If You are a Marketer, It Is Time to Consider Alternatives.
Who doesn’t love cookies?
When it comes to browsing the internet, plenty of people become cookie-averse. So what is a cookie and why wouldn’t you want them? Most plainly explained, a cookie is a text file which a web page’s server generates automatically when your computer connects to it. Each cookie is labelled specifically for your computer and stores information about you within the cookie, this information is collected and utilized as data to personalize advertisements and your experience with that website. The aversion to these data bits comes from a declining sense of trust in advertisers and search engines to responsibly store and utilize an individual’s data that is collected via cookies.
In order to begin to remedy this growing distrust, Google announced in early March that the tech giant would no longer be using third-party cookies to build personalized experiences within their search engine advertising efforts or their Chrome browsing platform. While the policy change comes with a wide variety of implications for the future of web-based advertising and how data will be collected and utilized, the short story is that Google will no longer be selling ads which are targeted to a user’s browsing habits – so long as that information is collected via third-party cookies.
Other web browsers such as Firefox and Safari have previously removed the utilization of third-party cookies – so what took Google so long? This is a move which Google has been building towards for a couple of years; beginning with their Privacy Sandbox tool launching in 2019. This tool was the first step in collecting data, voluntarily, from users to compensate for the loss of data from third-party cookies when personalizing experiences with Google products.
This building of data directly from a Google tool is considered to be first-party data, since Google alone is collecting this data and Google alone is utilizing it to build personalized experiences with their products. This diversion from truly personalized experiences has been furthered by the company’s commitment to building a Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC). This “federation” of sorts utilizes data which Google collects first-hand from you and assigns you to a “cohort” of other consumers who appear to be similarly-minded and airing ads which fit the profile of that cohort instead of you as an individual. This means that ads are still being delivered to the end consumer which feel personalized, but without the intrusive feeling of having your ad experience being made specifically for you.
What does all of this mean for you as a consumer? Ultimately not a whole lot. Your ad experiences and catered-to Google search suggestions are likely to remain largely unchanged thanks to the incredible AI power behind the data which Google will still be collecting from you in a first-party way. Yes, Google will still have your data, but, as is the trend with many big companies, it will not be shared with other resources. Similarly, Google will not be targeting you with the utilization of your data, but instead a pool of people with similar interests to you.
Google (and many other data-driven businesses) do have the ability to turn off personalized experiences, if you know where to look. If you are one of the millions of people who wants less data personalization from your internet experience, check out your options in your Google profile.
