Looks like Google’s first attempt to shut down the circus known as “ad tech” was more clown car than Big Top. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After months of saying that cookie-based ad targeting – used to support voter file matching – was going away, the tech giant pushed that transition back by almost two years. Google’s substitute, something called a “Federated Learning of Cohort,” will not be implemented until late 2023 – if then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s not often that a big company reverses a much-ballyhooed announcement, creating a dramatic and irreversible change in its primary marketplace. But that’s what Google has done with its announcement that it will continue to allow so-called cookie-based ad targeting through 2023.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n This has absolutely nothing to do with the political ad market. Its collective worth – maybe – $2 billion<\/a> – is not enough money<\/a> for anyone outside of Google’s DC-based political sales team to worry about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, there is no shortage of considerations that political ad buyers should bear in mind as they make their way through the next year. The short list of considerations that have triggered Google’s decision point to an interesting conclusion: the ad tech giant no longer has absolute power and authority in the digital ad world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Here’s our take on Why Google Will Keep the Cookie:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Things are not going well on the tech front.<\/a> To us regular people, it may sound easy for Google to gather up lots of information about people using its Chrome browser and then use that to target ads. They’re Google, right? But software engineering at this level is seriously complicated, and Google may have gotten a little bit ahead of itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gossip about Google being poorly managed and risk adverse might be true.<\/a> With great power, comes great responsibility, not to mention press and regulatory scrutiny. Google might have pulled back rather than push ahead to avoid internal conflicts and bad press – especially if the tech isn’t sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amazon said it would not go along with Google’s new ad scheme<\/a>. Amazon has deployed technology to block Google’s Chrome from collecting information from its sites. That means a lot of good data about consumer behavior wouldn’t be available to Google. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Regulators in the United Kingdom and the European Union have been taking a close look at Google’s FLOC system <\/a>with many saying – almost immediately – that it would benefit Google to the detriment of other platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n