On the End of Tracking Cookies?

Quite a considerable change?  We analytically examined the use of Cookies early on.  Is this the end, and what are the implications?

R.I.P. Cookies. Why customer experience matters more than ever
Jean Belanger in CustomerThink

Marketing in the Internet age has seen several assumptions cast in stone:

1. Cookies: targeting and attribution has been fuelled by cookies, which were invented 25 years ago in 1994.
2. Ads: total US digital ad spending in 2019 was $130B, versus $110 billion for traditional ads.
3. Data: it was cool for brands to take the approach that ‘we have your data, and we can do what we want with it, as and when we see fit.’

Brands can track you, they can follow you across the web, they can target you with ads, if they are relevant – awesome. Therefore it comes as no surprise that traditional channels of communications – TV, radio, newspapers – are all giving way in our increasingly to digital lifestyles.

Meanwhile the Internet and smartphones are making us pickier and more informed than ever. But the natives are restless. We do not want to be tracked like animals in the jungle. We value our privacy more than we ever have done. My data and personal profile is mine, not yours. Where are our private property rights when we need them?

Google dropped its “cookie apocalypse” on the marketing industry earlier this month, when it announced that they will be phasing out the use of cross-website cookies, which have underpinned digital advertising for 25 years. They will also “obsolete” third-party cookies that follow internet users from site to site, and can trace their browsing for months and months.

Google’s move will drastically curb the ability of brands to extract private and sensitive insights about us. While the advertising industry has known for some time that third-party cookies are being consigned to history, slowly eliminating the basic concept of an open web that has dominated marketing matters for decades, Google’s news will totally disrupt the global digital advertising supply chain. ... "