Whether or not agencies, brands and publishers agree with policy changes that Google made around third-party cookie deprecation, the company has not stopped its efforts to make consumer privacy a priority, and many companies still want a way to protect those who visit their sites.

Google has offered a tab dedicated to consent settings for some time. 

A Google spokesperson said the consent mode in Google Ads Data Manager simplifies ways to connect and use first-party data with Google’s ads solutions, and puts all data-management controls in one place, including consent-management controls.

It’s difficult to keep up to date with everything Google does. Some, however, are unaware of recent changes to this feature. 

The website data consent setting might mean something different for advertisers, publishers, and consortiums working to secure consumer privacy online, but the eventual outcome will be the same.

The tab provides a consent setting added to Data Manager in Google Ads, with separate settings for website data and imported and uploaded data, with limited of the latest access point for select accounts.

Gemini, Google’s AI search offering, says Google Consent Mode initially launched in beta in September 2020, but Google Consent Mode V2 launched in March 2024. There have also been updates that have rolled out to new users.

Pierre Jourdan, traffic acquisition and online affiliate marketing, discovered the setting and shared it on his LinkedIn account. PPC News Feed also shared it, but Google insists the feature is not new. Perhaps just the tab?

“This is very similar to iOS 14.5 introduction by Apple in 2021,” said NetElixir Co-Founder Udayan Bose, who added that the setting is not completely new, but is a new way to access the feature. “This gives more choice to users to manage their privacy settings. It is also a good middle path between what was supposed to be — third-party cookie deprecation — and what is happening today.”

Changes For Google’s Sandbox privacy policy has driven more search users to browsers with privacy controls, as shows in the chart at the top of the page.

There were reasons for Google’s shift, but Bose believes is a “solid reason” for Apple to focus on privacy.

Bose believes Google is banking on the fact most users will not care or be conscious about restricting consent in the long run.

“Google’s pivot was a tradeoff motivated in no small part by the importance of ad revenue, which amounted to more than three-quarters of its $307 billion in total revenue in 2023,” estimates Bloomberg. 

Regardless, there has been a spike in use of privacy-first search engines, he said. In an email to Performance Marketing Insider, he noted that Google’s decision to not fully deprecate third-party cookies has cost the industry lots of money trying to adhere to standards that never materialized.

“What about all those large and small firms like The Trade Desk, Criteo and thousands of others that had to invest millions to reinvent themselves?” he wrote. “The list is long and painful.”

This week, when Criteo reported earnings, the company said Google’s decision presents an opportunity to benefit from ongoing access to third-party signals for opted-in users. It fits well into Criteo’s multi-pronged approach to addressability. Criteo reported Q2 2024 earnings rose 14% to $267 million. The company said it came in above guidance.

Apple believes Safari is already doing its part on iPhones. A couple of weeks ago, Apple launched a new ad called Privacy on iPhone, titled Flock. The ad, which is running on a variety of connected TV (CTV) stations, shows people using their iPhones to browse the internet as surveillance cameras fly around them like pigeons, following and watching what they do on their devices.

“Your browsing is being watched,” a message overlay assert, as pigeon-cameras flock and circle unsuspecting users. One pigeon-camera hits the window of a high-rise building, as the woman at the desk browsing her phone jumps at the noise.

Still, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international, non-profit organization that creates standards and guidelines for the web, insists that cookies must go.

Cookies can work for things like login and single sign-on, or putting shopping choices into a cart — but they can also be used to invisibly track browsing activity across sites for surveillance or ad-targeting purposes. It involves hidden personal data collection.

The W3C wrote in a blog post that its team has been working with the Chrome Privacy Sandbox team for several years, trying to help create better approaches for the things that third-party cookies do. They have not always had consensus, but have made progress.

The W3C also explains that Google’s latest announcement about Privacy Sandbox and other ways to provide privacy to consumers online “came out of the blue, and undermines a lot of the work we’ve done together to make the web work without third-party cookies.”

Google has a website data consent setting that apparently has gone undercover for some time.