Earlier this year, our colleague Bryce Cullinane wrote here on this blog about cookies or the tiny files created by websites you visit that store your information and allow sites to recognize your browser. Although cookies may have a profound impact on your desktop browsing activity, they’re steadily becoming obsolete due to both the growing ubiquity of mobile internet usage (cookies don’t work on mobile devices) and users’ conscious blocking of cookies. So far, marketers have developed just a few new technologies (that we know of) to continue to track consumers and deliver targeted ads.
The New York Times recently reported that the work of several new startups is dedicated to figuring out how to track people without cookies and also determine that multiple devices belong to the same person. California based Drawbridge is one company that is attempting to tackle this task, although COO Eric Rosenblum tells Claire Cain Miller and Somini Sengupta of the New York Times that “tracking is a dirty word” and explains that what they’re instead doing is “observing your behaviors and connecting your profile to mobile devices” (emphasis added).
By combining alerts sent by partners companies when you visit specific websites or use certain apps with statistical modeling, Drawbridge and its competitor companies like Greystripe can conclude that several devices belong to the same person. Once a consumer has been identified in this way, advertisers can ensure that this user receives specifically-targeted ads across all devices based on his or her activities. Or in other words, cross-device advertising.
Think about this. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning? Maybe you check e-mail on your phone. (Maybe you do something else before even that, ok we’ll grant you that.) From there, you may use your tablet for a few minutes to catch up on some news or check the weather. Then you might browse from your desktop at work. Fast-forward (perhaps many hours) and you’re in bed with your tablet (sadly), checking out your social media steams. Cross-device advertising makes it possible for flights to Europe to display on your tablet at night when you had been looking up similar flights earlier in the day while using another device. The same goes for purses you’ve browsed, restaurants for which you’ve read reviews and so on.
Although privacy advocates may be sighing in relief as cookies become increasingly irrelevant, their rest may be short-lived and not so easy in light of the coming attractions of future (and creepier) developments in online advertising.
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