The online marketing community are up in arms, again, following a blog post by Anthony Chavez, who is Google’s ‘VP, Privacy Sandbox’.
If you don’t know, Privacy Sandbox is a Google initiative that aims to enable user privacy but still allows data to be collected so that online publishers can measure the performance of online assets. Google has fairly grandiose aspirations of building new internet privacy standards that will be adopted by all, but recognises the demand (and $$$$$$$$) of advertisers who want to assess the impact of their marketing spend.
One of the fundamental premises for Privacy Sandbox is the phasing out of 3rd party cookies. Whilst it has been beset by delays, Google has been committed to deprecating the use of 3rd party cookies in the Chrome browser. This has triggered a frenzy of activity as tech companies try to figure out how to get around the challenges that this introduces to tracking online behaviour, especially across multiple domains.
Whilst the frequent postponements of an actual deprecation date should have probably been a bit of a warning sign, Chavez’s announcement this week has surprised many and it is a significant u-turn for the head of a an organisation that has the redundancy of 3rd party cookies as a core foundation to its existence. I suspect that those who are making the most noise are those companies that have invested in working with Privacy Sandbox and the APIs on offer to develop tracking solutions that are now harder to sell and most marketers are currently breathing a sigh of relief.
Whilst the announcement has given 3rd party cookies a stay of execution, I do not see it as a signal that Google is giving up entirely on other tracking solutions. The focus is simply shifting towards giving users more control over what aspects of their online behaviour can be tracked:
In light of this, we are proposing an updated approach that elevates user choice. 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. We’re discussing this new path with regulators, and will engage with the industry as we roll this out.
The Privacy Sandbox APIs will be developed further and extra privacy controls such as IP protection in Incognito mode is being rolled out, so I don’t think that Chavez is declaring that his role is redundant.
In my humble opinion, it is simply an acknowledgement that the rocky road for the replacement of 3rd party cookies continues to be plagued with challenges and the alternatives on offer from the likes of Privacy Sandbox are simply not ready to give advertisers what they want. It is these advertisers who pay the (very high) salaries of Google executives, so they will naturally want to appease their concerns.
The whole ‘user empowerment’ approach gives Google some breathing space as they can offload the privacy decisions to the user rather than making difficult choices that are always going to disappoint one of the participants of the privacy v tracking debate. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place and I personally feel that Monday’s announcement was fairly inevitable.
I am afraid that the halycon days of being able to track everything online are not returning, so this isn’t a champagne popping moment for digital marketers. The drive towards privacy is not going away and I very much doubt that this announcement will encourage Apple to reverse the fairly draconian user privacy measures that they have put in place over the past few years, so it will still feel as though we have the blinkers on when trying to piece together user journeys.
First party data should still be a crucial goal as its importance will only grow.
