Taking the premise that there is privacy issue with Cookies—some sacrifice between efficiency and privacy is inevitable.

How does the industry react:

Browsers:

Some browsers take an extreme approach: Safari and Firefox has been blocking Cookies for years. While others are more moderate: Edge doesn’t block 3rd party cookies.

Regulator:

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) initiated in Europe provides comprehensive privacy or data protection reform for not only European residents and European companies, but all companies worldwide that are serving customers in Europe—including consent for users to opt-in using personal Cookie data.

The landscape and future for online advertising industry.

The Ad-exchange industry without cookies has for main categories (Garret Johnson):

  • Contextual Advertising

    Ads are displayed based on the context of the webpage (e.g., cosmetic ads on Vogue’s website).

  • ‘Cookieless’ ID tracking

    Replaces traditional cookies with anonymized versions of email addresses (or, fingerprinting using browser signals and IP addresses) to track users across websites.

  • Walled Gardens

    Platforms like Facebook, Meta, and Amazon that utilize extensive first-party data. They have large enough data base to almost match user preference everything on their own.

  • Privacy Sandbox

    Google’s initiate attempts to experiment and develop a collection of alternative technologies to third-party cookies that protect user privacy while still enabling targeted advertising.

    What distinguishes Privacy Sandbox from other browsers’ approaches is that, they are developing a collection of APIs (aka a software that does a specific function) that carry out separate tasks that Cookies does:

Cookieless group performs about 30% worse than the status quo group [with Cookie], and the Privacy Sandbox group performs about 28% worse than the status quo group [with Cookie].

reference

Harvard Business Review. (2024, May 16). Tech at work: How the end of cookies will transform digital marketing [Audio podcast episode]. In HBR IdeaCast. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/podcast/2024/05/tech-at-work-how-the-end-of-cookies-will-transform-digital-marketing

Privacy Sandbox. (n.d.). How we’re protecting your online privacy. Privacy Sandbox. Retrieved July 19, 2024, from https://privacysandbox.com/intl/en_us/open-web/

Wlosik, M. (n.d.). How different browsers handle first-party and third-party cookies. Clearcode. Retrieved July 19, 2024, from https://clearcode.cc/blog/browsers-first-third-party-cookies/

Boston University Questrom School of Business. (n.d.). The cookies are crumbling: What’s next for digital advertising? [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved July 19, 2024, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y-nIrq4CO0

Alphabet Inc. (2023). Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023. Retrieved from https://abc.xyz/assets/5a/ae/29f710e646b49ee3d6b63c4dc3a0/goog-10-k-2023.pdf