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The Big Story: The Winners And Losers Of The Cookie Delay

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When Google delayed the end of third-party cookies, ad tech’s first reaction was “stunned silence,” said Matt Barash, SVP of global publishing and platform partnerships at Zeotap and a self-described “ad tech socialite.”

For this week’s episode, we talk through the fallout of Google’s decision to delay the phaseout of the third-party cookie by nearly two years. Who are the winners? And who are the losers?

The losers, according to Barash, are both consumers – who won’t see third-party cookies’ removal for another two years – and privacy zealots.

But one winner might be Google, noted senior editor James Hercher. As antitrust regulators shadow the tech giant’s every move, delaying the removal of third-party cookies makes Google look like it’s being a team player, accommodating an industry that’s not yet ready for the change.

Also notable: Ad tech stocks ticked up when Google extended the deadline to remove third-party cookies.

And we talk about what the delay means for companies that were invested in the current timeline for third-party cookie deprecation, and the marketing fluff that surrounds many identity companies, in this week’s episode of The Big Story.

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