I hear this rhetoric often: "Google is so big that of course they're going to figure out an alternative to cookies." Based on the recent announcement that Google is officially *not* going to do away with supporting third-party cookies via Chrome, I hope we can all put that one to bed.

What does Google's decision to keep third-party cookie support in Chrome mean big-picture?

Here's just one example:

One of Google's key products, Google Analytics, relies on cookies for tracking user behavior and powering your data dashboards. As data privacy laws roll out and require the implementation of cookie opt-in banners, about 60% of users are declining cookie tracking on-site.

For many organizations, the implementation of their cookie opt-in banner corresponds with what appears to be a huge drop in site traffic when assessed in Google Analytics. While these organizations presumably have *not* experienced a huge, random drop in traffic -- and are instead seeing people opting out of cookie tracking -- the difficulty is 1) they're no longer collecting data usage trends because of opt-out behaviors and 2) they're no longer able to extrapolate what percentages of this decline are due to those opt-out behaviors and what percentages are due to common site optimization opportunities without some applied assumptions. In assessing year-over-year data, each month requires new baselining and is subject to fast math.

Google is unlikely to support a cookieless alternative to GA primarily because GA data feeds directly into Google Ads, which is Google's highest grossing product by far -- it yielded 77% of Google revenue in 2023.

The implementation of privacy-forward measures will always run contrary to Google's interests because of this. Until and unless fines for legislative violations outweigh the loss in revenue by way of data collection, they are not likely to get into full compliance. 

Why does this matter for you? Because in the meantime, legislation will keep progressing, requiring your organization to implement cookie opt-ins and the like, thereby compounding the inaccuracy of your own data.

Does this decision around third-party cookie support mean we can all be excited to keep relying on those cookies for advertising?

Only if you're also excited about continuing to rely on a suite of products and tools that are actively proving to not be able to withstand consumer demand for change. You could instead get excited about implementing the solutions that will. That’d be fun, right?