2021 will be remembered as the year the private sector started getting serious about privacy, propelled primarily not by legislation but rather ecosystem-shattering moves by Big Tech gatekeepers such as Google and Apple, who are taking steps to remove the 3rd party cookie from Chrome, and in the case of Apple, the ability of applications to track you outside of their environment.
The changes to tracking on iOS devices and the on-again, off-again dialogue surrounding Google’s depreciation of the third-party cookie marked a passing of the privacy baton from the government to Big Tech. The tech giants are now running the anchor leg of this race, and it's picking up steam.
But which policy shifts really were game-changers, whose interest did the changes serve, and how will the data privacy landscape evolve in 2022?
Here are the big moves from 2021.
Three Themes From Privacy in 2021
1. Big Tech laid down the law: Big Tech pushed companies to do more to integrate privacy and consumer involvement into the data supply chain in the past 12 months than government regulators have accomplished in years.
By far and away, the most significant contributor to this was Apple, which showed it could put mobile marketing in a chokehold by forcing consumers to opt into tracking across apps on iOS devices. The implementation of Advanced Ad Tracking(ATT) led to opt-in rates below 13% and perhaps as low as 4%, depending on whom you ask.
Measurement firms, social platforms, location companies, and anyone doing growth marketing that relies on the mobile ID from Apple all felt the sting from these changes due to the loss of both supply and signals. With estimates of the big boys in Tech having lost over $10b alone due to this change, expect this to continue into 2022.
Similarly, even though Google delayed the death of third-party cookies on Chrome until 2023, the change will inevitably come and has already had a massive impact on business, driving companies to scramble in search of alternative IDs and calling the future of the open web into question. Here is the math. There are approx. websites in the world today. Chrome has approx. of the browser market. No 3rd party cookie on Chrome eliminates tracking on 65% (#revenue) on these 2b websites. If you thought Apple was bad, just wait until the cookie disappears. More on this in the 2022 predictions piece next month.