Understanding the future of digital identity in a cookie-less world.

Google is in the headlines again after announcing yesterday that it would stop supporting technologies that uniquely identify web users as they navigate across the internet.

This change matters because Google accounts for a significant portion (52% according to Jounce Media) of the $292 billion global digital ad spend. What makes yesterday’s announcement so important is that Google will not build alternative cookie-less tracking technology or support any developed technologies by other industry groups.

Google believes that advances in privacy-preserving technologies offer a path to replacing individual identifies. Specifically, they are touting the recent test results of the FLoC API (Federated Learning of Cohorts), which groups web users into larger interest-based cohorts. Google presents this as an adequate replacement of third-party cookies that preserves 95% of the conversions per dollar spent than cookie-based advertising.

Others within the industry have been working on solutions for a cookie-less future. Unified ID 2.0 is an initiative spearheaded by The Trade Desk, following the IAB’s roadmap, that preserves the value exchange of the internet (users are served content for free in exchange for being served relevant advertising) while protecting individual privacy. Unified IDs are created with information (an email, or phone number, etc.) that are anonymized and used across the internet to provide greater control and transparency to the user on how their data is used. These IDs contain zero information on who you are in the real world, and there is no central storage of data that maps back to your identity.

Google does not support these technologies due to the belief that they will not hold up to consumer demands and regulatory scrutiny.

How will this all play out? Competitive solutions will continue to be developed over the next year, and only time will tell which one (or few) will survive. The critical thing to know is that in any scenario, first-party data will be preserved. It is of the utmost importance that publishers and marketers focus on forming real personal connections with their consumers. These connections should be a top priority in 2021.