Is the way forward really going back to the drawing board?
Google is imagining a web without tracking cookies, the tiny bits of code that fuel online advertising, but that have become a lightening rod for privacy advocates.
As USA Today reported, its solution is AdID, a technology that would allow users to easily opt out via their web browser.
The ad industry, understandably, is not enthused. A great many of its members are in Cologne, Germany, this week for Dmexco, a digital marketing conference and trade show, including John Montgomery, COO of WPP’s GroupM Interaction.
Aside from the impact on advertisers, Montgomery argues that Google’s move could create a scenario that’s even more confusing to consumers and tough to regulate. “This is going to drive a bunch of new disparate technologies – new tracking technologies that consumers won’t know about,” he said. “If Google has their own version, Microsoft and Mozilla and Apple have their own versions, it takes us back to zero again. The entire premise disintegrates.”
