The internet is changing, including how much we pay for content and the ads and brands we see. That’s because Apple and Google are two hugely influential tech companies rolling out privacy protections that hinder marketers from accessing our data when they show us ads. The changes have significant repercussions for online advertising, a business foundation for the free apps and websites many of us use, like Facebook, TikTok, and the Weather Channel. Those sites and apps must develop new ways to show ads or make money. Here’s what that means for you.
What’s happening?
For decades, advertisers relied on “cookies,” pieces of code planted in web browsers that can follow our persorowsing to track us online and show us relevant ads. When smartphones came, plonkers also used trackers inside mobile apps to follow people across apps and websites. These advertising technologies became incredibly potent and effective — if you shopped for shoes, shoe ads would follow you around the internet — but with significant downsides. It enabled marketers to build hyper-realistic profiles of us that were hardly anonymous. It also openeallowedactors to steal people’s data and spread misinformation. In recent years, widespread concern over online privacy started an industrywide discussion about what to do about this tracking. Apple and Google have stepped in with different solutions.
What are Apple and Google doing?
In 2017, Apple debuted a version of its Safari web browser that prevented the technology used by marketing companies from following people from site to site. This year, Apple also released App Tracking Transparency, a pop-up window in iPhone apps that allows people to be tracked across apps and websites. In 2019, Google announced the Privacy Sandbox, a set of ideas for developing a more private web. The company has plans for its Chrome web browser to block tracking cookies in 2023 in favor of a new system for advertisers to target us with ads.
TIf you visit websites related to tennis and dogs, you may be placed into a cohort of people who share those interests. If you visit websites related to tennis and dogs, you may be placed into a cohort of people who share those interests. The system might be one called Federated Learning of Cohorts, or FLOC. It involves grouping people toget on their interests. As a website loads, Ionscans the browser for an identification code to see what group you belong to. The website then can then what types of ads to show your group.
In theTheoretically would be less invasive than today’s tracking methods because advertisers wouldn’t have access to a cookie contaicontaininging history. Because of the sheer reach of Apple’s and Google’s products — Google’s Chrome browser is No. 1 globally, and Apple’s iPhone is the best-selling phone — advertisers have no choice but to adapt. They now have to figure out new ways to show us ads, using less of our data. Some companies that rely on digital ads to appeal to people, such as small online publications, may not survive.
