Google is clarifying its targeted advertising plans as it gradually eliminates the use of cookies from the browser, saying in a new blog post on Wednesday that it will not use other ways to “track” Internet users after cookie support ceases. in Chrome.
Last year, the company said it would end support for third-party cookies, which feed much of the digital advertising ecosystem, into the Chrome browser within two years of January 2020. Instead, Google says it will only use ” privacy technologies ”“ which are based on methods such as anonymization or data aggregation.
David Temkin, director of product management for the privacy and trust of ads, says the company has received questions about whether Google “will join others in the advertising technology industry who intend to replace third-party cookies with identifiers.” user-level alternatives. “Advertising technology players have been working on marketing ways that balance consumer privacy while maintaining personalization in advertising after they can no longer use cookies.
“Today we make it clear that once third-party cookies are phased out, we will not build alternative identifiers to track people while browsing the web, nor will we use them in our products,” says the Google post.
Cookies are small pieces of code that websites deliver to the visitor’s browser and are pasted while the person visits other sites. They can be used to track users on multiple sites, target ads, and see how they behave. Google said last year that it would end support for these Chrome cookies once it learned how to meet the needs of users, publishers and advertisers and come up with tools to mitigate alternative solutions. The company said its intention was to do so within two years, by early 2022.
To do this, Google has launched the “Privacy Sandbox” initiative to find a solution that protects both user privacy and content from remaining available for free on the open web. In January, Google said it was “extremely confident” about the progress of its cookie replacement proposals and plans to start testing a proposal with Google Ads advertisers in the next quarter. This proposal, called in particular “Federated learning of cohorts”, would essentially put people in groups based on similar navigational behaviors, which means that only “cohort IDs” and not individual user IDs would be used for and the visa.
Google says this is how its own advertising products will work and does not restrict what can happen to Chrome by third parties. The company said it will not use Unified ID 2.0 or LiveRamp ATS in its advertising products, but will not specifically talk about any initiatives.
Unified ID 2.0 is an initiative that a number of top advertising companies are working on together, which are based on email addresses that are encrypted and encrypted from consumers who give their consent. The public company LiveRamp also has what it calls the “Authenticated Traffic Solution”, which it says involves consumers who choose to gain control over their data, and on the other hand, brands and publishers can use that data.
Temkin says in the post that other providers “could provide a level of user identity for tracking ads on the web, which we will not place – PII graphics based on people’s email addresses.”
“We do not believe that these solutions will meet consumers’ growing expectations for privacy, nor will they withstand rapidly evolving regulatory constraints, and are therefore not a long-term sustainable investment,” the blog post says. “Instead, our web products will be powered by privacy-friendly APIs that prevent individual tracking while delivering results for advertisers and publishers.”
Google briefed several major news outlets and groups before Wednesday, including George Popstefanov, founder and CEO of the digital agency PMG.
Popstefanov said in an e-mail that, although this is a dynamic change, “we have been preparing for some time.”
“After last year’s announcement of the phasing out of third-party cookies, many of our customers have moved quickly to build their data infrastructure and invest in their CRM to get the most out of it. own data, “he said. “The important thing is that consumer behavior does not change fundamentally, but only our ability to track and measure behaviors as we were used to. The importance of strategic planning and perspectives will be more important than ever for public understanding and how to connect at the right time and in contextually relevant ways. “
He added that he believes that Google is motivated to design its products and solutions to solve the new reality.
“Marketers are already diversifying their spending in several areas up and down the funnel, so Google will return to Google its solutions to attract brands and support investment and the impact of marketers,” he said.
Alec Stapp, director of technology policy at the Progressive Policy Institute, called Google News a step in the right direction for user privacy. The group received funding from Google and other major technology players, the protocol reported last year.
“However, companies – even very large ones – can do so much on their own,” he said in an email. “Political decision-makers need to step in and formalize rules that protect user privacy, while being aware of not burying users in an endless series of registration screens.”
Jon Halvorson, Mondelez International’s global vice president of consumer experience, said the decision was in line with consumer feedback on what they want and expect. He said that the company will do some tests in “FLoC” and will incorporate it in the business plans for this year.
“We don’t think it can be privacy or performance, advertisers need and need both,” he said in an email.