Google says 81% of their users say they don’t want to exchange their privacy for free content anymore. We must believe them and we must respect the users’ will.
We must also recognize that besides owning Chrome, the most widely used internet browser, Google is also the largest publisher on the planet, with close to 100% of users logged in.
In the “cookieless” world it is likely that advertisers seeking addressable audiences will move even larger parts of their budgets to Google (and Facebook) properties where user targeting and tracking will continue to be possible.
Which brings us to the alternative targeting proposals for the open web, we will quickly explain the only one that is published already – the cohorts.
Cohorts are what the browser thinks of you. Chrome will be performing machine learning on your browsing habits, to classify you into one of several hundreds (or thousands?) categories. Advertising vendors will be able to ask browsers which cohorts you belong to, and decide what ads to show you.
This is supposed to be privacy safe, because only the browser is tracking you, rather than every other vendor online; and it is supposed to be almost as efficient as current, more invasive forms of targeting.
Cohort targeting will start to be tested in April 2021.
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