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In its latest quarterly report released late last week, the U.K. antitrust watchdog has provided guidance for ad-tech firms, publishers, and advertisers to test the Privacy Sandbox tools, expecting most testing to take place from Q4 2023 and asking for results to be submitted by the end of Q2 2024 at the latest.
So far, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has concluded that Google has adhered to the legally binding commitments during the reporting period spanning from July to September this year. This means the third-party cookie deprecation timeline of the second half of 2024 still holds, as long as the testing of Google’s solutions finds they do not overly favor the tech giant.
However, October is a busy period for the ad industry, focused on maximizing profits and preparing for the year ahead, especially after a relatively depressed year for ad rates.
“Brands and agencies need to make money now,” said an industry executive who wasn’t authorized to speak to media told Adweek. “The ask is to do a very hard math problem to reach just 1% of chrome impressions,” they added, saying that that’s “vanishingly small money. A lot of the buy side is going to make very reasonable decisions to stay out of this because it’s holiday season.”
Google announced its plan to disable third-party cookies—ad delivery and ad tracking mechanisms that have long underpinned the ad industry—for 1% of Chrome by Q1 2024 as part of testing. Once the CMA gathers the results from the tests in the first half of Q1, there will be what the CMA calls a standstill period of between 60 and 120 days to determine whether cookie deprecation can go ahead. While audiences can still be monetized by cookies, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and other ad-tech players have not been incentivized to explore alternatives to cookies.
The rise of MFA is costing brands
Google needs to secure approval from the CMA for its Privacy Sandbox tools. This means, the tech giant is expected to be on its “best behavior” and not indulge in audience filtering to misrepresent the eyeballs that they have on offer to advertisers, the executive said.
