On June 24, Google released a statement stating that it was delaying policy changes it plans to make for third-party cookies. The deadline for the transition period, which is expected to be completed in March 2022, has been extended to the end of 2023.

Google cited the reason for this change as “to allow sufficient time for public discussion on the right solutions, continued engagement with regulators, and for publishers and the advertising industry to migrate their services”. However, it is known by everyone that one of the biggest reasons for this delay is the problems Google has with the Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), which it sees as an alternative to third-party cookies.

What is FLoC?

FLoC is a system that enables the display of interest-based advertisements without sharing user IDs with advertisers in any way. The user’s browsing history will be evaluated by the browser and assigned to the user cohorts. During this process, the privacy of the user’s browsing history will be protected, and this data will not be shared with anyone in whatsoever way.

What Is the Problem?

Google is not alone in this move. Another giant of internet advertising, Apple, has taken important steps to block third-party cookies. These steps taken by the advertising giants will cause very few companies to collect user data, thus causing these companies to dominate the digital advertising market permanently.

What Will Happen Now?

As we said, Google is not the only one with an agenda for blocking third-party cookies. Other companies, national and international organizations are also interested in this issue. On the other hand, Google also delayed this change for a while. So not much has changed for advertisers and publishers. They just have more time to adapt to the new system.

Blocking third-party cookies does not only affect advertising. This change also complicates the operation of systems that offer personalized experiences to the user.

As nothing has changed as a result, advertisers and publishers need to continue to develop systems that need to get rid of dependencies on third-party cookies. With the latest developments, they have had more time for that too.

The concept of first-party data has become very important. Publishers, in particular, will need to develop new strategies to create and use this data in a meaningful way. In this regard, we can say that the importance of AIs capable of content analysis will rise in the coming period.

Providing a good user experience will also be beneficial for publishers. A personalization experience that makes a difference can get publishers more registered users. On the other hand, the steps to be taken by DSPs in the field of contextual advertising will also help solve the cookie crisis.

In conclusion, if you are on the side affected by this crisis, you need to know that nothing has actually changed. You just have more time to perfect the changes you plan to make.