What Is a “Cookieless” Future? 

As the name suggests, the cookieless future refers to a recent shift away from using third-party cookies for various purposes. 

But what’s so significant about this? While you probably already know what a cookie is, you may not know just how frequently they’re used — or the privacy concerns they’ve presented. 

What Are Cookies? 

On the web, cookies are small files containing user data that help identify you and your computer. This user data might include your username, password, or email address. 

Since their main purpose is identification, cookies are largely used for exactly that: telling websites who you are. As you might imagine, this makes cookies useful for many applications, from maintaining login sessions to delivering ads through contextual targeting. 

• First-party cookies: Cookies served directly from the site you’re visiting. These are usually used to maintain sessions, so you’ll stay logged in the next time you visit. In most cases, first-party data is safe as long as the website you’re visiting hasn’t been compromised. 

• Third-party cookies: Cookies served from third parties that aren’t on the site you’re visiting. These cookies are usually linked to third parties through ads or other features. As a result, even the most well-intentioned site owner can be a channel for third-party cookies if, for example, they list ads from third parties with less-than-reputable practices. 

What Is the Cookieless Future? 

When referring to the cookieless future, we are specifically talking about third-party cookies. These cookies are often used by advertisers and social media platforms to tailor personalized ads to a user. However, in the process of doing this, they make it possible to collect a significant amount of detailed information, which might contribute to creating a highly intricate user profile, often without receiving informed or explicit user consent.  

This has led to significant consumer pushback, with over 83% of users in the UK citing concerns about online tracking for advertising purposes. Despite well-meaning attempts to resolve this, users often don’t fully understand what they’re consenting to when accepting a website’s consent form.  

Technology companies have heard these concerns, and there has been a slow consensus forming toward limiting or outright removing support for third-party cookies. Today, many browsers like Brave or Firefox have developed solutions that prevent third-party tracking from working, and with Google joining them, the cookieless future is fast approaching. 

Why Are Third-Party Cookies Going Away?  

Nearly two-thirds of Internet users say that most companies aren’t transparent about how their data is used. Nearly half have stopped shopping with a company because of privacy concerns, and another 81% of users believe the way a company treats their personal data is indicative of the way it views them as a customer. Clearly, mistrust is the default for consumers.  

At the same time, consumers don’t always realize how their data enables marketers to create a positive experience for them. Given a choice, anybody would prefer to see relevant advertisements over irrelevant ones or have a personalized experience over an impersonal one. But the key word is “choice”—under some circumstances, consumers don’t want their data collected to enable those experiences. It could be simple mistrust, the sensitive nature of their browsing behavior, or any reason at all.