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

Your favorite beauty brands are now also entertainment brands

Many of today’s beauty brands are asking if entertainment and advertising can be one and the same. 

Synthetic data specialist Ideally wants research to be used at the start of the creative process

Ideally is looking to reinvent research when serving the creative side of the industry by integrating consumer insights earlier in the creative process.

By the numbers: How marketers are building the infrastructure for AI search

Marketers are carving out budgets for AI search, but research suggests execution, measurement and content strategies are still catching up.