This episode of Security Now covered Google’s plan to deprecate third party cookies and the reaction from advertising organizations and websites.
The articles and the opinions of the show hosts are that it may have negative or unintended consequences as rather than relying on Google’s proposed ad selection scheme being run on the client side (hiding information from the advertiser), instead they are demanding first party information from the sites regarding their user’s identification.
The article predicts that rather than privacy increasing, a majority of websites may demand user registration so they can collect personal details and force user consent to provide that data to advertisers.
What’s your opinion of website advertising, privacy, and data collection?
- Would you refuse to visit websites that force registration even if the account is free?
- What’s all the fuss about, you don’t care?
- Is advertising a necessary evil in fair trade for content?
- Would this limit your visiting of websites to only a narrow few you are willing to trade personal details for?
- Is this a bad thing for the internet experience as whole, or just another progression of technology?
- Is this no different from using any other technology platform that’s free (If it’s free, you’re the product)?
- Should website owners just accept a lower revenue model and adapt their business, rather than seeking higher / unfair revenues from privacy invasive practices of the past?
I dabble in marketing for my company. Let me just say advertisers don’t need a damn cookie to know who you are to serve you ads. Even across multiple devices. There are so many methods… literally over a dozen when cross referenced tells companies exactly who you are, even on vpn, even incognito.
If you know who I am and what I like, gimme some damn relevant ads. No, me clicking the “Not interested” button doesn’t mean the next ad is the same damn thing. Worst are those when I search for something for several weeks, and when I finally find it and buy it a week later, I get peppered by the VERY THING for another week.
No offense, of course. The ad industry is just insanity for me.
For those “Just use an ad blocker” - I do, I just occasionally unblock sites to show support.
Some advertisers know their market and pinpoint, others just drag net to see what sticks. You’re getting the equivalent of cold calling for ads. If you show interest in something even once, you’re a target.
Edit: All advertisers are not geniuses. If they’re serving you the same ad for a thing that is not consumable, then one of two things happened. First, their tracking pixel at checkout was not able to associate you with your purchase. Maybe they set it up correctly or there was an error. Maybe you saw the ad on your phone and bought on your computer without enough common data points to connect them both to you. Second, the advertiser may not have set their campaign to stop serving after you converted, which is a total waste of their money. Laugh at them.
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Cookies don’t even matter for advertising anymore. They don’t need them. You leave breadcrumbs everywhere. Literally where you are, your wifi connection, browser used, browser build, device used, screen size, Google account logged into a browser, just to name a few. They string all this stuff together over days, weeks, years… you’ll slip up at some point no matter how diligent you are with something big, like that Google account login, a share from social media… there’s so much more lol
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Google regularly thinks I’m a robot and the ads are not even remotely relevant. There’s no way they know who I am.
Google is not the ads industry. Google is a small part of it. I know ad sellers that partner with Google and 60 other data brokers to know when you’re taking a shit.
then why do they still use cookies? i’m genuinely curious.
It’s easy and it started with that.
Edit: The services I’m talking about have fees. Barrier to entry prevents knowledge and usage. There are hundreds of services that provide this, all to different degrees of quality. But you could just Google “UTM Generator” and, assuming you set up a free GA4 account and set it up on your site, congrats, you’re now using cookies to track purchases based on link clicks to your website. Very easy and literally free.