Tech giants Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have all made plans to replace cookies. This stems from a desire for the giants to have more control over the $120 billion dollar digital advertising industry. Now, I’ve long disliked cookies (except for the gooey kind that my mother makes), so normally I’d cheer for anything that leads to their demise. However, this move reduces competition in the digital advertising space and makes me nervous about the ever-diminishing ability for consumers to control their privacy on the internet.
You see, normally I delete cookies every month or so. On one hand, I like that I don’t have to log onto Amazon every time I fire up Firefox. On the other hand, I also don’t like retargeting ads stalking me after I do competitive research or troll the internet. It’s refreshing to wipe my cookies every once in a while–to wipe the slate clean.
If Google and the ilk replace cookies, I am concerned that I will no longer have the option to make myself relatively anonymous anymore. I know nothing in this world is free and the price of ‘free’ services like Facebook are my information, but I should still have some control. It’s frightening that my information could fall solely into the hands of few tech companies. If these companies cut out the more than a thousand competitors, they will have created an oligopoly on my information, and who knows how invasive they could become?
As an aspiring ad maven, I should be at peace with tracking data. The reality is that I’m not. I understand the need for accurate information to maximize advertising effectiveness and consumer insights. I just wonder at what point we have a moral obligation to draw the line. And as of right now, I might not love cookies, but at least I know how they taste.
