Recently there has been a substantial amount of ground shift in the consumer privacy space. In a span of a few weeks, we have had new legislation submitted to the latest Congress, Google opening discussions about the deprecation of IP addresses, and a delay in the cookie elimination schedule. It seems like a few steps forward and a couple steps back for consumers. For marketers and agencies, it feels like a minor reprieve from the scheduled punch in the face only to learn you have been “upgraded” to a baseball bat. Maybe you are already familiar with all the changes and what the impact of those changes means when added together — but if not, read on to get a perspective on all this change.

The APRA Impact

The first of these changes came in the form of a law with the submission of APRA (American Privacy Rights Act) to the House of Representatives for review. Ostensibly, “the APRA aims to create a uniform national data privacy standard, protect individuals’ rights to control their personal data, and minimize unnecessary data collection.” In practice it creates a federal standard similar to that of the CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act). This is, by most standards, a step forward; it gives consumers more control over what data is collected and how it is used. For marketers and agencies that have a national footprint, this changes little. Most of us are already living with similar laws on the books in more than a dozen states, and the APRA will not substantially change how we market. From here we turn our attention to Google and the mixed bag of news coming from its teams.

Let’s start with the “easy one,” the cookie collection and use extension. Most recently we were set to have fully lost third-party cookies by some time in Q4 of this year. Now, we are looking at something more like the first days of Q2 in 2025 based on Google’s newly published calendar. The delay is being laid at the feet of the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) — a regulatory body in the UK concerned with consumer rights and promoting competition. According to sources at the CMA, “The CMA aims to prevent Google from making changes to Chrome that could disproportionately benefit its advertising business at the expense of competitors.” Does that sound strange to you too, especially since Google has maintained that they will be subject to the same data use restrictions? It did to me too. Put another way, Google needs to delay its deprecation of cookies that protects consumers’ privacy so that consumers can be protected from Google gaining too much market share. Seem a little like a dog chasing its tail? Let’s break it down some more.

Google’s forthcoming Cookiepocalypse is being driven by brands like Apple who are telling consumers that they care the most about privacy; Apple stopped the collection of their versions of cookies (IDFAs) years ago. Google is stuck between a rock and a hard place as they have billions in ad revenue AND in device sales, whereas Apple’s revenue predominantly comes from devices. It’s killer marketing on Apple’s part — there is a whole article on my website about that if you want to know more.

The other part of this is that Google has a monopoly, or close to it, on both cookies and search. It seems that the CMA is most concerned about Google having the inside track on both. They were poking at the Privacy Sandbox that Google set up, and how the solutions like Topics coming out of it are yet more Google-centric products. Topics is a black box whereas cookies are readily readable by most advertising platforms. Second, we must assume that the CMA sees that search is unaffected by the cookie loss and so advertisers are likely to shift ad dollars there, at least in the short term. So, we have this sort of counterproductive back and forth between cookies and Google products where Google comes out with added revenue potential in both scenarios, meanwhile consumers are still having their cookies collected and used every day. But make no mistake, this is a win for those of us in the ad industry who rely on cookies to reach the right consumers for the brands we support. I might also argue that it is also better in many ways for consumers, like getting relevant ads.

IP Deprecation

The final piece of this overly complicated puzzle is Google attempting to leapfrog Apple (and other brands like Mozilla and Microsoft) by opening the discussion about ending the use of IP addresses (until July of 2025) — which can be used to partially resolve user identity and activity on the internet. I will write more soon about this impact in detail, but for today let me give you an analogy: Do you remember in those old cartoons how Wile E. Coyote would run off the cliff while chasing Road Runner and start falling? He would often quickly grab a little tree clinging to the side of the cliff only to have it start to pull out and send him continuing on his journey to the bottom of the cliff. In this analogy IP addresses are the little tree. This is the last, fuzzy line of defense in understanding consumer intent in a cookieless world.

If IP goes the way of the dodo, marketers are left with first-party, demographic, and contextual data for targeting in most channels. Are those useful? Of course, but while a bucket is useful in filling a swimming pool, a hose works a whole lot better. It will be interesting to see how agencies respond to the end of cookies, but IP addresses take the consequences up a notch or three.

Closing Thoughts

Let me give you a hot take on these changes:

I believe that when the use of cookies is finally ended, we will lose at least 25% of all agencies within the next 12 months.

Most agencies are Google shops with a little bit of Facebook dashed in for good measure. Google is going to be subject to these forthcoming laws (including laws like the DELETE Act and the ADPPA), and they are massively top heavy from a data perspective. What does that mean? It means that they have a planet-sized stack of data that has all of four outlets for use: Google Search, YouTube, Gmail, and Google Discovery — that’s it. And the Topics product that the CMA is so worried about? Well, the last version of it I have seen is trash — and by trash, I mean there are many better ways to spend your money (hot take #2). If you want a great review of its state, look up the video Digiday did about Topics on YouTube.

If you are not hearing these things from your agency, then I would highly recommend you pin them down on EXACTLY how they are going to deal with all this signal loss. And if you need help formulating good questions, feel free to reach out.