Google Chrome, IE8, Will Hurt Third Party Ads, Analytics?

Posted by: Heather Green on October 03

I spoke with Tim Vanderhook, the CEO of behavioral targeting service Specific Media, who is concerned about Microsoft and Google’s new browsers. He argues that people using the browsers are provided with a way to block third party cookies and pixels, effectively blocking any kind of outside advertising based on tracking and analytics services.

According to Vanderhook, the issue seems to be that after repeated times of seeing a third party pixel on a site, the browsers will ask the users if they want to block those pixels. Vanderhook argues that people will do this, because they don’t understand the echosystem of third party cookies and how important they are to advertising. He also argues that it’s unfair because they won’t block Google or Microsoft’s own cookie tracking services. Vanderhook says the capability isn’t turned on yet, but that the infrastructure is laid.

I was wondering if anyone else is concerned about this or whether it sounds like a legitimate concern to you? I’m not familiar with this issue.

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