TechCentralTechCentral
    Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentral TechCentral
    NEWSLETTER
    • News

      Protests break out at Eskom plants

      23 June 2022

      Crypto is not too big to fail

      23 June 2022

      The great crypto crash: the fallout, and what happens next

      22 June 2022

      Winter 1, Eskom 0

      22 June 2022

      What it will take to bring the Guptas to justice

      22 June 2022
    • World

      Crypto crash survivors could become ‘tomorrow’s Amazons’

      23 June 2022

      Tether to launch a stablecoin tied to the British pound

      22 June 2022

      Tech giants form metaverse standards body, without Apple

      22 June 2022

      There are still unresolved matters in Twitter deal, Musk says

      21 June 2022

      5G subscriptions to top one billion in 2022: Ericsson

      21 June 2022
    • In-depth

      Goodbye, Internet Explorer – you really won’t be missed

      19 June 2022

      Oracle’s database dominance threatened by rise of cloud-first rivals

      13 June 2022

      Everything Apple announced at WWDC – in less than 500 words

      7 June 2022

      Sheryl Sandberg’s ad empire leaves a complicated legacy

      2 June 2022

      Tulipmania meets the real economy at WhatsApp speed

      30 May 2022
    • Podcasts

      How your organisation can triage its information security risk

      22 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E06 – ‘Apple Silicon’

      15 June 2022

      The youth might just save us

      15 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E05 – ‘Nvidia: The Green Goblin’

      8 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E04 – ‘The story of Intel – part 2’

      1 June 2022
    • Opinion

      Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

      21 June 2022

      Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

      13 June 2022

      A proposed solution to crypto’s stablecoin problem

      19 May 2022

      From spectrum to roads, why fixing SA’s problems is an uphill battle

      19 April 2022

      How AI is being deployed in the fight against cybercriminals

      8 April 2022
    • Company Hubs
      • 1-grid
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Amplitude
      • Atvance Intellect
      • Axiz
      • BOATech
      • CallMiner
      • Digital Generation
      • E4
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • IBM
      • Kyocera Document Solutions
      • Microsoft
      • Nutanix
      • One Trust
      • Pinnacle
      • Skybox Security
      • SkyWire
      • Tarsus on Demand
      • Videri Digital
      • Zendesk
    • Sections
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud computing
      • Consumer electronics
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Energy
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Motoring and transport
      • Public sector
      • Science
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home»In-depth»Apple and Google are killing the ad cookie – what it really means

    Apple and Google are killing the ad cookie – what it really means

    In-depth By Agency Staff26 April 2021
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email

    Farewell, advertising cookie. After years of debate, Apple and Google are making separate moves to effectively kill the software marketers use to track your online activity and tailor ads specifically for you.

    The moves are upending the way companies have reached audiences and made money from ads since the earliest days of the Internet. Apple’s plan has pleased privacy advocates but left mobile app developers, ad-tech firms and rivals (chiefly Facebook) worried and fuming. And Google is nearing a similarly contentious update to its Chrome browser, which will radically alter how ads are targeted on websites.

    With these changes, both companies are wielding the kind of power normally only governments have.

    1. What are Apple and Google actually doing?

    Starting on Monday, Apple will require apps running on its devices to get consumer permission before tracking their activity on other apps and websites. The company has already outlawed the use of unauthorised third-party cookies on its Safari Web browser. Now, that prohibition is coming to apps.

    Google, meanwhile, is inventing a cookie alternative, rather than crushing it. Google’s feature will let marketers continue to target desired buckets of consumers, just no longer using an individual’s Web history. In theory, this will make it more difficult to mesh ad-tracking with information collected from data brokers and other providers, which has let marketers target consumers based on age, race and gender.

    Both companies are justifying their moves as improving privacy. Google, though, has pitched its effort as a balancing act between privacy and the survival of Web publishing, which relies on ads.

    2. How will Apple’s change work?

    Ever use an app and see a screen pop up asking to use your phone’s microphone or camera? Apple’s change will work like that. Apps that want to track for advertising on iPhones and iPads will have to prompt users to opt in. Apple calls this App Tracking Transparency, or ATT. And it bans app makers from gunning for potential installers or lapsed users with data from other apps, such as purchase history and app-usage patterns.

    For many months, Apple has signalled this was coming, but still many app businesses are terrified of the financial damage. Presumably, many people won’t opt into being tracked, which will render ad campaigns less effective and potentially harder to measure. One game developer called Apple’s new rule an “atomic bomb”. Apple says consumers should decide how their data are used. The company also thinks “the industry will adapt” to its ATT standard, Craig Federighi, Apple’s software chief, told European regulators.

    3. How will Google’s change work?

    At some point (Google hasn’t said exactly when), the company’s Chrome browser will nix third-party cookies that target ads based on individual behaviour. Google calls its proposed replacement Federal Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), a mouthful for new computer science jujitsu that will lump Web surfers together around particular interests.

    Advertisers can market to the groups you are in, but your identity (and Web habits) will be hidden “in the crowd”, according to Google, which calls this a “privacy-first” system. In trials, Google says, marketers converted their commercial messages to sales at 95% of the rate they did with the old cookie system.

    4. What’s the reaction to Apple’s ATT?

    Privacy groups are applauding. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, called Apple’s ATT system “one more step in the right direction”. Even some ad-dependent companies sang praises. Jeremi Gorman, business chief for Snap, told investors last week that the social app-maker supported Apple moves and planned to adopt Apple’s accompanying mobile ad framework.

    Others are less happy. The loudest griper is Facebook, whose core business relies on ad targeting and access to Apple device owners. Facebook even ran TV ads decrying Apple’s moves as harmful to small businesses since they rely on reaching niche consumer groups.

    Facebook and others accuse Apple of hindering digital ad rivals while developing its own marketing business in the background. Terence Kawaja, CEO of co-founder digital media investment bank Luma Partners, took to Twitter, posting a black image of Apple’s famous logo. “Forget their privacy hand-waving,” the image read. “They want to be big in ad-tech.”

    5. What’s the reaction to Google’s FLoC?

    It’s harder to hear applause for FLoC. “Google, please don’t do this,” the EFF pleaded. “The technology will avoid the privacy risks of third-party cookies, but it will create new ones in the process.”

    Smaller rival Web browsers, such as Firefox and Opera, have rejected FLoC as an inadequate fix for privacy. Microsoft gave a wishy-washy response to FLoC for its Edge browser.

    Unsurprisingly, ad-tech companies that compete with Google are not enthused. They think FLoC further increases the power of Google, the largest online ad-seller, which has lucrative first-party data from logged-in Gmail accounts and properties like YouTube. Google’s ad-tech rivals mostly lack this direct relationship with consumers.

    Several competitors have teamed up with Web publishers to create cookie alternatives. European regulators are also questioning how Google is phasing out third-party cookies as part of its long-running antitrust probe of the company.

    6. Who’s likely to lose?

    Mobile advertising inside apps is a sizeable business, and Apple’s move has the potential to gut the sector. Companies that rely on these ads for sales or growth have warned investors of coming damage, particularly as Apple’s iOS mobile operating system typically brings in more money for developers than Android.

    Then there are the wealth of ad agencies, ad-tech firms and data brokers that thrive on Web cookies. Bank of America research estimated Apple’s change could shave as much as 3% off Facebook’s revenue. Google’s upcoming move offers less certainty. Executives at Criteo, an ad re-targeting firm, told investors they were working with Google to prepare for FLoC, but weren’t yet sure of the financial impact.  — Reported by Mark Bergen, (c) 2021 Bloomberg LP

    Apple Facebook FLoC Google Google FLoC top
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email
    Previous ArticleThere’s a lot more to crypto than bitcoin
    Next Article Crypto crackdown in Turkey: Losses, arrests and a manhunt

    Related Posts

    Protests break out at Eskom plants

    23 June 2022

    Huawei P50 now available for pre-order in South Africa

    23 June 2022

    Calabrio paves way for SA’s cloud contact centre WFO journey alongside AWS

    23 June 2022
    Add A Comment

    Comments are closed.

    Promoted

    Huawei P50 now available for pre-order in South Africa

    23 June 2022

    Calabrio paves way for SA’s cloud contact centre WFO journey alongside AWS

    23 June 2022

    More than card machines – iKhokha diversifies to reach more SMEs

    22 June 2022
    Opinion

    Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

    21 June 2022

    Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

    13 June 2022

    A proposed solution to crypto’s stablecoin problem

    19 May 2022

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2022 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.