Third-party cookies have been an integral part of the Internet for many years. Websites use them to track users online and show them relevant advertising. This type of tracking will soon be over at Google.
Wherever you go on the Internet, one way or another you’ll be asked the same question: “Do you want to allow the use of cookies?” The data sets that browsers store on their users’ computers and smartphones are an essential pillar for personalized online advertising. But the pressure on browser providers is growing.
Given government regulations and users’ growing awareness of their data security, many see a so-called “cookieless future” ahead. After Apple and Firefox developer Mozilla took action against third-party cookies, Google also wants to push them out of its Chrome web browser this year.
The company took a first step at the beginning of the year. Since January 4th, around one percent of Chrome browser users have had their access to third-party cookies restricted by default, the company announced. The participants in the test phase were randomly selected. These cookies will then be completely abolished in the second half of the year – “provided that any remaining concerns of the British competition authority have been resolved by then,” Google announced online. The cookie banners that pop up when you open a page will remain in place for the time being.
What’s changing at Google this year
Cookies are small files that a browser stores on a user’s online device. Because these files often contain unique identifiers, websites can use them to recognize their visitors. A browser can, for example, remember a login or the contents of a virtual shopping cart. Above all, cookies make personalized advertising possible. What is particularly controversial are so-called third-party cookies, which are not set by the website visited itself, but rather through embedded content from other sites. They allow advertising service providers to track users across multiple pages and create profiles for advertising purposes.
Third-party cookies allow users to be “tracked very granularly across different websites by third-party providers,” says Lidia Schneck, partner manager at Google. With the so-called Privacy Sandbox, this should be limited in the future so that advertising providers only receive certain information about the interests of users to a very limited extent, “in order to prevent a user from being identified or recognized.” For this purpose, various applications have been developed together with the industry. From the end of the year, third-party providers will no longer be able to track users’ individual surfing behavior across different websites.
Instead, the websites that a user visits are then marked, for example, with higher-level advertising topics, so-called topics – i.e. with categories such as “sports”, “travel” or “pets”. The browser records a user’s most common topics, saves them locally on the device and, if necessary, shares a maximum of three advertising topics for the past three weeks with the advertising providers. The aim is to display advertising relevant to the user without the advertisers knowing which specific websites were visited. In Chrome settings, users can see which advertising themes have been assigned to them and make changes if necessary.
Sharp criticism from the advertising industry
The advertising industry criticizes the planned abolition of third-party cookies. This will not strengthen data protection, but rather Google’s dominance in the advertising media market, says the managing director of the Central Association of the German Advertising Industry (ZAW), Bernd Nauen. “At the long end, consumers would be at a disadvantage. What it doesn’t mean: less tracking by Google, less data on Google,” says Nauen. Because Google’s wealth of data is based primarily on first-party data, which Google collects for itself through the user log-in, its own first-party cookies or when a search query is made.
Outside of Google services and a few other “megaplatforms”, if cookies were abolished, users would then only be able to see advertising based on their assumed interests to a very limited extent, says Nauen. “Going back to spam, pop-ups and excessive banner advertising on topics that put me off rather than interest me certainly cannot be the solution.”
In the opinion of the ZAW, individual market-dominant platforms should not restrict the advertising industry’s scope. Such a decision must rest with the legislature, which has also passed laws to prevent rules that such platforms set up to the detriment of competition. The competition authorities are therefore called upon more than ever.
Consumer advocates are skeptical
The Federal Association of Consumer Organizations (vzbv) is generally critical of “tracking and profiling for advertising purposes,” says speaker Florian Glatzner. The problem is not limited to one technology, such as third-party cookies. Advertising is sometimes specifically tailored to consumers’ weaknesses. “This endangers the protection of personal data and privacy, enables manipulation and encourages discrimination.”
In addition, consumers often cannot foresee the scope and consequences of their consent. “The online advertising market and the technologies behind it (as well as the privacy sandbox) are too complex, too non-transparent and not easy to control,” explains Glatzner. According to the vzbv, tracking and profiling for advertising purposes should therefore be prohibited altogether.