Cookies are small pieces of code that are added to web browsers when you visit different websites. They help websites remember information about your visit and allow for a more customized user experience. Cookies help to retain previous internet actions such as log-in information, location settings, and what is in your shopping cart among other things. They also enable businesses to gather valuable customer information and allow marketers to gather data that helps them provide the most relevant and targeted content to particular audiences. Cookies help to make the site more useful to you and easy to visit again which allows for very user-friendly customer experiences.
Google’s Removal of Cookies
Many consumers have transparency and privacy concerns and this is causing many businesses to re-evaluate their use of third-party cookies. Third-party cookies are tracking codes that are put on a web visitor’s device after being created by a different website other than your own. For example, when a web visitor clicks on your website and others, the third-party cookie traces this information and sends it to the third party who created the cookie (who could be an advertiser or marketer). If you are an advertiser, third-party cookie data will allow you to gain insight into your web visitor’s overall online actions such as the kind of websites they frequently visit, the purchases they make and the interests that they show on other websites.
So far, Google is only planning to phase out the third-party cookie on its browsers. Even though Google Chrome is not the first browser to phase out the third-party cookie, it is the most significant. In late 2019, Google Chrome made up more than 56% of the web browser market and is also responsible for more than half of all global web traffic. Safari and Firefox have already blocked third-party cookies and Google plans to phase out third-party cookies in late 2024.
Google’s Privacy Sandbox
Google considers its first-party relationships important and any first-party data that you gain from your website’s visitors on all browsers will remain undisturbed. First-party cookies allow you to learn about what a visitor did while using your website and gain basic analytics but you can not see detailed data related to your web visitor’s actions and behaviours on other websites that are not associated with your domain.
With the phasing-out of third-party cookie data, marketers will still be able to target and leverage Google Ads which will be fueled by Google Chrome’s first-party cookies and the Privacy Sandbox Tools. Google is working on replacing third-party cookies through an initiative known as the Privacy Sandbox. The tech giant wants ad targeting, measurement, and fraud prevention to occur according to the standards set by its Privacy Sandbox, which represents an alternative route that Google is providing for the ad industry to take. This recent initiative relies on other signals (that are not cookies) in a web visitor’s Chrome browser to profit from the web visitor’s browsing behaviour, and this provides a privacy-first alternative to third-party cookies. This way, companies and businesses can continue to grow by connecting to people with relevant ads and achieve measured results without having to track people across the global web.
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