Google postpones third-party cookie deprecation in Chrome to 2025
Chicken Little cried out, “Help! Help! The sky is falling! I have to go tell the king!” Then, she ran in great fright to tell the king. A global pandemic came and went and the sky is still falling on Google‘s #thirdpartycookies.
And they just moved cookiepocalypse to 2025 (see link at bottom).
It’s frustrating for marketers that have been trying to prepare for it and have seen underwhelming options in #privacysandbox that according to IAB doesn’t meet basic #digitaladvertising use-cases (link to IAB report). However, I can understand why Google doesn’t want to tangle with the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK, which has a history of exemplary fines for anti-competitive practices. Google’s potential exposure for any misstep could be high due to the extent of their impact on local economy in the UK. The CMA audit of 3P Cookie deprecation downstream effects is underway. The outcome will be interesting as the CMA need to balance the consumer harm from adverse competition vs compromising #consumerprivacy. My belief is that consumer welfare tends to trump commercial profits, so any outcome will still result in 3P cookies going away, but Google Ad Manager will need to demonstrate controls to avoid any undue competitive market-share gain from their deprecation of 3P cookies. So marketers should view this as extra exam prep-time they just got to get their #cookieless act in order.
