Third-party cookies have been the bedrock of digital advertising since the late-1990s. For more than two decades, they have allowed advertisers to follow internet users across the web and target them with ads, giving unique insight into how audiences behave in a way other forms of media simply cannot do. But this has, many feel, been at the expense of people’s privacy online.
Google’s deadline to remove third-party cookies from Chrome by the end of this year is fast approaching and the media industry is on the precipice of one of the single biggest changes to digital advertising in its history. The foundations on which digital advertising is built are crumbling.
With less than a year to go, questions remain over how prepared the industry is, who stands to benefit and what a “privacy-first” future might look like.