Users want more privacy online, while ad tech is pushing in the other direction

By Alya Kubati, insights research lead at Nano Interactive

We’ve already covered cookie shutdown on Chrome, targeting and measurement fallout and what companies are doing about it. Now I’m here to tell you that – contrary to all the coverage – the final nail in the cookie coffin is no longer the main story.

In May, our research report, Tipping Point, suggested that 70% of the UK have got there first, already performing their own personal cookie cut-off on a weekly basis or more.

Whether via browsing incognito, clearing or opting out of cookies, using a VPN – or all of the above - most of the UK public has already voted with their feet, regardless of what ad tech, Google or regulators decide anytime in the future. If more proof were needed, a second survey carried out by Nano covering Germany in July showed an even higher number - 76% of a 5,000-person sample were taking the same approach.

For our next research, we wanted to understand – in the most basic terms – why? If we understood the motivations behind people masking their personal data, when and how they do it, we’d surely be a lot closer to knowing how to avoid the same happening all over again once cookies finally crumble.

Mobile “is more personal to me”

First, the most common reason given for masking was to avoid retargeting, with 49% saying they hide their personal data ‘to get rid of ads tracking them online after they’ve searched for something’. Whether achieved via third-party or first-party cookies, IP addresses or otherwise, retargeting as a tactic continues to be unpopular with the public.

In terms of devices, mobile was the most common place to mask. Across all masking methods, mobile saw on average 58% higher rates of hiding personal data than desktop. If anything, this only raises the stakes around what advertising does next. Because mobile dominates online advertising: according to Insider Intelligence/eMarketer, making up three-quarters (76%) of UK programmatic spend.

But why mobile in particular? Partly it may just be a ‘time spent’ factor – the device we use most in our daily lives. But respondents also said the medium feels private in a way that others do not: the majority (59%) of those who mask on mobile say they do so because in such an environment, people-based targeting just feels too personal.

Just as social and TV services are experimenting more with paid subscriber tiers which remove ads – and targeting – there is another notable finding here for advertisers. The research showed clearly that use of privacy enhancing products and features increases alongside earnings. The highest earning households are 65% more likely to use a VPN and 69% more likely to adopt private browsing than the lowest.

Delving more into the specifics of why people are masking their data, Nano asked consumers how they felt about the use of specific characteristics in targeting – and which they thought were ethical or unethical. Household income and search history topped the list of those people feel uncomfortable with, followed by location. Gender, age and content/context were felt to be the least problematic.

Stepping outside the walls of advertising

With cookies being phased out, the most common alternative being proposed uses the individual user’s email address, or sometimes even mobile number, to profile and build cross-site profiles.

Chrome’s cookie switch off in 2024 will no doubt generate more focus - not to mention business for - these post-cookie IDs. But for now, they are arguably little known outside the walls of advertising itself.

To see what consumers think of them, Nano asked how they would react if a company were targeting ads using these datapoints as a cookie replacement. Around half (49%) said they would be more likely to mask their data as a result. Interestingly, Nano’s previous research, the Tipping Point, showed that a similar number (52%) would be more likely to choose a brand if it never collected or used personal information for advertising.

37% also said they would be less likely to spend money with brands using these methods. More than a third (35%) said it would lower their trust in that company. 19% would expect a discount from companies in return for using their data in this way.

Trust, not internet-wide CCTV

The message seems clear: whatever the drawbacks or objections to cookies, arguably their use was never personal in the way that an individual’s email or mobile number is. If consent for the use of these datapoints as a cookie alternative really is ‘unambiguous, freely given, specific and informed’, brands employing them may find achieving meaningful opt-in rates problematic.

Outside the walls of advertising, the public seems to feel uneasy about any targeting method that involves cross-site profiling – that essentially looks like internet-wide CCTV. It is for the same reason that even though nominally more privacy-friendly, Google’s own cookie replacement, Topics API was derided by privacy campaigners.

In a sense, Chrome cookie shutdown in 2024 is a red herring. It is their replacement we should really be following. For advertising, never has so much been at stake.

Brands looking to build trust and loyalty with consumers should consider methods of targeting ads which don’t feel like surveillance, and arguably don’t use people-based data at all.