ID5 , the market-leading identity provider, has just published the results of a study commissioned by Sincera , a leading provider of data management solutions, to assess the harmful implications of cookie synchronization by analyzing 63,604 global domains.
The cookie-matching process allows ad tech partners to match cookies, allowing them to communicate user identities across the digital supply chain. Often, cookie-matching occurs without publishers’ knowledge or approval. Compliance issues arise because publisher partners obtain data without the publisher’s consent and share that data with other, unauthorized third-party vendors. These “piggyback” platforms can then build user profiles. In these circumstances, third parties can reach audiences elsewhere without purchasing any media from the original publisher, raising privacy concerns and harming the publisher.
Cookie matching is also an incredibly inefficient and energy-intensive process. With the push latvia number data towards net-zero, publishers and ad tech players need to consider how to reduce their carbon footprint. Cookie matching gets in the way, leading to a significant amount of unnecessary network traffic. However, through more streamlined identification methods, the industry could eventually eliminate the need for cookie matching altogether.
Sincera found that within the sample of 63,604 domains it studied , the average number of cookies set on an ad-supported publisher that the publisher has not directly approved or set is 64.44 . Meanwhile, publishers only knowingly deploy and set 5.25 identifiers. This difference illustrates the scale of invasive cookie timing, and also shows the extent to which this practice increases the digital media industry’s carbon emissions.
“Publishers and advertisers need a better way to share information in a consensual way across platforms and inform the identity-based advertising that powers the free and open internet ,” said Mathieu Roche, CEO and co-founder of ID5. “With privacy-friendly solutions like universal identifiers, advertisers and publishers can move away from invasive technologies like the cookie and embrace more efficient tools that power digital media without doing a disservice to audiences, publishers or the environment.”
“Universal identifiers won’t be adopted industry-wide overnight ,” said Mike O’Sullivan, co-founder and CEO of Sincera. few ways: by ensuring that cookie syncing only occurs when user consent is present, by using consent-based universal identifiers that aren’t specific to a single platform, and by reviewing their Prebid/Wrapper solution settings to better control who can trigger user sync events, by removing cookie sync partners that generate little to no value.”