With the July 22 announcement by Antonego Chavez, deputy director of the Privacy Sandbox project, the media world was abuzz with news that support for third-party cookies will be retained in the Chrome browser. Is that all there is to it? Let's take a look at the topic.
Competition vs. Privacy
Google's statement comes as somewhat of a surprise. The corporation actually began talking about building a "Privacy Sandbox" as early as 2019. It began this work, Google said - in response to growing concerns and reputational risks associated with privacy threats based on tracking techniques. The ICO, the UK's data protection watchdog, has backed work on Privacy Sandbox. Such announcements by Google were in line with the actions of other browser makers, which have gradually restricted or blocked third-party cookies.

Google's plan to eliminate third-party cookies, however, faced strong opposition from advertisers and publishers from the outset. The CMA, the U.K.'s competition watchdog, listened to the industry's voice and also had serious arguments. Advertisers and publishers argued that Privacy Sandbox further strengthens Google's dominance in the adtech space, as the company would become the owner and operator of the reconfigured targeting infrastructure. This would clearly mean that advertisers and publishers would become even more dependent on the tech giant.

Suggestion: let users decide
Google's proposal for a "third way," which relies on consumer choice at the browser level, may offer the two British regulators a fairly simple way out of the impasse: Let users decide!

Someone might say - after all, users already decide on the use of cookies in cookie pop-ups. Such a sentence is true in a situation where the choice presented to the user is transparent and easy to use. Often, however, he or she does not have a clear choice in the first layer of information and, in addition, has to make an effort not to consent or to change his or her decision. In this kind of situation, it is difficult to claim that users' decisions are fully transparent and valid.

IAB Europe's response
In its post, IAB Europe highlights two key points that the IAB says should be addressed in any alternative approach implemented in Chrome.

The IAB notes that the means of consent are already subject to industry standards, developed within the framework of existing regulations. From this perspective, it is unclear how a user's decision made before he or she enters a specific website and before he or she receives the legally required information should be treated. Is such a decision informed and specific? It should be noted, however, that for years users have been able to manage third-party cookies through browser settings or by using blocking plug-ins. And the proposal may fit quite well into this existing practice.

The second point that IAB Europe raises is the analogy between this solution and Apple's ATT case, which entailed harm to publishers and which is currently under antitrust scrutiny in several EU jurisdictions.

At the end of its statement, IAB Europe calls on Google to ensure that development is carried out in close cooperation with industry standard-setting organizations.

What's next?
Google will offer users a choice. There is no detailed information on this subject. However, we can properly imagine that Google may give users a choice of 3 options:

turn off third-party cookies, content and ads can be random and not interest me;
turn off third-party cookies, but tailor content and ads to my interests (in cooperation with Google - use Privacy Sandbox tool);
turn on third-party cookies, tailor content and ads to my interests. We will soon see what details are being discussed at Google.
The UK's Competition Authority (CMA), has announced that it will work closely with the ICO to carefully consider Google's new approach to Privacy Sandbox, and is open to gathering feedback from interested parties until August 12 this year.

Uncertainty about specific solutions is therefore really high.

Gemius solutions for publishers and advertisers legally compliant
Whatever solution is worked out to the above issue, we believe that the depreciation of third-party cookies will continue. Therefore, we reacted to the announcements and changes and proposed to make appropriate changes in our surveys. In cooperation with stakeholders , we have developed methodological and organizational solutions in the gemiusAudience study (in Poland Mediapanel) that follow the changes beyond our control, which is to limit the use of cookies. The efforts we are making give us confidence that, despite all sorts of changes, we will still be able to provide data for independent media research. This means that - as always - we will offer our clients lawful research solutions that are safe for the surveyed entities and the recipients of the media survey results.

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With the July 22 announcement by Antonego Chavez, deputy director of the Privacy Sandbox project, the media world was abuzz with news that support for third-party cookies will be retained in the Chrome browser. Is that all there is to it? Let's take a look at the topic.

Are cookies holding up?

Gemius PostBuy, a comprehensive evaluation of Cross-screen video campaign fuelled by Single-source, is launching YouTube measurement, facilitated by Google’s Ads Data Hub for Measurement Partners(ADH).
Starting from September 1st, 2023, Advertisers in Germany will be able to measure video campaigns, running on YouTube and within Linear TV holistically to understand how Digital and Linear channels work optimally together for efficient media campaigns. The newly created Google Ads Data Hub integration incorporates data signals from YouTube and provides a holistic view on the reach contributions per device and audience segment in order to maximize the Reach & Impact of Advertiser’s Media Spend. For video campaigns running on YouTube, data from ADH will include in-browser, in-app data and Connected TV.

About the technology
Gemius PostBuy was launched in Germany in 2020. Research is based on a representative Panel of German-speaking population aged 14 and over, demographically representative under gender, age, education and size of the settlement. Currently, the panel includes PC and hardware panelists, recruited by a partner company GapFish. Panel reports data on PC, smartphones, TV (reference signal covers 36 tv channels). Gemius analyzes behavior of people equipped with personal measurement optimized smartphones and reports on ad exposure level data regardless of panelist location. Data Collected by Gemius Panel is a user-centric and tag-less measurement that covers the entire market, is GDPR compliant and future proof, as it does not require 3rd party cookie data. True passive research technology, covering all media types, all channels and all activity (both in-home and out-of-home).

In 2022-2023, both Gemius and Google conducted a pilot for measuring YouTube campaign reach combined with Gemius single source panel to enable more precise and consistent Cross Media campaign Reach measurement.

Single-source panel allows to integrate tag-less and tag-based measurement, as well as server2server integration with Publishers, and YouTube is the first partner of Gemius to enrich the tool’s underlying data via anonymised and aggregated 1P data.

YouTube results in PostBuy are facilitated by Google's Ads Data Hub for Measurement Partners, enabling accurate calculation of YouTube Real users, Reach and Ad contacts results in PostBuy, in addition to Incremental Reach for YouTube as compared to reach for Linear TV. ​

During campaign set-up, Linear TV will be measured using sound matching on Gemius Hardware Panel, across 36 TV channels from Gemius reference database, while YouTube commercials will be measured with Gemius Hardware Panel and Google ADH integration (PC, Mobile and Connected TV platforms).

How can the market benefit from gemiusPostBuy research?
In the new world of cross-media analytics, the NET reach across all platforms and devices is becoming a key learning tool for marketers. Are you sure your last campaign was well-optimised? What channel upbuilt your reach the most? With gemiusPostBuy You can check total Net Reach of campaign (deduplicated across Digital and Linear TV), as well as Incremental Reach.

Analyse daily Ad contact frequency by media channel, creative or media type. Check, where the frequency in your target group was higher – on YouTube application, Connected TV or Linear TV?

Learn the demography of people who had contact with your campaign, analyse age and gender results day-by-day in PostBuy reporting, which is fully automated.

Integration process with an external data source (Google ADH) requires two steps.

Gemius PostBuy will provide You a comprehensive analysis of campaigns running on websites and applications across PC, Mobile and Connected TV device types, and will also include in-home and out-of-home TV data.

Gemius PostBuy integrated with Google ADH will be offered to all advertisers on the German market.

“In today's media landscape, TV campaigns can't reach nearly 20% of the Internet users aged between 16-49. Many digital channels are mostly duplicating audiences already reached via TV. With Gemius PostBuy it is finally possible to identify platforms that truly upbuild the INCREMENTAL REACH of campaigns. We are very excited about cooperation with YouTube in Cross-media campaign measurement, as it increases the granularity of Gemius PostBuy product. During last year, we’ve been running tests together to make PostBuy methodology more precise and connect 2 data sources in one data model.”
- comments Lesya Prus, Chief Sales Officer of Gemius Germany.

"Gemius Postbuy is a great new opportunity to gain insights into the Incremental Reach of YouTube in a CrossScreen Video campaign, based on a robust and independent Single Source Panel and enriched with YouTube insights via Ads Data Hub"
comments Steffen Hutmacher, Google Video Sales & Measurement Lead

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Gemius PostBuy, a comprehensive evaluation of Cross-screen video campaign fuelled by Single-source, is launching YouTube measurement, facilitated by Google’s Ads Data Hub for Measurement Partners(ADH).