Google said in a blog post on Wednesday that it won’t use alternative methods to track users online once it ends support for third-party cookies in Chrome – and that it disapproves of using email as an alternative identifier for ad tracking.
In other words, Google is stating for the record that it will not cook up any voodoo tracking magic of its own and that all of its web products will be driven by the privacy-preserving APIs currently in development within the Privacy Sandbox, including FLoC-based cohorts.
The direct implications of Google’s announcement are not immediately clear. Will Google’s pledge not to use or support user-level identifiers for third-party ads in its products only apply to DV360, Google Campaign Manager and Google’s demand partners – or could this also apply to YouTube? The latter is unlikely but, if so, that would be major.
There’s been a great deal of skepticism on that point, especially among ad tech companies that believe Google is aggressively pushing through a series of good-enough-for-thee-but-not-for-me pseudo-solutions that likely won’t deliver as promised.
