In digital advertising, the cookie is crumbling

Third-party cookies have long been a staple of any digital advertising diet, but it’s been a rough year for ad tech’s favorite guilty pleasure:

• In April, Apple pushed an update that opted users out of ad-tracking by default.
• Last January, Google announced plans to ban 3rd-party cookies on Chrome by 2022 (which it later pushed to 2023).

This week, Brave — a privacy-focused browser that blocks 3rd-party cookies — reported it now has 50m+ monthly active users.

What’s it all mean?

Clearly, consumers are starting to take privacy more seriously, but the end of 3rd-party cookies should benefit advertisers, too.

Why? Because the data isn’t that great to begin with.

While studying one set of 3rd-party data, Forrester Research found that gender was only correct 50% of the time, and it was the most accurate category in the sample.