How can you prepare for a cookieless future? It’s time to make privacy positive.

It’s the end of the road for third-party cookies. Following Apple, Safari & Mozilla Firefox, Google announced it would stop supporting third-party cookies on its Chrome browser in 2022.

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Given that over 85% of online browsing is carried out on these platforms, significant change is imminent. Trusted companies that embed privacy considerations into their long term planning stand to benefit. Business models of those that do not stand to become increasingly challenged. 

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What does a cookieless future mean in practise? 

From Didomi’s perspective, the online advertising space will now be split into two distinct categories.

The first category is one without cookies, where it will be much harder to identify a user and to track navigation across the web and across devices. 

The assumption that users are easily identifiable in their digital navigation will be gone. But, advertising won’t simply stop if you can no longer identify people. Rather, a reliance on cookies will be replaced by other techniques and advancements such as differential privacy.  

The second of these two categories does still rely on user data, but with one all-important difference. It relies on data that the user has consented to providing. 

If users trust the company, they will consent to the use of their personal data. As such, the company will retain the ability to extract personal data, and, crucially, the ability to have more knowledge on its user base.

This is where Didomi places itself, as we believe that this scenario of trust illustrates the future of data collection.

In our opinion, it’s time to turn privacy into something positive. 

Privacy Made Positive™

Recently, Securys Limited commissioned Kantar to survey more than 4,000 consumers across Great Britain, Ireland, France and Germany about whether privacy impacts buying decisions and brand loyalty.

Having already established a relationship with Securys from a past webinar where we discussed the importance of promoting data ethics, Didomi sponsored this survey under the shared belief that privacy can be something positive. 

The results were clear: consumers care about data privacy, and are willing to act if a brand does not meet their expectations. 

Over 85% of people across all countries say that they understand the meaning of personal data, and a high proportion are worried about how it is used (70% in England and France, 75% in Ireland). 

This reflects in consumer habits. Around two-thirds of consumers modify their purchasing decisions in line with supplier privacy commitments. Some 70% in GB, France, and Ireland will not buy from a supplier if they are concerned about their privacy behaviour.

 Users want to be informed about why their data is being collected, and they appreciate companies with transparent data practises.

Trust will become a crucial competitive differentiator, as it will underpin the entire process of data collection. Companies and publishers will still have access to that all-important data, but in a very different way, involving different processes and priorities. 

Irrespective of the technology you use, or the sector you work in, consent and preference management will be hugely important in a cookieless world. 

For more information on the results of the Privacy Made Positive™ research, watch the replay of our recent webinar, in which Didomi CEO Romain Gauthier discussed the key takeaways of this pivotal survey, alongside Ben Rapp (Founder, Securys), Lisa Hartman (Legal Counsel, Shopify) and John Llewellyn (Llewellyn consultants). 

Privacy Made Positive™ E-book: Evidence that consumers act on privacy. 

Download the e-book if you want to know what European consumers think about privacy, how it impacts their purchasing decisions and why your company should care. Our Privacy Made Positive™ research will get your colleagues, board and investors to care about investing in privacy!

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Didomi’s advice for navigating a cookieless world 

Get used to having anonymous users & customers. 

Technology is clearly moving in this direction, with announcements such as Apple’s iOS14 privacy features sending shockwaves across the industry. 

But, irrespective of technological shifts and growing data regulation, people do have a fundamental right to privacy. This is core to the very beginnings of the internet, the idea that people have the right to a freedom of information, a place where they are not tracked. 

What percentage of the internet population wishes to stay completely anonymous and private? Perhaps not that many, but the ones that do care are going to be very influential, and will have the capacity to destroy your reputation.  

As Warren Buffet famously said: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”

This might be a bitter pill to swallow. But, after consideration, you’ll find out that it might not be that bitter after all. In fact, in the long run, getting used to having anonymous users and customers will be beneficial to your company, as it will allow you to focus on the data that really matters: consented data. 

In the internet age, trust is the single most important driver of success in business. 

The recent Privacy Made Positive™ research revealed that four-fifths of consumers believe that transparency is important for trusting a company or brand.

Complex consent choices, painful user experience and mistrust will have a huge impact on customer behaviour. Companies should build privacy-first consumer experiences to highlight that they care about transparency. 

Indeed, across all countries included in the Privacy Made Positive™ research, around 60% of people have cancelled or stopped buying a product because of privacy concerns.

The end of third-party cookies will leave you totally blind to user behaviour, unless you adopt the method of “just ask”. Put your users in the driving seat, and give choice about tracking on websites. Rework your privacy policies for 100% clarity, and invest in better legal explainers.

Your ability to generate trust, and generate consent from your users will be directly linked to your ability to generate revenue. Therefore, consent rate should become a key KPI to follow. 

Privacy has to be interwoven into everything you do, rather than being seen as an add-on. It has to be part of your marketing activity, and it has to be part of your product development. If you build privacy into your product, your product is more valuable. Don’t see it as a cost, see it as a benefit.

“It’s time to rethink your business model if it relies on unconsented data. With a growing movement towards choice-driven advertising and permission-based tracking, first-party data has never been more important.

While this may mean a decrease in data volume, understanding your customers better is not about data quantity, it’s about data quality. This is a process founded on trust, as the data comes from consumer permission.” 
‍- Romain Gauthier, CEO and co-founder at Didomi

How can your company prepare? 

Change is imminent, and a system of trust and consent will mark the future of data collection.

So, how can your company prepare? 

Take time to understand the data you are currently collecting 

Take a step back, and reverse your way of thinking. Rather than frantically collecting massive amounts of data and then trying to make sense of it using AI or other technologies, try to understand where exactly you provide value to your customers by using their data, and focusing on this. 

Good privacy practices affect consumer behaviour across all age cohorts. It is no longer primarily the young who are ‘privacy actives’, but entire nations of individuals for whom good privacy sells, and bad privacy repels.  

Start investing in UX and transparency. If users know their data is being collected to provide them with a more optimised experience, they are much more likely to consent. Customer experience is a crucial differentiator, and a major factor in customer experience is trust. 

Fundamentally, the logic is very simple : It’s about data quality, not data quantity. This is the biggest adjustment in mindset that the industry will be forced to adopt. 

Consider investing in bespoke consent and preference management technologies

Among the many innovative solutions, there are consent and preference management innovators like Didomi, who can help you build and maintain a powerful consent management infrastructure, creating tools for recording, storing and retrieving consent, transmitting it to different partners when appropriate. 

Didomi builds technology to help companies put their users in control of their personal data. By doing so, they generate valuable trust and lay the groundwork for privacy-conscious growth.

Our products include a globally adopted Consent Management Platform (CMP), which collects billions of consents every month. We also offer a highly popular Preference Center (PC), which gives users granular control over their communication and data preferences. 

These tools make user experience more fluid and the process of consent collection easier, allowing companies to place privacy at the architectural and strategic level of their business. 

To conclude, a reliance on cookies and third-party data will have to stop. Change is always scary. But, that’s ok. In fact, whilst it may take a period of harsh adjustment, in the long run this is definitely a good thing. 

Trust will be the foundation of future data collection, and the movement from data-driven marketing to customer-centric marketing will not only protect user rights, but encourage companies to collect high-value, good-quality data. 

A cookieless world does not mark the end of data collection, but rather a new beginning. A new beginning in which privacy is made positive. 

Contact Didomi for more information. 

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