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As
the cookie crumbles....
is the online ad industry toast?
 Unless
you've been lost in a galaxy far, far away, or on an island
out of sync with the space/time continuum, you've most likely
heard the latest in the ongoing siege of Microsoft®
by Google, or Google by Microsoft®, depending upon your
point of view. This week it's the browser wars (dunt, dunt,
dunt) with Microsoft's unveiling a beta of IE 8, and Google's
release of Chrome. When even Time
Magazine is bandying about terms like "superpowers,"
it's hard to not pay attention.
Press
coverage is largely focused on the Google/Microsoft battle
for supremacy, and the consumer
privacy pro's and con's of both browsers' consumer privacy
features. But as these Goliaths duke it out, what about
the potential impact to the online advertisers whose media
dollars actually pay the bill? The truth is that targeting
and cookies, already under fire from the FTC, could now
be at risk by third party content blocking browsers. And
because online's current technologies depend heavily on
third party cookies – as the cookie crumbles, so goes
the industry. Or does it?
The
third party cookie has been the mainstay of internet advertising
for the past 10 years. It's brought us third party ad serving,
targeting, conversion metrics, and web analytics, to name
a few. So if adoption of the new blocking technologies becomes
widespread, whose head might be first on the chopping block?
The list is impressive – third party ad servers, media
networks, affiliate programs, and web analytics for starters.
There's
no way to be certain how large the ultimate adoption rate
or usage of these new browser privacy modes might be, but
Internet Explorer already enjoys a 72% market share. Is
the writing on the wall for online advertisers and technology
providers – adapt, or perish? One thing is clear, online
advertising is overdue for a technological overhaul that
can provide both privacy AND relevant advertising experiences
to the consumer. We think it's time to get on the bandwagon,
and have already begun by providing new technology that
allows known and trusted merchants a means of engaging in
dialogue with consumers, in a way that protects both the
consumers' privacy and the advertisers' brands.
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