Google’s privacy shift on third-party cookies sparks concerns of Apple-like control

After four years of dragging its feet, Google finally said it will phase them out, but only if users give the thumbs-up. How it will make this work is still a mystery, but the early guess is that giving people the power to opt-out will mostly lead to one thing: users opting out. 

In other words, Google’s not exactly killing third-party cookies; it’s just handing the job over to the users.

And that’s where the Apple-like parallels come into play.

Three years ago, the tech giant introduced what could be called a polite doorman for each app on a person’s phone. Before letting an app follow that person to other apps or sites, the doorman asks, ‘Is it OK if this app keeps an eye on what you’re doing elsewhere?’ They get to say yes or no. 

While Google hasn’t explicitly said it will do the same, it has hinted at doing something similar. It said it will introduce a “new experience in Chrome” that lets users make an informed choice across their web browsing, which they’d be able to adjust at any time.

“Both companies [Google and Apple] are avoiding direct responsibility for the decision of whether an identifier is present by making ‘consent’ the fulcrum of user choice and availability of the third-party cookie,” said Charles Manning, CEO of mobile measurement business Kochava. “Instead of dictating the approach, it appears that they plan to allow people to choose through a universal prompt in Chrome.”

How this prompt will work remains to be seen, but it’s clear that Chrome is moving toward a consent-driven privacy model. This shift means web advertising is beginning to mirror mobile app advertising, where both Google and Apple already use consent-based prompts to manage privacy settings.

Given this, it’s no wonder some are connecting the dots between how both companies are curbing third-party tracking. The leap from Google’s new plans to Apple’s privacy model isn’t that far for those who like to speculate.

“Privacy is the scapegoat here, the one they [Google and Apple] use to create benefits for their own stack,” said an ad tech exec, who exchanged condor for anonymity. “Google still accesses all their data on transactional level, both operate ID frameworks that highly preference  large platforms and own huge amounts of login-data on top.”

It’s a perspective tinged with frustration, but it’s not without merit. The real drivers of data privacy are the platforms themselves, not regulators, and the ad industry is struggling to keep pace. This belief, which first gained traction with the onset of GDPR in 2016, has only been reinforced over time. 

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Need proof? Just look at how Apple and Google’s approach to third-party addressability have ebbed and flowed with one another over the years. Whether it’s third-party cookies, mobile identifiers, or even IP addresses, the pattern remains relatively unchanged: Apple takes a hammer to the tracking mechanism, and Google chips away at it with a scalpel. Each shift leaves the ad industry powerless to alter the outcome — whether for better or worse.

“Google is effectively responding to Apple each time,” said Andrew Casale, CEO of ad tech vendor Index Exchange. “This is less about two companies being in cahoots with each other and more about them fighting each other over this [privacy] narrative.”

The bigger question is, who else will be caught in the crossfire?

So far, the consensus about the open web doesn’t look promising. 

Some believe that Google and Apple’s moves are slowly degrading the open web — the ad marketplace outside their walled gardens. The theory is that by making advertising beyond their platforms more complex and costly, Google and Apple are making their own ecosystems more appealing, where advertisers can access richer data for targeting.

It sounds bleak for publishers, but it doesn’t have to be.

“Any publisher that has a loyal audience that is willing to authenticate in exchange for the experience the publishers provide will gain from this,” said Epsilon’s chief analytics officer Loch Rose. “There are multiple solutions that are already out there to enable that, and they’re going to keep gaining traction as deprecation of third-party addressability moves forward.”

The new browser wars?

Some interpret this particular round of shadowboxing between Apple and Google’s parent company, Alphabet, as atavistic of the earliest days of the World Wide Web. This was an era that resulted in then-hegemon Microsoft being in regulatory crosshairs, charged with using its dominant position in the PC operating systems market to stifle competition, particularly by bundling its Internet Explorer web browser with the Windows operating system. 

“These are the new browser wars,” declared IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur, an executive who’s had a ringside seat to all of the ducking and weaving inside Google’s Privacy Sandbox. 

Katsur is one of many who interpret Apple’s near-unilateral stripping of identifiers from its internet ecosystem — such as its web browser Safari with intelligent tracking prevention or iOS ecosystem with app tracking transparency — as a departure from open standards held sacrosanct by online pioneers.    

For Paul Bannister, chief strategy officer at Raptive and a regular contributor to IAB Tech Lab’s Privacy Sandbox Taskforce, fully realizing the privacy initiative’s initial goals was always a tough ask.  

For Bannister, Alphabet’s “Herculean task” was to balance the requirements of Google’s ad tech and Chrome teams, not to mention its public policy concerns. The pitfalls were characterized by the multiple Sandbox delays of recent years, as well as this week’s announcement. 

“These are decisions for public policy and government affairs, overall corporate strategy [teams],” he added. “Google has a lot of challenges right now at a macro level from regulators and legislators around the world, and this has to be put into context through that lens, which I think is for them one of the most important things they have to think about.” 

“Chrome’s starting to do the same [as Safari],” added IAB Tech Lab’s Katsur, noting such concerns are likely to be debated in the upcoming antitrust trial where Google’s ad tech stack will come under the microscope. “Whether it’s in the name of consumer privacy or not, I think that breaks industries, I think that breaks economies.”     

How regulators will respond to these shifts is something to keep an eye on.
“The reason is that Google and Apple are intertwined through a $20 billion (in 2022) payment structure for advertising revenue.” said Jason Bier, chief privacy officer at Adstra, “They both want restrictions across Safari and Chrome browsers.”