of many ad-supported websites, blunt approaches to cookies encourage the use of opaque techniques such as fingerprinting (an invasive workaround to replace cookies), which can actually reduce user privacy and control. We believe that we as a community can, and must, do better.
Fortunately, we have received positive feedback in forums like the W3C that the mechanisms underlying the Privacy Sandbox represent key use-cases and go in the right direction. This feedback, and related proposals from other standards participants, gives us confidence that solutions in this space can work. And our experience working with the standards community to create alternatives and phase out Flash and NPAPI has proven that we can come together to solve complex challenges.
We’ll also continue our work to make current web technologies more secure and private. As we previously announced, Chrome will limit insecure cross-site tracking starting in February, by treating cookies that don’t include a SameSite label as first-party only, and require cookies labeled for third-party use to be accessed over HTTPS. This will make third-party cookies more secure and give users more precise browser cookie controls. At the same time, we’re developing techniques to detect and mitigate covert tracking and workarounds by launching new anti-fingerprinting measures to discourage these kinds of deceptive and intrusive techniques, and we hope to launch these measures later this year.
We are working actively across the ecosystem so that browsers, publishers, developers, and advertisers have the opportunity to experiment with these new mechanisms, test whether they work well in various situations, and develop supporting implementations, including ad selection and measurement, denial of service (DoS) prevention, anti-spam/fraud, and federated authentication.
We are looking to build a more trustworthy and sustainable web together, and to do that we need your continued engagement. We encourage you to give feedback on the web standards community proposals via GitHub and make sure they address your needs. And if they don’t, file issues through GitHub or email the W3C group. If you rely on the web for your business, please ensure your technology vendors engage in this process and share your feedback with the trade groups that represent your interests.
We will continue to keep everyone posted on the progress of efforts to increase the privacy of web browsing.
Posted by Justin Schuh – Director, Chrome Engineering
What is my opinion?
Already two major browsers Apple’s safari and firefox implemented these changes. So there is no surprise on google announcement. Users expecting greater privacy and law too. Already digital marketing getting worse by fraudulent activities. Now this news also joined in queue.
The good news is Google understood the problems of advertisers and publishers. Also they confirmed that they are working with other tech parties to solve this problem, that is showing ads to right people without affecting their privacy. That is the project named as “Privacy Sandbox” google announced in august 2019.
I believe Demand side platforms already knew about this and they are working hard to save advertiser’s . For example, Few DSP’s having methodology to derive profiles using first party cookie for better targeting. So other DSP’s should have their own methodology.
Sridaran
Baskaran
Blogger
நமது மாணவர்களும் மக்களும் அறிவியல்/தொழில்நுட்பம் சார்ந்த செய்திகளை தமிழில் படிக்க வேண்டும், அறிவினை விசாலமாக்கிக்கொள்ள வேண்டும் என்பதே நோக்கம். பதிவுகளை பகிர்வதன் மூலமாக உங்களது ஆதரவை தெரிவியுங்கள்.