Mateusz Rumiński

In this part of the “Media Review” series, we take a deeper look at five stories – including an analysis of the most influential stakeholders in the cookieless environment, UID 2.0 GDPR issues, and Google’s presentation of a new concept aimed at providing a privacy-preserving federated identity before third-party cookies are phased-out.

The process of advertising inventory purchasing has significantly evolved over the course of recent years. Another (r)evolution is right around the corner and it’s because of the deprecation of 3rd-party cookies.

Digital advertising has come a long way. From direct deals between brands and publishers to the extensive ecosystem that we operate in now. As did marketing campaign reporting.

Over the past two years, the entire advertising industry has been lively discussing the impending deprecation of third-party cookies and its implications for each side of the ecosystem. There are countless articles outlining the general concept of Google’s Privacy Sandbox and its alternatives, as well as assumptions on what will happen to the industry as a whole. However, when it comes to frequency capping – one of the most important tools for both publishers and advertisers, and arguably the least controversial one privacy-wise – there is not enough media coverage, apart from some calls to address the topic.

The testing season of cookieless tools has started with the announcement of Origin Trials for the Privacy Sandbox proposals. Adtech is now filled with various opportunities for testing – contextual targeting, identity solutions, first-party publisher’s audience data, or group-based methods. It is high time to leave feedback about specific tools in the places where it matters.

In 2023 Google announced the depreciation of third-party cookies and began the development of the Google Privacy Sandbox. However, the deadline has once again been pushed back, this time to 2025]. The reason? “The need for more time to evaluate and test the new technologies.” Despite positive developments, RTB House’s own tests of the FLEDGE proposal, with nearly 8 million ads in 50 countries, have shown that there is still plenty of work to be done to build effective cookieless alternatives.