First-Party Cookies

Wishing you all a beautiful Memorial Day! This classic comic first ran in October 2011.

Ad tech vendors who scrape content to build contextual segments are irking publishers. And the latest tweak in Safari will cut down on vendors that camouflage themselves in first-party cookie tech.

The word “cookieless” crops up in virtually every conversation about the future of online identity. But what exactly do people mean when they say “cookieless”? Although the definition seems simple enough – the absence of cookies – it lacks the nuance to encompass the true complexity of signal loss. It’s also a misnomer.

Even if third-party cookies weren’t on Chrome’s chopping block, brands would need a strategy to navigate signal loss, says Spiceology CEO Chip Overstreet. Spiceology is working with digital identity management company Parrable and MediaMath to retarget users in environments where third-party cookies aren’t available.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. #Fail The pervasiveness of fake ad schemes on Facebook and Google have left their users “worryingly exposed to scams,” especially because the two giants have failed to crack down on fraudulent activity, even after it has been reported. Or so says the British consumer […]

Google is revamping Google Analytics for a world in which privacy plays center stage and identifiers are exiting stage left. The new version of Google Analytics, released on Wednesday, was in beta for more than a year, and will now be the default experience for all users. The updated product includes privacy controls to help […]

Although LiveRamp prefers to publicly minimize its reliance on third-party cookies, those little text files are the glue that connects offline data with web browsing. “Put it like this,” said Ari Paparo, CEO and co-founder of Beeswax. “If cookies disappeared tomorrow, LiveRamp would be very affected.” To be fair, that would be true for most […]

“Just make this little tweak to your page.” With the clock ticking on third-party cookies, publishers will soon be the only part of the ad ecosystem with direct relationships with their readers. Naturally, everyone else wants in on that relationship. Buy-side ad tech has been more aggressive asking publishers to share user data, even as […]

With Chrome bidding farewell to third-party cookies, publishers predict a steep rise in use – and value – of their first-party data. Media companies with their own audiences and direct-to-consumer relationships expect power to accrue to them. And many publishers already have a head start. With Apple’s Safari browser blocking cookies for about 30% of […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.  Today’s column is written by Sarah Sluis, senior editor at AdExchanger. It’s the first in a series of perspectives from AdExchanger’s editorial team.  There’s a question in ad tech that’s been surprisingly difficult to get […]

WebKit, the open source browser engine that powers Apple’s Safari, is in the very early stages of testing an API that would give browser operators the ability to see whether users are logged in to a website or not. Steven Francolla, head of global publisher strategy at LiveRamp, recently came across a reference to the […]

Google Chrome is increasing its privacy controls for users and will scramble efforts by third parties to identify users via fingerprinting, making it the last major browser to strengthen its privacy protections for users. The changes, formally unveiled during the Google I/O event Tuesday, will roll out in coming months. Chrome will make it easier […]

The third-party cookie isn’t crumbling so much as imploding. In a Friday email to advertisers and publishers, Facebook said that on Oct. 24 it will start offering a first-party cookie option for the Facebook tracking pixel so that businesses can keep targeting their ads and measuring their campaigns without relying on third-party cookies. Facebook confirmed […]

Dish Network hopes to perform attribution and cross-device targeting using non-cookie-based browser data, said Brad Stamulis, Dish’s director of digital marketing. The satellite TV provider is using a solution called fTrack, from online ad platform Flashtalking, which recognizes consumers based on about 50 data points – including browser type, user location, screen size and orientation, […]

Safari may represent a relatively low share of browser traffic, but Apple browser’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) could have an outsized effect if it redefines which technology companies can access cookie data. ITP, a cross-site tracking restriction feature with the new iOS 11, builds on Apple’s pre-existing rejection of third-party cookies with a machine-learning-based algorithm […]