(Bloomberg Opinion) – The cookie is dead. Long live the cookie.
Google, the internet search giant, said this week that it ‘s made to keep an eye on us as we skate around the web. He promises that after completely eliminating the use of third-party cookies over the next year, they will not accept other products that actually do the same thing.
This does not mean that Google does not continue to collect first-party information that they collect directly from users when they visit sites and services that they control. It also does not mean that all the tools elsewhere that people name on the web and serve ads to them and other applications that are designed according to their specific interests are going to desertion.
But it does mean that a very special and early chapter in the internet era is coming to an end. That time was defined by computer-based web browsers that were powered by a number of devices, with cookies, perhaps, first among similar people. Cookies allow a browser to remember its users, making the web much easier to navigate. They also helped to make the web popular and commercial, ultimately spawning, alas, a universe in which personal privacy was easily compromised and the only hat for beautiful leather boots, pop-ups, notifications and other flotsam clots for users wherever they go.
Cookies were created by Lou Montulli, a computer programmer working for a obscure startup, Netscape Communications Corp., in 1994. He named them after “magic cookies” used by data scientists to perform normal computer activity. , and his blog offers them a clear justification.
Without cookies, “every time a user clicks a link to a different page they would become just another random user with no link to an action they performed just a few minutes ago,” he adds. writing. “This is something like talking to someone with Alzheimer’s disease. As a result of each interaction you had to re-introduce yourself over and over and over again. “
The Netscape browser, which was available to anyone with a PC, was a sensation when it stopped, and effectively marked the beginning of the internet era. Within a year or two, first-party cookies had moved into third-party cookies, and companies such as DoubleClick (later acquired by Google) used them to serve ads to users wherever they were. they went. They also allowed companies to snatch people’s data without their permission and turn around and sell it. Privacy concerns were raised, and Montulli had such power at the time that a decision was made to remove third-party cookies.
Montulli chose to leave them in their place, confirming that their presence was as visible and possible as possible. If cookies were ripped, advertisers would find new tools to achieve the same thing and, he writes, “we would trade out one problem for another.”
The ensuing decades saw an innovative rise in ubiquitous and almost inevitable digital advertising, with sales titans, publishing, entertainment and communications distributed or reshaped along the way. As my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Alex Webb said this week, much of the internet was only “free” as the advertising gold mine paved the way – while consumers , through cookies, turning loads of valuable information about themselves.
Google emerged as a colossus in that world until the social media revolution turned Facebook into an operational competitor. Google and Facebook accounted for nearly three-quarters of the $ 300 billion spent on web advertising in 2020, according to the World Advertising Research Council. Now, with regulators around the world cracking down on Google, Facebook and other tech giants over privacy concerns and dysfunctional behavior, the cookie has landed on the cutting edge.
Technological change was also slowing the cookie down. Consumers have spent years switching to mobile devices and apps, which do not accept web-based cookie tracking as efficiently as desktop computers once did. Apple’s Safari browser and Mozilla’s Firefox browser already have default settings that block third-party cookies, so Google plays catch-up by accepting more of the same on its Chrome browser. However, it is a seismic event when the company decides that it has gone into bloom due to cookie-driven advertising revenue.
Google also doesn’t seem to care that its business model is in jeopardy. Marketers have been pushing for this level for years and have developed alternatives to cookies that allow them to keep track of how people travel around the web – although they are less specific about what each individual is up to across several sites. Google has already developed digital tools as part of a “privacy sandbox” that serves ads targeted at like-minded groups of individuals rather than individuals.
As Bloomberg information analysts have noted, new artificial intelligence technologies and developments in machine learning are likely to continue with targeted advertising with precision and profitability. Companies that do not adopt AI said it was “extinct,” analysts said. So don’t expect Google to sit this one out. There are other options for delivering targeted ads, and instead of pursuing that advantage as a nefarious stalker, it seems to do so anonymously. And its first-party data, the information it still empties when users hire its products, is likely to become more valuable as third-party data sources shrink.
“People should not have to accept being searched across the internet for the benefits of relevant advertising,” wrote David Temkin, an executive agency at Google, when its company announced it would acquire alternatives to digital ankle bracelets. “And advertisers don’t have to track individual users across the web to reap the performance benefits of digital advertising.”
So the way consumers are monitored will change, but it’s not clear how much of an opinion individuals will have about controlling everything.
The cookie is dead. Long live the cookie.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and the owners.
Timothy L. O’Brien is a senior columnist for Bloomberg Opinion.