Google’s plans to remove third-party cookies, its associated ‘Privacy Sandbox’ initiative, and now its announcement that it will not be introducing new ways to track users have, as you’d expect, received a mixed response and an element of uncertainty from within the industry.

‘’Google is aiming to draw a clear line in the sand with their announcement, providing some key points of clarification to their stance on the extent to which authenticated identity solutions can be used as an alternative to third party cookies,” says Freddie Turner, Director of Strategy, UK at MiQ. “However, it may take some time to determine the full implications of the news for the industry. While their stance is clear on how this relates to user-level identity for audience profiling & targeting across Google Advertising products, further detail is needed to understand the implications this could have, particularly if Google could be taking a fully anonymous approach to measurement and frequency capping as well.”

There is a belief among sections of the industry that Google’s decisions over the past few years can only be seen as a positive, providing the industry with the opportunity to reinvent itself and take a an even tougher stance on consumer privacy.

Matt Barash, SVP of Global Publishing & Platform Partnerships at Zeotap, feels that the latest from Google reinforces the importance of first-party data and privacy, following the damage that has been done to consumer trust “by the legacy of third-party cookies”.

“The sustainability of the open web is in our collective best interest and the future state ecosystem will be dependent on interoperable solutions, rather than proprietary approaches,” explains Barash. “This bodes well for the independent ad tech platforms who have committed to support a variety of addressability initiatives once the third-party cookie has been deprecated.

“Recent announcements such todays have served as a welcome catalyst for industry reinvention. Balancing consumer privacy and trust with a sustainable ecosystem will be defined by how effectively publishers and marketers can partner to leverage first party data. To do that, they need to move quickly on integrating tech solutions that support this objective.”

With the increasing value of first-party data and consumer privacy, it also means the industry can put contextual targeting at the heart of its strategy moving forward. And, as such, Brand Advance’s CEO, Christopher Kenna, thinks that “Google’s announcement is exactly what we need”.

“I hope this means that the industry will realise that context is king. Since Brand Advance was created we’ve not used a single cookie. Re-targeting is a huge invasion of privacy, especially when it may reveal where audiences have been reading that they may want to remain discreet, such as LGBTQ specific titles,” says Kenna. “Context is the solution and it always has been. The industry has lost sight of the fact that people gravitate towards the content they want to read and therefore the things they are interested in. I’m excited to see that we’re moving away from third-party cookies as it will force the industry to think differently and wake up to reaching audiences authentically.”

And that sentiment is shared by Nick Morley, Managing Director EMEA at Integral Ad Science.

“Google’s latest announcement reinforces the revolution in digital advertising from audience-based targeting and towards contextual targeting once again,” he says. “Context has evolved and sophisticated technology can help brands reach the right audiences within contextually relevant environments. As a result, were seeing more marketers adopt contextual targeting as the linchpin of their digital advertising campaigns. Its ability to utilise first-party data is more cost-efficient and scalable than personal identifier strategies. It is also future proof in a world without third-party audience tracking data such as cookies, while meeting consumer privacy concerns.”

Others see Google’s decisions as providing the catalyst for greater collaboration around data and privacy, as all businesses within the industry should share common goals around the protection of data and privacy, and the improvement of user experience.

“This is not the death of alternative industry identifiers. While Google’s support would certainly have been a huge advantage, the industry needs to learn to implement and execute on such important projects without industry heavyweights such as Google or Facebook,” says Jürgen Galler, CEO and Co-founder of 1plusX. “There are many publishers, advertisers, and ad tech companies out there that still command substantial reach. Working together and supporting a privacy-respectful ID setup will continue to remain important for the industry.”

Bill Tucker, Executive Director of the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media (PRAM) and Group EVP of Data Tech Measurement at the Association of National Advertisers, adds, “On issues this complex and important, we need to work together as an industry to evaluate, adapt, integrate (where appropriate), and implement those different approaches, so we can ensure we reach those goals together. We can also ensure the approaches are as aligned and consistent as possible, as users benefit from consistency in their privacy experiences. PRAM was created for that purpose, and that role is more critical now than ever.”

Away from that general positivity, there is also strong group of opposition to Google’s recent decisions. One notable entity is the Marketers for an Open Web (MOW), a UK-based alliance of leading technology and publishing businesses, which has been very outspoken about Google in the past few months.

In November, the MOW wrote to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to ask it to use its power to halt Google’s plans, based on the belief that the introduction of the ‘Privacy Sandbox’ is a ploy to move advertising away from the open web and out of the reach of regulators.

Now, the alliance has joined forces with the US-based Save Journalism Project to accuse Google of stopping the use of third-party cookies to enhance its own commercial interests, pointing to the vast amount of personal data the tech giant is already in possession of.

“We all agree that privacy is important. Google’s proposed changes and its work arounds are not addressing privacy – and they don’t work,” says James Rosewell, Marketers for an Open Web CEO and CEO & Co-founder of 51Degrees.mobi. “A real focus on privacy would involve splitting individual identifiers used for advertising from end users’ actual identity. This was suggested as a remedy by the CMA last year – but Google isn’t looking at that as it makes all users ‘sign in’ or ‘sign up’ and accept its privacy mining terms. For example, as it requires all users of Android to sign into a Google property and pass personal data to it as the price of use.”

Rosewell’s sentiment is echoed by Ollie Vaughan, Chief Media Officer at Tug, stating that “the more cynical among us” may view Google’s movements as a bid to strengthen the power it already holds over the industry and “positioning itself and Google Sandbox directly against alternative solutions, like finger printing and Unified ID”.

And Romain Job, Chief Strategy Officer at Smart AdServer, goes a step further by suggesting “Google is taking its ball and going home”.

“What’s missing from this announcement is Googles approach to first-party data accountability. Unified ID was intended to be the market standard initiative to tie advertiser and publisher first-party data together,” says Job. “If Google doesn’t participate, how will it deliver this use case if not via its own private user ID within Google’s own Data Garden? First-party data management still requires users’ informed consent. If not via UID2, we would expect the Privacy Sandbox and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to fully address this topic and help define standards for first-party data management accountability. This is an area on which the industry needs to move forward.”

Nonetheless, whatever your feelings about Google and third-party cookies, this presents an opportunity for the industry to really reflect on its use of data and truly work to put the consumer first.

“In reality, we’ve never had perfect data – and it’s likely that we never will. Rather than pushing for more and more data, without a real plan of how to use it, we need to shift our mindset and appreciate the data we do have to play with, and use it to build accurate consumer trends and make balanced marketing decisions. In truth, the value of real-time data has been overblown in recent years; if we can guarantee 80 per cent accuracy in our data set and have it available in good time, then that’s enough to make these decisions,” says James Parker, Chief Solutions Officer at Jellyfish.

“If we’ve learned anything over the last 12 months it’s that it’s ok to let go of some things we didn’t need. Does this mean the value of analytics is diminished? Not at all – in fact it’s quite the opposite.”

The post What will Googles focus on privacy preservation mean for the industry? appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

One of the key points of the policy is that Google plans to end support for third-party cookies – one of the key tools for tracking web users’ online activity – within two years. In the meantime, Google said it plans to develop the tools to mitigate workarounds for a cookie-less experience on its Chrome browser, with the first trials beginning before the end of the year.

In a blog post, Justin Schuh, director, Chrome engineering at Google, said the company had received positive feedback in forums like the W3C that the mechanisms underlying the Privacy Sandbox represent key use-cases and go in the right direction, and were preferable to “blunt approaches to cookies” that “encourage the use of opaque techniques such as fingerprinting (an invasive workaround to replace cookies), which can actually reduce user privacy and control. We believe that we as a community can, and must, do better.”

In the post, Schuh also said that Google is continuing its work to make current web technologies more secure and private. Chrome will limit insecure cross-site tracking from February, by treating cookies that don’t include a SameSite label as first-party only, and require cookies labelled for third-party use to be accessed over HTTPS. This move, it said, will make third-party cookies more secure and give users more precise browser cookie controls.

At the same time, said Schuh, Google is developing techniques to detect and mitigate covert tracking and workarounds by launching new anti-fingerprinting measures to discourage these kinds of “deceptive and intrusive techniques”. Google plans to launch these measures later in 2020.

The post Google planning to end support for third-party cookies in Chrome within two years appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

The move comes after credible reports that internet service providers in Kazakhstan have required people in the country to download and install a government-issued certificate on all devices and in every browser in order to access the internet. This fake root certificate is not trusted by either of the companies, and once installed, allows the government to decrypt and read anything a user types or posts, including intercepting their account information and passwords via a man-in-the-middle attack. This targeted people visiting popular sites Facebook, Twitter and Google, among others.

The blocking of the certificate by Mozilla and Google means that it will not be trusted by Firefox or Chrome, even if the user has installed it.

This is not the first attempt by the Kazakhstan government to intercept the internet traffic of everyone in the country. In 2015, the Kazakhstan government attempted to have a root certificate included in Mozilla’s trusted root store program. After it was discovered that they it was intending to use the certificate to intercept users’ data, Mozilla denied the request. Shortly after, the government forced citizens to manually install its certificate but that attempt failed after organizations took legal action.

“People around the world trust Firefox to protect them as they navigate the internet, especially when it comes to keeping them safe from attacks like this that undermine their security,” said Marshall Erwin, senior director of trust and security at Mozilla. “We dont take actions like this lightly, but protecting our users and the integrity of the web is the reason Firefox exists.”

The post Mozilla and Google act to block Kazakhstan government’s attempt to intercept web traffic appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Googles classification for abusive ads covers many form of disruptive ad units, but focuses largely on those that steal user information, automatically redirect users to new sites, or attempt to generate fake system messages in an effort to generate clicks.

Google has attempted to address these kinds of ads in past Chrome updates, with Chrome 68, released in July, preventing sites from opening new tabs or windows if they were reported for serving ads of this kind. Chrome 71, which is scheduled for release in December, will give site owners 30 days to remove abusive adverts after one is reported and confirmed, with failure to do so resulting in all advertising – abusive or otherwise – automatically being blocked in Chrome.

“Last year, after hearing from Chrome users, we launched a set of user protections against abusive experiences – experiences designed to intentionally mislead and tricker users into taking action on the web,” said Vivek Sekhar, product manager for Chrome. “However, weve learned since then that this approach did not go far enough. In fact, more than half of these abusive experiences are not blocked by our current set of protections, and nearly all involve harmful or misleading ads. As a result, today we are announcing expanded efforts to better protect users against these abusive experiences.”

While Chrome users are able to disable this blocking technology, it will be switched on by default, so sites that fail to clean up their act could be faced with drastic losses in revenue if they dont address the poor ad experience that they offer.

The post Chrome ad blocking expands to shut down entire websites appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

The shift towards digital content consumption has propelled traffic channels such as search engines, AMP, Facebook, Google Newsstand, Flipboard, etc., to prominence. These channels have become the digital evolution of the news stands and magazine racks where publishers had to appear to find readers. Logically, publishers must complement direct traffic with organic and referral traffic to acquire more readers and bring in the money that means they can not only survive, but thrive.

When Progressive Web Apps first emerged a few years ago, many publishers wondered how they might be able to leverage this technology and what the impact might be on their publications. It become clear that the technology represents a fantastic opportunity for publishers: PWAs are light as a feather but still pack native features, and can increase reader engagement by 4x in some cases.

Publishers should always aim to make the most of these new technologies. They will of course find varying degrees of success with traffic sources according to variables like their niche, their target audience, where their users are based, etc. But publishers can increase their chances of success by having more than a mere presence on these platforms; they need to optimize their presence to get as much traffic as possible and take the opportunity to increase ad revenue wherever it is available to them.

And now there is a new challenge for publishers. Google certainly likes to keep us on our toes, and we can see that the Alphabet Giant is now ramping up its latest traffic source: Google Chrome Suggestions. Could this be a big opportunity for publishers?

It appears so. These suggestions are found within the Chrome browser on mobile devices when users open a new tab. With a 52.5 per cent market share of the mobile browsing landscape, Google Chrome dominates the market; this is why its new “Google Chrome Suggestions” feature (reserved exclusively for mobile—for now) was able to grow by 2,100 per cent in 2017.

What do Google Chrome Suggestions mean for you?
You may in fact already be receiving traffic from this source, and you should be sure to track this (when a visitor to your website clicks on one of these links, the referrer will appear as “www.googleapis.com/auth/chrome-content-suggestions”).

Data from ChartBeat demonstrates that traffic from this source grew dramatically throughout 2017 to almost eclipse Twitter as a referral source by the beginning of 2018.

This trend could have a huge impact on the traffic that publishers receive. But onto the million dollar question…

How can publishers get their content featured within Google Chrome Suggestions?
The criteria for being featured within the suggestions are as mysterious as Google’s organic search algorithm.

It should be noted that it appears the feature is still in testing. Chartbeat’s data demonstrates that certain countries and territories demonstrate substantially higher rates of Google Chrome Suggestions traffic.

In its analysis Chartbeat did find, however, that the stories included within the suggestions are strongly biased toward new stories, with over 97 per cent of traffic happening on pages published in the past two days. This means that publications that regularly publish content are more likely to appear within the suggestions.

In terms of the steps that publishers should take, it is hard to say. Publishers should be extra diligent when it comes to correctly implementing structured data, and continue to monitor how this exciting new traffic source affects their traffic. Weekly or monthly reports that monitor this traffic source would be important to keep: if the feature eventually moves to desktop—where Chrome has an even larger 57.4 per cent market share—publishers will want to be as prepared as possible.

Why this feature, and why now?
There may be three key reasons the feature makes sense for Google.

Firstly, Google is using one of its major strengths: leveraging its access to large amounts of data, and its ability to analyze that data to offer relevant content suggestions based upon a user’s interests. By analyzing search trends and user interests across Alphabet platforms (YouTube, for example, which recently announced it has 1.8bn logged in users each month), Google is able to essentially predict user searches and go straight to the delivery of relevant content. This ability provides the basis for the AI-powered redesign of its News platform, announced this week at Google I/O. And by promoting relevant content, Google is driving traffic for publishers—leading us to the second reason Google created this feature.

This feature represents a powerful traffic source for publishers. This is good news for Google too, which stands to benefit from additional ads served. By offering an additional path for users toward publisher content, perhaps the feature can be seen as an attempt from Google to further sweeten its relationship with publishers (elaborating on other recent initiatives such as expanding its ad-blocker-aware soft paywall for publishers).

Thirdly, as the feature grows in prominence, it is a great way to capitalize on the popularity of the mobile Chrome browser and make it even stickier. If the initial performance of the feature so far is anything to go off, it looks as though it has a clear opportunity to become a go-to source of mobile news for some readers. This will, in turn, serve to further cement Google Chrome as the mobile browser of choice.

This column was originally published on Mafeels blog. Subscribe to Marfeel Digest, the firms monthly newsletter, to stay up-to-date on developments in this area and elsewhere in the ad tech world.

The post A new mobile traffic source emerges – why you cant ignore Google Chrome Suggestions appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

The safe browsing feature has been around since 2007 and currently protects over 3bn devices using the Chrome browser across desktop and mobile. With the integration of safe browsing into WebView, which enables Android apps to display web content, by default means developers will no longer have to make any changes to their apps in order to benefit from Google’s security tool.

As the feature has been built using the same underlying technology as Chrome on Android, all Android apps that use WebView will now flash up Google’s famous red warning page when a user is potentially heading into a dangerous site. For some developers, the warning and network error triggered can be customised to suit them.

The post Google brings Chromes safe browsing to Android apps appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Starting tomorrow, Google’s Chrome browser will start blocking ads that don’t meet the Coalition for Better Ads quality standards. According to the company blog, Chromes baked-in ad blocker will automatically disable ads that Google deems a bad user experience.

But not all ads are to be banned. According to the Adblock Plus study, Chromes built-in ad blocker will filter only 16 per cent of all the ads. And since Chrome will only remove those that dont meet the requirements, adopting native ads is still the right choice to address the challenge. Native ads perfectly match the look and feel of the website, and are also non-intrusive, and that meets most of the new standards. Also, native advertising is winning in terms of viewability. This makes it more effective than regular banners.

The launch of the Chrome ad blocker has understandably shaken advertisers, content providers and publishers all over the world. As of today, a vast number of publishers rely on ad revenue to fund their activities. Many of them consider ads as the primary source of income, and are worried the industry will fold in on itself if it dries up. Companies that own third-party blockers earn good money, particularly by charging websites for displaying ads and ‘whitelisting’ their ads.

Last March, the criteria for “inappropriate advertising” was defined. In short, ads that interrupt the reading process and disrupt the flow of information will be blocked. And in particular, the coalition recommends avoiding pop-up ads, auto-play videos and ads that feature a countdown timer before youre able to click out of them. The coalition also created separate lists for desktop and mobile users. Examples of the inappropriate advertising can be found on the projects website. Google notes that, if at least one ad on the webpage violates these rules, all ads on this page will be blocked, even if other ads meet the criteria.

Ad blocker usage growing
According to Adobe and PageFair, global usage of ad blockers grew by 41 per cent from mid-2014 to mid-2015, and by 70 per cent between 2016 and 2017. The advent of ad blockers in Apple products in 2015 didnt have a massive impact, but rather, forced professionals to comprehend the trend, as well as to reconsider the measures they need to take to retain their advertising revenues.

Something similar may be happening now. Some in the industry see this new ad blocking feature as a natural evolution in online advertising, and are searching for more sophisticated ways to deliver their advertising messages, such as native, for example.

The bad thing about ad blocking is that it hurts worthy publishers. By the early 2000s, advertising was almost the only way to monetize free internet services for users. Advertisers also liked it for its targeting opportunities, web analytics, and also for its relatively low cost. And of course, digital marketers were not going to sit back and watch their audience and revenues decrease. Marketers need to come up with alternative channels and delivery formats to get to the target audience.

The need for an internet advertising standard is clear. Ads shouldnt annoy users, and at the same time, shouldnt be blocked. If theres no such standard, content creators will gradually disappear, and in the long run users suffer because of the degradation of content or widespread introduction of paid subscriptions.

In response to ad blocking, some seek refuge in native advertising. According to AdWeek, 72 per cent of users dont consider native advertising as annoying, and 86 per cent of them are ready to put up with it for the sake of free content. This means that loyalty to native advertising is much higher. And there are numerous studies and forecasts that predict a bright future for native. We believe that native is a step forward compared to the outdated formats of other media placements and can help to overcome the new ad blocking challenge.

Tackling the problem
With ad blocking being such a talking point in the digital marketing world at the moment, there has been much debate around what advertisers and publishers can do to help tackle the problem. In fact, Google itself will help website owners prepare for the advent of a built-in ad blocker in Chrome, with a guide to help web developers and publishers make ads that don’t drive users away. To clarify to developers what kinds of ads to avoid, Google is giving publishers a tool named the Ad Experience Report. It is designed to help publishers and website owners find ads that usually annoy users, get a handle on the Better Ads standards and learn how to apply them to their own sites.

In summary, to get your ads seen, you should steer clear of the following formats. On desktop, avoid pop-up ads with sound; prestitial ads with a countdown; and large, sticky ads. On mobile, avoid pop-up ads; autoplaying video ads with sound; prestitial ads; postitial ads with a countdown; full-screen scroll-over ads; flashing animated ads; and large, sticky ads. In addition, avoid an ad density higher than 30 per cent.

Follow these guidelines, and put the user experience front of mind, and the dawn of the Chrome ad blocker will do much less damage to your business than you might have thought.

The post Coping with the Chrome ad blocker appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

The ad blocker, which was first announced back in June 2017, won’t work like traditional ad blockers and block all ads from appearing. Instead, the blocker will act as more of a filter and only stop ads that don’t meet the standards laid out by the Coalition for Better Ads.

In a post to the Chromium blog, Google says that it will evaluate sites using sample pages, and make a judgement on whether the site adheres to the standards outlined. Sites that are all clear gain a ‘passing’ grade, while those in violation will gain a ‘warning’ grade and those found to be consistently in breach will be evaluated as ‘failing’.

If a user visits a page that belongs to a site that Google deems to be failing, network requests will be checked against a list of known ad-related URL patterns. If a match is found in cross-checking, Chrome will block the request and prevent the ad from being displayed on the page.

Despite the block, Google will ask the user if they actually wanted to see the ad. On mobile, a notification will appear in an infobar at the bottom of the screen, while desktop users will get a message indicating that a block has occurred along with the option to disable the setting.

The post Google explains how Chrome will start blocking ads tomorrow appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

Chinese eCommerce giant Alibaba has given itself an advantage within emerging markets – such as India and Indonesia – as hundreds of millions of people opt for its UC Browser ahead of offerings from the US, the Wall Street Journal reports.

UC Browser is aimed at nations dominated by low-end smartphones with low storage capacity and low-quality mobile service. It requires around 31MB of storage space compared to Chrome’s 125MB.

The app currently boasts more than 430m users globally and accounted for 51 per cent of India’s mobile browser market in 2017, compared to 30 per cent for Chrome, according to StatCounter. In the same period, UC Browser was behind 41 per cent of Indonesia’s mobile browser market with Chrome sitting at 32 per cent.

UC Browser has less than one per cent market share in the US, while Chrome has 39 per cent and Apple’s Safari sits out on top with a 52 per cent share.

The post Alibabas unknown browser app is dominating Googles Chrome in emerging markets appeared first on Mobile Marketing Magazine.

The extension has now been taken down, but while up, it was listed directly next to the real product created by Adblock Plus, and was downloaded by around 37,000 users, leaving them potentially vulnerable to a variety of cybercrime.

The extension was spotted by cybersecurity expert @SwiftOnSecurity and shared on Twitter, where it was picked up by both Chrome and Adblock Plus. @SwiftOnSecurity called the software “a fake extension by fraudulent developer”.

“Weve been following this story carefully, and were pleased to see how quickly the false extension was kicked out,” said Ben Williams, communications and operations manager at Adblock Plus, in a post addressing the false extension. “Its a bit troubling, of course, that it made it in there in the first place. Because of this weve stayed on top of would-be scammers for years now, so that you can trust what youre getting is actually what you want.”

According to reviews for the fake extension, at least one user found themselves being targeted by invasive ads that opened multiple tabs after he installed the software. However, more information on whether the extension contained malware or similar software has not been forthcoming.

Join us at the 2017 Effective Mobile Marketing Awards Ceremony, taking place in London on Thursday 16 November, to mix with the industrys best and brightest, and raise a glass to the years best campaigns and solutions. To find out more, and to book your place, click here.

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