As we know that in Europe and some states of US, cookies law is applicable under data privacy and it has significant impact over marketing once it is applicable in India too.
Let’s first understand types of cookies and which category comes under data privacy.
There are essentially two types of cookies – first party and third party. While both cookies contain the same sort of information and could perform the same functions but the difference between them has to do with how they are generated and used. There are different advantages of creating first vs third party cookies.
First party cookies are used to help websites keep track of visits and activity, which is not really a bad thing in a way to understand behaviour of traffic over your own website like which pages he is visiting more, which property he is showing interest by spending more time etc which can be achievable via server side tracking too instead of computer base storage.
Third party cookies are used for ad retargeting and behavioural ads. By adding tags to a page, advertisers could track a user across the web as they visit different websites. This allows advertisers to build a profile of you based on your search habits so they can serve more relevant content like in case of real estate someone can track whether consumer is visiting marketplaces or builder websites etc. These cookies have long being covered in controversy due to persons privacy.
Now when it comes to data privacy, third party cookies are more relevant, even before implementing this law in countries, Google, Safari, Firefox has announced to block such cookies.
Now interestingly companies who has opt in data which comprises of contacting information along with social behaviour will get edge as they will be able to perform behaviour targeting via first party cookies as it is domain collecting data and having full ownership over data along with precise retargeting.
There are alternates for third party cookies too like Device fingerprint or consent base piece of text saving over server instead of computer which can be avail by companies who are missing with social behaviour data.
Alternatives we will discuss more in my next post and comment me in case you want to know more about future of cookies.