Four months in, here’s the rundown of Google’s Chrome cookie conundrum so far
Four months down, and Google’s endeavor to wrangle the tracking chaos in Chrome is… well, let’s call it complex. A grand total of one percent of browser traffic is now free from third-party cookies. Hooray? Amidst the ensuing chaos, there’s been a medley of trial and error, wild guesses, and enough pontificating to fill a library. Time to hit pause, sift through the wreckage, and brace ourselves for the next act in this digital circus of drama.
First things first, let’s zoom in on that notorious one percent.Sure, it might seem like the scraps left behind without third-party cookies, but it’s enough to whet the appetites of ad execs everywhere. After four years of nothing but speculation, that’s quite the appetizer for now. It’s a step toward making that seismic, yet cryptic, announcement from way back in 2020 a reality. The tech they’ve developed, the theories they’ve crafted — this is the litmus test to see if they’re heading in the right direction.
Wait, what does that one percent of traffic without third-party cookies actually mean?Beyond affecting roughly 30 million Chrome users, that one percent packs a punch in a few ways. Firstly, it’s not just one homogenous group — it’s split into two distinct subgroups. The first group, constituting three-quarters of the traffic, has the Privacy Sandbox label and boasts a cookie-free existence. The remaining quarter, however, flies under the radar with no labels whatsoever — no Privacy Sandbox, no third-party cookies, nada. This split lets ad execs compare the prices of ad impressions bought via the Privacy Sandbox with those acquired through traditional third-party cookies.
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