WTF are private state tokens in Google’s Privacy Sandbox?
This article is part of a special Digiday editorial series to catch you up on the basics of Google’s phaseout of third-party cookies. More from the series →
The third-party cookie’s deprecation — and broader crackdown on cross-site tracking practices, such as device fingerprinting — comes with side effects. One side effect is losing the means for companies to combat bot traffic. To account for this consequence, Google’s Privacy Sandbox features a proposal for fighting fraudulent traffic called Private State Tokens.
Private State Tokens effectively have sites that are able to authenticate site visitors be the ones to vouch for those visitors’ authenticity so that they can be trusted by other sites. As broken down in this explainer video, it’s akin to a friend recommending a therapist to another friend — albeit with the web browser providing a privacy-preserving means for passing on that recommendation.
More in Marketing
Future of Marketing Briefing: The case for and against the death of the big brand ad
Marketing has a new favorite argument: is it still smarter to talk to a million people at once, or to find the thousand people they already trust?
Lifestyle brand Stanley 1913 uses AI behind the scenes — but execs claim it won’t touch ad creative
Not every brand is racing to let AI anywhere near its ads. Stanley draws the line there on purpose.
TikTok’s Kat Marquez unpacks NBA and WNBA creator deal
TikTok’s latest move to secure its share of the leagues’ growing audiences sees it play gatekeeper between creators and rights holders.