What happened to the post-cookie era, with IAB Tech Lab’s Anthony Katsur

Summary

The Digiday Podcast: What Happened to the Post-Cookie Era with IAB Tech Lab’s Anthony Katsur

Release Date: January 28, 2025

In this insightful episode of The Digiday Podcast, hosts Kameka McCoy and Tim Peterson delve into the tumultuous landscape of digital advertising as brands, agencies, and publishers navigate the ongoing transition to a post-cookie world. Featuring a compelling conversation with Tony Katzer, CEO of IAB Tech Lab, the episode explores the current state of third-party cookies, identity solutions, and broader industry shifts affecting the digital advertising ecosystem.

---

1. Current Industry Highlights

Before welcoming their guest, McCoy and Peterson cover several pressing topics that have been shaping the digital landscape at the dawn of 2025.

TikTok Ban Extended and Potential Acquisition

• Kameka McCoy introduces the recent developments regarding the TikTok ban, which was unexpectedly lifted after a 75-day extension under the new administration.
• Tim Peterson discusses President Donald Trump's proposal to have the U.S. government acquire 50% ownership of TikTok, potentially partnering with tech giants like Oracle or Elon Musk's ventures. This surprising turn reflects the unpredictable nature of tech regulation and its impact on global platforms.

  “Maybe at the end of this, the US government owns TikTok, which just feels almost unthinkable.” [04:13]

Executive Orders on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I)

• The hosts address President Trump's executive orders that roll back DE&I initiatives on a federal level. This action aligns with similar moves by major corporations like Walmart, Amazon, and McDonald's, prompting questions about the future commitment of brands to these values.

  “Does this set a new precedent? Does this set a new standard for how committed these brands have to be?” [07:57]

CNN’s Digital Pivot

• Tim Peterson highlights CNN’s strategic shift from traditional TV, including the elimination of 200 jobs in the TV department while hiring an equal number for digital roles. This move is part of a broader trend where legacy media companies are restructuring to prioritize digital content and streaming services.

  “CNN's gonna have a new streaming service because that was part of this announcement, too.” [10:56]

Netflix’s Earnings and Strategic Moves

• The conversation touches on Netflix’s impressive subscriber base of over 300 million, with a global reach of 700 million people. Despite price hikes for both ad-supported and ad-free tiers, Netflix plans to diversify into the restaurant business with its Live Experiences initiative in Las Vegas.

  “Netflix reported earnings and it closed the year with more than 300 million subscribers.” [11:32]

---

2. In-Depth Interview with Tony Katzer

The heart of the episode features an extensive discussion with Tony Katzer, focusing on the longevity of third-party cookies and the future of digital identity solutions.

The Status of Third-Party Cookies

• Tim Peterson sets the stage by questioning the anticipated demise of third-party cookies, which were expected to be deprecated by Google Chrome in 2025. Contrary to expectations, Google has paused the phase-out, maintaining support for third-party cookies and even endorsing IP address tracking as part of fingerprinting.

  “It feels like the idea of a post-cookie future is kind of dead at the moment.” [16:43]

• Tony Katzer responds by emphasizing that while third-party cookies are still in use, this delay provides the industry with additional time to develop and adopt alternative identity solutions.

  “The good news is that it’s given the industry time to move on from it and look at alternative forms of addressability and identity.” [16:43]

Google’s Role and Consumer Consent Mechanisms

• The discussion delves into Google's collaboration with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK to establish a new consent-based approach for cookies. Katzer expresses concerns about potential consumer confusion from multiple consent prompts across websites and browsers.

  “If there’s wild amounts of opt out, then the cookie is effectively dead.” [22:46]

• Katzer advocates for maintaining third-party cookies, attributing blame for privacy issues to bad actors rather than the cookies themselves. He suggests that stronger enforcement and penalties for misuse would be a better solution.

  “I would rather see stiffer penalties for bad actors than destroy a token that has supported interoperability across the web for 30 years.” [23:04]

Emerging Identity Solutions and Industry Adoption

• Katzer outlines the importance of adopting new identity frameworks such as the Ad Creative ID (ACID) framework, designed to enhance frequency management and reach without relying on IP addresses. However, he acknowledges the slow adoption rate within the industry, likening the transition to the long evolution of mobile technology.

  “Ad ID is not... It’s a 10 year trajectory we’re on.” [41:07]

• The conversation highlights the challenges of implementing ID-based solutions in a landscape still reliant on traditional methods. Katzer underscores the need for widespread adoption and industry cooperation to phase out outdated tracking mechanisms effectively.

  “We’re looking at this like oil and water. It’s going to be a decade-long shift.” [40:57]

Future Outlook and Regulatory Impact

• The hosts and Katzer agree that significant changes to digital identity and tracking will unfold over the next decade, driven by regulatory pressures and technological advancements. Katzer predicts a continued split between ID-based and ID-less solutions, depending on the size and capacity of the organization.

  “We mutually have our hands full for the next seven to ten years.” [42:02]

---

3. Conclusion

This episode of The Digiday Podcast offers a comprehensive examination of the current state and future trajectory of digital advertising in the post-cookie era. Through the expertise of Tony Katzer, listeners gain a deeper understanding of the complexities surrounding third-party cookies, the emergence of new identity solutions, and the broader implications of regulatory changes. As the industry stands at this crossroads, the insights provided underscore the need for collaboration, innovation, and strategic adaptation to navigate the evolving digital landscape.

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• “Maybe at the end of this, the US government owns TikTok, which just feels almost unthinkable.” – Tim Peterson [04:13]

• “Does this set a new precedent? Does this set a new standard for how committed these brands have to be?” – Kameka McCoy [07:57]

• “CNN's gonna have a new streaming service because that was part of this announcement, too.” – Tim Peterson [10:56]

• “The good news is that it’s given the industry time to move on from it and look at alternative forms of addressability and identity.” – Tony Katzer [16:43]

• “If there’s wild amounts of opt out, then the cookie is effectively dead.” – Tony Katzer [22:46]

• “I would rather see stiffer penalties for bad actors than destroy a token that has supported interoperability across the web for 30 years.” – Tony Katzer [23:04]

• “We mutually have our hands full for the next seven to ten years.” – Tony Katzer [42:02]

---

For those navigating the digital advertising realm, this episode provides essential perspectives on the enduring legacy of third-party cookies and the innovative pathways being forged towards a more privacy-centric future.

Transcript

[Tony Katzer]

Foreign.

[Kameka McCoy]

Hello, hello and welcome to another episode of the Digiday Podcast. I am Kameka McCoy, Senior Marketing Reporter here at Digiday.

[Tim Peterson]

And I'm Tim Peterson, executive editor of video and audio at Digiday Media.

[Kameka McCoy]

And we are at this point, what, four weeks into the new year.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, yeah, I know. I, you know, made this joke and stole this joke from TikTok, but I would like to place a return.

[Kameka McCoy]

Yeah, things are going insane. I almost feel like 2024 people are like it's a repeat of 2024. I nope, it's given maybe 2020, 2021. Just an absolute hellscape. So some of the juicy scoops I brought it in that we're going to talk about today, Tik Tok ban, it's been extended, but still a band, the DE&I and other executive orders that Trump signed in day one just hours after that inauguration, CNN's digital pivot and Netflix's earnings. But first, we've got a guest that's going to be joining you later on in the show. So talk to me about who you guys are bringing on.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, we've got Tony Katzer, who is the CEO of IB Tech Lab. And so this week, actually, you know, the day this episode goes out will be the last day of the Interactive Advertising Bureau's annual leadership meeting, which is basically like the, I don't know, in some ways like the Programmatic industries version of like CES or can, more like ces where it's kind of like the first big event for programmatic marketers and publishers as well as ad tech companies to come together and kind of set the agenda for the year. And so I wanted to have Tony on to talk about just what the hell this year looks like from a programmatic standpoint, because 2025 was smart, supposed to be effectively the first year of the post cookie era. This was when Google was supposed to have phased out third party cookies in Chrome. And that all seems to have just gone in the other direction, I think as we talked with our executive editor of news and our managing editor, Seb Joseph and Sarah Jehrde, Respectively, for the 2025 Look Ahead episode a couple episodes ago. So I wanted to have Tony on just to understand like what does the identity picture look like right now since the third party cookie still hasn't gone away in Chrome and isn't necessarily, it's not a given anymore that it's going to go away. Google also right before the holidays said, hey, it's cool to use IP address, which is a fundamental part of fingerprinting, which I think no one feels is a good practice for tracking people online because there's no real control for people over that. So we had a lot of ground to cover and then Tony had some very interesting things to say. So I thought this was a really good conversation and so excited for everyone to listen to it.

[Kameka McCoy]

Love that, love that. In the same vein of a tech company saying, Whoopsies, TikTok has made a change. Now, this is not by TikTok's choice. I don't know about you, but I was scrolling maybe like, I don't know, 1039 and the app said, hey, now go ahead and log out for me. That ban has come into effect and you're done. So, but I think 12 hours later it came back online and it's got a 75 day extension at the hands of the new President Trump. So how Are you a TikTok person?

[Tim Peterson]

Yes, I am a TikTok person, although I'm very worried about, like what exactly am I now agreeing to identify?

[Kameka McCoy]

Yes, because what's important here is that there are some, there's still a ban. Right. So at the end of the 75 days, something's got to shake out and you've got some tech overlords that are lining up to potentially buy this guy. So what are you hearing on that front?

[Tim Peterson]

I mean, I think it was wild to hear now president again, Donald Trump say, hey, maybe let, let's, let's do a deal. Let's get. The US will take 50% ownership of TikTok. And then my buddy Larry Ellison, who owns Oracle, or maybe Elon Musk, my other buddy who owns X, maybe they take the other 50% and literally was sitting next to Ellison was just like, that sounds like a good deal. Right. And Ellison sitting there being like, yes, that sounds like a very good deal, Mr. President. So yeah, maybe at the end of this, the US government owns TikTok, which just feels almost unthinkable, but I think these days nothing actually feels unthinkable. Mr. Beast being part of a investment consortium to own TikTok is another possibility at this point.

[Kameka McCoy]

Yeah, really interesting turnaround there because at one point TikTok was too big to buy and there was going to be, we'd never sell technology. So I think there's a lot of unknowns in this space also around creators and small businesses that are on that platform. Right. Cap Cut and Lemonade were other apps that went down in addition to Tick Tock facing that ban. So we actually had a really good piece on this put together by Alexander Lee, our senior reporter for gaming and Esports, in partnership with Antoinette Siu, who is our marketing reporter who covers the creator economy that looked at, you know, post shutdown Cap Cut and kind of what the impact of the editing app's future is.

[Tim Peterson]

Right? Yeah. And I mean, he talked to some creators for that story who said, like, no, I'm back to using capcut. Because one of his questions coming out of the Cap Cut outage, which happened same time as the TikTok outage and actually lasted a little longer, was, okay, these creators are using this central tool that they use to create content not just for TikTok but for other platforms as well. And they lost that in a snap of the finger. Are they now thinking, okay, I need to learn Adobe Premiere Pro or, you know, Meta, Conveniently last weekend announced that they are going to be rolling out their own editing app called Edit. So it's basically like a capcut clone, because this is what Meta does. Are they going to switch to edits, Meta's CapCut clone, or any other editing program? And a lot of the creators that Alex talked to are just like, nah, I'm back on Cap Cut. And like, hopefully Cap Cut sticks around, but we'll see what happens in, you know, less than 75 days at this point. So it just feels like, like with the Google Cookie stuff is just, you know, kicking the ball further down the field.

[Kameka McCoy]

Yeah, there's a lot that'll shake out here and I don't, I don't know. We'll see, we'll see how it goes. I've, I've noticed that you can't download the app anymore from the App Store. I don't know what that looks like on Google Play, but we'll, we'll, we'll see. Other things that Trump has done is signing a flurry of executive orders, including one that rolls back De and I on a federal level. What's interesting here is that this kind of lines up to what companies have been doing already. You saw Walmart, Amazon and a handful of others kind of pull back, retool or pull back, depending on who you ask. Pull back, depending on who you ask about their, their D and I. McDonald's is another one, their DNI initiatives. And the question now just kind of becomes, you know, does this set a new precedent? Does this set a new standard for how committed these brands who were very loud back in 2020 and 2021 have to be to that or don't have to be?

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, I mean, we've talked a lot about all these DNI rollbacks by companies in the past year, year plus. It's seems to just justify all of that and seems to justify more companies in the future saying, yeah, we're going to pull back on dni, you know, because of everything that you just discussed. And then also just, you know, because like, hey, there's this executive order now we don't want to be found running afoul of it. Or if there's, you know, more executive orders or laws that build on top of that, we don't want to be on the wrong side of this. So even if a company actually does believe diversity, equity and inclusion is important, they may not be as assertive about that just for fear of whatever penalties they could face as a result, which is horrible. But that's like as you open the.

[Kameka McCoy]

Welcome to 2025, the hellscape that is 2025. I think on the opposite side of that, you have some companies that are doubling down in the space. Costco has been vocal about it, JP Morgan has been vocal about it, and a handful. I think the question now becomes, you know, it does it become an us of this against them, or is this a matter of virtue signaling, hence why I said, you'll see how this shakes out in terms of media investments.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, yeah. It's going to be something we're just going to have to stay on top of throughout the year, as I think we would have anyways.

[Kameka McCoy]

Yeah, I'm not letting this go. If the horse is dead, I'm going to continue to beat it.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah. Speaking of dead horses. But letting things go, cnn, it's not like letting go of its traditional TV business. And its traditional TV business is not a dead horse, but it's maybe closer to than otherwise. CNN had an announcement this week where it's going to be cutting 200 jobs, especially on the traditional TV side of the business, and that it plans to hire 200 people. So, like, it's going to cut 200 jobs, but it's going to hire 200 jobs. So, like, the workforce size may end up being roughly the same, but cutting 200 on the traditional TV side, hiring 200 on the digital side. Part of this digital pivot CNN is looking to make and that we've seen with other companies like CNN's parent company, Warner Brothers Discovery, splitting its traditional TV business off from its streaming and studios business, still within the same company. But Comcast NBCUniversal getting rid of many of its cable TV networks, spinning that off into a separate business. CNN seems to be effectively doing the same. Now, whether, you know, if Warner Brothers Discovery eventually sells off its traditional TV division and includes CNN's TV network as part of that, who knows? But it does seem like CNN's gonna have a new streaming service because that was part of this announcement, too. They're not calling it CNN Plus 2.0.

[Kameka McCoy]

But was gonna say this sounds familiar.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, yeah. As with everything, it's all cyclical. Like, talk about the 2020, 2021 analogies. Like, this is another one that harkens back to all of that.

[Kameka McCoy]

So when does the news business ever get to rest? Not in terms of, you know, resting as a reporter, as a journalist, you will never see that day, but just in terms of, like, finding itself settled, I feel like is not on the horizon for this industry anytime soon. Trying to find a way to get viewers back consistently.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, no, not. Especially not in the era of Netflix, which was our last big story of the week. But Netflix reported earning earnings and that it closed the year with more than 300 million subscribers. Netflix claim, because, you know, people can share a Netflix account within the same household, that its actual Global reach is 700 million people, which is insane. Although still not on the level of like YouTube, which I believe has like 2 billion meta the same. But still, for a streaming service, 700 million is wild. At the same time, we'll see what. Well, we won't see what that number comes to be after Netflix raises prices for its ad supported tier as well as its ad free tier. Because this is the last time that Netflix will be reporting its subscriber count and its quarterly earnings. It won't be doing that next time it reports. So we won't actually know what kind of impact these price hikes have other than how it affects its revenue. And my suspicion will be it's going to boost Netflix's revenue as well as its profit margin, which Netflix said is a lot of the reason why it's raising prices.

[Kameka McCoy]

Yeah. And then they'll have some more money to open more restaurants, which they're doing next month in Las Vegas as part of its Live Experiences business. So that'll be.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, yeah. Anyone who goes to Vegas and eats at the at Netflix Bites, please let me know. I'm very curious to hear all about it.

[Kameka McCoy]

That's all the juicy scoops that we've got for this week. Remind us one more time who we're going to have joining us as a guest this week.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, we have Tony Katzer, who's the CEO of IB Tech Lab, and we talk about all things identity with third party cookie, IP address and just what's going on in the programmatic landscape this year. So I thought it was a really interesting, hopefully insightful conversation and hopefully folks get a lot out of it. I know I did. There were some things that he had to say in there that surprised me with respect to his stance on cookies and Google and Chrome's user consent mechanism that I think may surprise some folks as well.

[Kameka McCoy]

Perfect. Onward and upward in 2025.

[Tim Peterson]

Absolutely.

[Tony Katzer]

Thank.

[Tim Peterson]

Discover Digiday Streaming and Video Awards, formerly the Digiday Video and TV Awards and its new categories including Best Interactive Video Experience, Best Sustainable Production Initiative and more. Recognize your team's hard work in modernizing streaming and video through your company campaigns and technology. Learn more about this program and discover more of this year's categories and past winning campaigns from PlayStation, Roku and [e-mail] DSVA Tony, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining us.

[Tony Katzer]

Thank you, Tim.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, so wanted to have you on because IAB has the annual leadership meeting which this episode will be coming out right when that meeting is wrapping up. So that's, you know, we're speaking the Wednesday before that and I'm looking forward to ALM this year in particular. I look forward to it each year because it's a good it's kind of like ces, but specifically for Programmatic on just get in a room with a bunch of folks and figure out what the hell is going on in Programmatic. I feel like I need that more than ever right now because most of last year, the first half of last year I was kind of operating. A lot of us at Digilay were operating under the principle of like okay, 2025. That's kind of when the calendar turns into the post cookie world. It feels like I know this is putting it too strongly. It feels like the idea of a post cookie future is kind of dead at the moment. Like that there was just a Thanos snap and Google decided actually we're not going to deprecate third party cookies fully in Chrome. And not only that, we're actually going to say a little Christmas present for everyone for fingerprinting's okay. IP address tracking is okay. Help me to understand to what extent everything on the kind of like privacy forward identity front hasn't been rolled back. Because it feels that way from my end.

[Tony Katzer]

I don't know if things have been rolled back per se. I still think the cookie. I think the cookie has a temporary stay of execution, if you will. I think it's Google clearly is bound by their commitments to the competition of markets authority in the uk. So I think they're working through that. I don't speak for Google, I can't speak for Google, but I think they're working through that with the cma. And look, working with government regulators is hard, it's not easy. So I don't think the cookie is long for this industry. The good news is that it's given the industry time to move on from it and look at alternative forms of addressability and identity.

[Tim Peterson]

But is the industry actually moving on? Because the industry's had four years, five years at this point to move on?

[Tony Katzer]

I think the industry. That's a great comment. I think the industry now has contingencies in place. Have they moved on from the cookie? Hell no. As long as the third party cookie is alive and kicking, the industry will continue to leverage that interoperable token between providers. They're still very active use of the cookie. However, the more companies I speak with, the more of them have contingency plans in place or end or testing other solutions, other approaches to identity. So it's given the industry time to kick the tires on other approaches. Which when, and I really believe it's when the third party cookie is effectively deprecated, the industry will have alternatives.

[Tim Peterson]

Is it going to actually be deprecated? Because I know Google's been wonderfully vague with what exactly this user choice consent mechanism is going to be in Chrome, but it seems like the conventional wisdom is I'm going to open up Chrome and either at, you know, the browser startup point or on the individual domain level, but at some point I'm going to get a pop up saying, hey Tim, there are these things called third party cookies. Are you cool with them being on? If so, click yes, if not, click no. And they're either going to be enabled by default or disabled by default. All of that is very unclear and very important to get some clarity on for the industry sooner than later. But that still means I and others would be able to say, cookies sound great, I love cookies, I'm going to enable them. And then we could get into this world in which like you were saying, about as long as third party cookies are around, there are going to be advertisers who cling to it that just like you don't have third party cookies in Safari and Firefox, but you do in Chrome. So people cling to it in Chrome that then people just cling to it in a subset of Chrome.

[Tony Katzer]

Yeah, I think that is possible. The question is, and we don't know the answer to this is whatever Chrome decides to release again in partnership with the cma, they're working closely with the CMA on whatever this new consent based approach is, which is again why I don't think we have clarity on it because they're working with a government regulator to get something like this out, which again takes time. Yeah, I think it's going to depend on what the opt out rate is. So how is it messaged to the consumer, which I think the CMA again working closely with Google on that messaging, is it messaged to the consumer in a way that is neutral, doesn't exhibit any dark patterns? It's very clear what the consumer is either opting into or opting out of. I think we'll have to see what that consent rate looks like. If there's wild amounts of opt in then yeah, the third party cookie in the Chrome ecosystem is probably alive and well. If there's wild amount of opt out then the cookie, like if there's no critical mass around the third party cookie then it is effectively dead. Even if it lives on in some small percentage, we don't know how that's going to shake out. Right.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah. To what extent are you all at IB Tech Lab able to participate in this process or have kind of a communication bridge to Google and figuring out how things are going to go?

[Tony Katzer]

We haven't, we haven't engaged with Google on this new, on this new phase that's, they're, they're working that out with the CMA is my, it's my understanding we have spoken with the cma. The CMA has reached out to the Tech Lab and asked for our perspective on this. So in that sense we've engaged, we've engaged with the CMA and giving feedback in terms of how we believe it should play out.

[Tim Peterson]

And what's that feedback?

[Tony Katzer]

My concern with having another consent dialog box or another consent pop up to the consumer is that I think we risk confusing the consumer. You go to myriad websites, even US based sites and you're now getting accept cookie pop ups. So if that pops up and I've consented to publisher A, but then I'm getting another pop up in the browser asking me do I consent to the use of third party cookies. I don't think your average consumer is going to understand what to like what did I just opt into or what did I just opt out of over here? But what am I opting into over here? Like why am I getting multiple messages either from my Browser or from the publisher. I'm confused. Like the average consumer is not going to understand that. My concern with this approach is that it's just ultimately going to confuse the consumer, which leads to a frustrated consumer, which isn't healthy for the ecosystem because now they're just frustrated by this whole process.

[Tim Peterson]

Right. Like how many Now I'm getting pop ups, but they're different kind of. They're not punch the monkey ads.

[Tony Katzer]

And now I'm getting another pop up from my browser. Like, wait a minute, I just opted in over here. I just opted out. Why am I getting. Why am I getting asked again? Right. So that was our feedback to the CMA is like we're just concerned about how is that going to be positioned to the consumer. And all credit to Chrome. Chrome already has very robust privacy controls in their preferences and it's one click deep. You don't have to go deep into Chrome to manage your cookie settings. So again, it's not like the privacy components of the Chrome browser are hidden within the preferences of Chrome. They're a click away to get to. So our feedback has been don't confuse the consumer. And what could possibly manifest itself in some form of consent dialogue box at the browser level that the consumer doesn't already have access to one click away. And if it was really a concern of the consumer, they're a click away from modifying their privacy preferences.

[Tim Peterson]

So would you prefer there not being kind of like that initial consent mechanism like an Apple att but within Chrome?

[Tony Katzer]

My preference would be that yeah, there is not a consent mechanism. I mean, my candid feedback is that the third party cookie shouldn't go away at all.

[Tim Peterson]

Oh, why is that?

[Tony Katzer]

Because it supported interoperability between vendors and browsers for 25 years. The cookie in and of itself is not the bad actor. Bad actors that abuse the use of the cookie and that don't adhere to consumer privacy law and abuse the cookie to that extent. That's the problem. Blaming the cookie is like blaming the car for the drunk driving accident. It wasn't the car, it was the driver. And I think we're blaming the car in this case. The cookie didn't do anything wrong. Bad actors in our industry abuse the use of the cookie. So I would rather see stiffer penalties for bad actors than destroy a token that has supported interoperability across the web for 30 years.

[Tim Peterson]

But I guess the challenge then there is the enforcement side of that. Like if third party cookies go stays and it's just about penalizing the bad actors, then you need organizations to be able to go out and find those bad actors, levy the penalties and ensure that adherence is covered.

[Tony Katzer]

Absolutely, yeah.

[Tim Peterson]

Who would be doing that then?

[Tony Katzer]

State and federal governments across the globe. I'd like to see because there's going.

[Tim Peterson]

To be so much money available for that with this new administration in the.

[Tony Katzer]

U.S. well, I don't.

[Tim Peterson]

Well look, but I feel like Doge won't like that.

[Tony Katzer]

Regardless of the federal administration, states are taking action. I mean we closed last year with 20 state privacy laws on the books. And as of this morning, I'm hearing Massachusetts now has something on the floor. State of Arkansas has something on the floor. Maine, New York, we're gonna probably end this year with close to 30, 35 new privacy laws on the books. So whether the federal government is taking action and there's a federal privacy law, which I still think that still to me feels a few years out, I think the states are taking action. I mean look at all the work California's done. Look at all the work state of Connecticut has done. Look at what Utah and Colorado. So states are being very proactive here and California's already proven they will enforce. So there's, there's room and opportunity to enforce this at various state capitals for sure. GDPR has been enforced. There's been enforcement of GDPR in Ireland and other jurisdictions across Europe. So there's been enforcement. I would like to see more stringent enforcement. I'd like to see stiffer penalties for those that abuse consumer privacy or don't honor consumer privacy.

[Tim Peterson]

Okay, got it. Yeah, because I mean, I guess that also then kind of brings us back to Google's other announcement. Towards the end of the year of fingerprinting starting next month will be just fine by Google. The use of IP address for tracking and targeting just okay. A lot of people not psyched about, I'm not psyched about that because this is data that I can't really control companies being able to access and tie together. But I believe you've said I think this is an ad exchanger about Google's fingerprinting u turn this update provides opportunities for the ad ecosystem to deliver better consumer experiences while mitigating privacy risks. And Google made a similar point of like fingerprint effectively fingerprinting is okay now because privacy enhancing technologies exist and have developed enough to be able to do fingerprinting without it being invasive. I just haven't understood how that's the case.

[Tony Katzer]

Well, I think there's a couple of things unpack there. I think the industry conflated the ability to target The IP address with fingerprinting is now okay, by the way, let's just back up. I've asked this question at Tech Lab events and other events over the past several years. Can anyone give me a definition of fingerprinting? Invariably, I'll either get no definition or I'll get 15 different definitions of what fingerprinting is. I think there's an open question of what is a fingerprint? What does it mean to fingerprint in the industry?

[Tim Peterson]

Isn't it just profiling based on disparate pieces of information? Kind of like, I think I did a video on this years ago. But the idea was, okay, if I know you have a beard and short cropped hair and are a white guy and I see someone who kind of fits those features on the street, I may guess, oh, there's Tony down there. Because I may have also similar context of, well, I know Tony's in the vicinity. Like if I see you at ALM or from across the room, I may guess that it's you without actually having to see your face, let alone go up to you and say, hi, Tony, is that you? Can you confirm for me that's the case? That's fingerprinting, right?

[Tony Katzer]

Well, that could be one definition of fingerprinting where you're taking multiple signals at a device level, household level, or. Well, if you have a consumer login, you don't really need to fingerprint because you probably have an email address, right? You're taking various technical signals and effectively building this digital profile at a device or household level, the IP address. So let's just say that's the definition of fingerprinting. I think if we were to. And again, maybe first time ever on this podcast, we have now given a high level definition of what a digital fingerprint is. Now let's take the next step of that. How the use of IP address for targeting purposes was conflated to supporting fingerprinting, I think was a big leap that was made by a lot of folks. And I think it's the wrong leap. I think it's incorrect. I don't need IP address to fingerprint. Right. With enough entropy, just basic data science. With enough entropy. If I see certain signal enough from a given device or household enough times, right? And this is just hard data science. This isn't something particular to our industry, to the digital advertising industry. If I see that signal enough, that starts to create what we call surface area to start to build some digital signature on that consumer that can be HTTP header information, that could be other information that is captured Is either contextual based on the content they're watching. If there's a device ID involved, there could be a device id. At no point did I mention anything about an IP address. Now an IP address gives you, one could argue, IP addresses are more deterministic to some extent.

[Tim Peterson]

And to connect different devices.

[Tony Katzer]

Right, and connect different devices, especially the.

[Tim Peterson]

Connected TV device, certainly at a household level.

[Tony Katzer]

Right. The IP address can remain fairly static depending on how your home router is set up. Right. Because everything effectively gets natted right at the router. So for your listeners network address translation, you're getting a single IP address from the home router. So what natting is, is all your IP addresses behind the router have all distinct IP addresses because that's how you route the TCPI response back to the appropriate device. But then that gets mapped to one IP address that comes out of the router. So how that turns into fingerprinting. I don't need an IP address to fingerprint. You don't like again, enough entropy. If I see a signal enough times, screen resolution, operating system version, browser version, I mean there's a number of things that if I see that enough times I can be like, oh, I'm pretty sure that's the same device for same household. Right. IP address doesn't factor into that. What I thought was good about them supporting IP address specifically is that that is heavily used for frequency and reach management on ctv. And with that gone and the loss of device id and if you're not a logged in user, that leads to a pretty crappy television experience. If you're going to see the same brand, the same exact ad a dozen times, 15 times through the same program like we are, I think the early.

[Tim Peterson]

Years, like is currently the case though.

[Tony Katzer]

Right?

[Kameka McCoy]

Right.

[Tony Katzer]

But that is currently the case even.

[Tim Peterson]

Though IP address is available. Like that's kind of where I'm getting at with that is like, yes, if IP address wasn't currently available and we were having these frequency issues on streaming, then sure, I totally way more open to your point. But IP address has been available, has been pretty widely used in connected TV and yet I'm still seeing the same pharma ads four or five times when I'm watching Poker Face on Peacock. That's a very real recent example.

[Tony Katzer]

But yeah, sure. Now part of that is part of that is a function of liquidity versus demand. Right. So part of that is a function of just the elasticity of perhaps either that market, that program or the ctv. The fragmentation of CTV in and of itself, removing the IP address exacerbates that problem. So when there is equilibrium, and I don't think, I don't think we're at a point of equilibrium where the demand has caught up with the CTV supply. Which is why, which is why you're seeing that same pharma ad six, seven times during a program because there's not enough demand competing with it. Like, there's still, I think, a lot of blue ocean in the CTV ecosystem in terms of, like, there's a lot of great inventory out there that's just not being monetized yet. And I think we see the trends of where that's going long term. Remove the IP address that exacerbates that. Like now you, you can't have cap or manage reach at all across the CTV ecosystem because a lot of his IP address targeted. So that's why when we chatted with Google, I was like, this is great because it's going to enable the ability for people to actually manage FCAPs, manage reach across CTV without annoying the consumer with those 6, 7 formats. Again, as equilibrium between the demand profile and the actual supply footprint as that equilibrium is achieved over the next three, five years.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, and I get your point. That IP address makes things like frequency management easier and can facilitate it, but it doesn't have to be the. I mean, not to shill for IAB Tech Lab, but you all have the Ad Creative ID framework and part of what that's designed to do is to help with frequency management at the Ad creative level where you can, you know, Peacock, Hulu, all the others can be using the same ad ID to say, oh, okay, this ad's been served 12 times today to Tim Peterson's household. Let's kind of knock that off. Having the IP address still around, and not only still around, but kind of validated in some respects, seems like it would mitigate the urgency to adopt your Ad Creative ID framework.

[Tony Katzer]

I think, again, I think it's. Adoption doesn't happen overnight. So do we eventually, five years from now, if the ad creative ID framework and solutions like ad ID here in the US and Clearcast in the UK, and there's, at last count, there's about 18 different ad creative ID registries globally that we've researched that we're looking to integrate into The Ad Creative ID framework eventually, once there is broad adoption of those IDs, ADID, Clearcast, the others. Yeah, that probably diminishes the need for the IP address.

[Tim Peterson]

But isn't it a chicken or the egg kind of thing?

[Tony Katzer]

Oh, it totally is. It's completely chicken and the egg kind of thing. It's a question of. Look, AD ID is not. The reason we created ASIF was to facilitate the adoption of these registries and use things like Ad id, use things like Clearcast and other creative identifiers. It's not as broadly adopted as we would like it to be. So until then, you've got to live on the IP address. I'd love to see broad adoption of ASIF and Add ID and Clearcast and others globally, because that would, that would be a strong alternative to use IP address for CTV targeting. Until then. Just like the cookie, right? Until then.

[Tim Peterson]

Well, that's kind of, I think a lot of my frustration right now is it seems the sticks are being taken off the table and there's hope that people will bite at the carrot, but it seems like people don't have the hunger to bite at the carrot because they're still munching on cookies to stick with the food analogies there. In the same case with the IP address here, the industry has just been very, you know this better than I do, very slow to adopt new technologies like seller defined audiences, for example. You guys have been trying to push seller defined audiences. Wasn't getting the adoption that you. It was getting some adoption, but it wasn't getting the adoption that you hoped. But then this curation trend bubbles up and really comes to a head last year to the point where you all realize, okay, maybe we just rebrand seller defined audiences as curated audiences and maybe that'll get us the adoption because we're just using the right buzzword now.

[Tony Katzer]

Yeah, well, I mean, it's more than just a rebrand. It's about stitching together existing standards and enhancing those standards to create a curation framework, like solving for the use case across multiple standards. Because the more I talked to people in the industry about curation and the more I was reading on social media, I was like, wait a second, there's already tools and frameworks and standards in place to support these concepts of curation. We just need to stitch those together in a way that it's easy for the industry to understand and digest. I do think we had a misstep with calling it seller defined audiences. We talked to several folks on the buy side, agencies and a few brands, and they're like, wait, I want to define the audience. Why is the seller defining the audience? I'm like, that's a good point. You're either going to curate the audience in partnership with the media company or the media company will curate something and run it past you and be like, do you think this is a valid new homeowner or a valid new parent or whatever the audience may be. So that was part of the reason for the rebrand. But we're not like, oh, seller finance is now curated audiences and profit. That wasn't our thinking. We were like, we need to start packaging our standards up into frameworks that address specific use cases. Curation felt like a low hanging fruit opportunity and it still remains a pretty hot topic even now. It felt like an opportunity for us to do that. But you are right. There is this ebb and flow or this give and take sitting where we sit at the tech lab, which can be frustrating at times. It's like, well the IP address is still here. And because that's still here, what's the adoption of ASIF and Add ID and Clearcast and others really going to be? Because I've got the IP address to lean on. The flip side of that is, well, the third party cookie is still here. What is the adoption of other solutions like Idless, Pets enabled, Cohort and Lookalike models. Because everyone's like, well I'm going to make hey, while the sun shines the cookies here. It's easy, it works. I can attribute it. My systems are set up to process it. And that's the frustration that frankly we always deal with at the tech lab. It's just like we see where the industry's going but you're still hooked on this old way of doing things and that's still there. It's just these things play out, I think over years, not months or even a single year.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, or maybe even a decade or a lifetime. Seems at this point because you all put out the ID solutions guide, I was going through that. A lot of it makes a lot of sense and also dovetails with again what I was expecting to be this post cookie future. But then as I was going through it I was just like, well with third party cookie still kind of being around again, as you made the valid point, we don't know to what extent third party cookie will still be supported once this user choice mechanism rolls out. But then especially with IP address being around and the importance of IP address when it comes to ctv, how much does that really just dilute the need or hope for these ID list solutions? I have a hard time kind of seeing ID based solutions including IDs that are based on IP address and ID list solutions coexisting.

[Tony Katzer]

I think it's going to depend on where you fall in the supply chain. If you are a large, if you have a large amount of inventory. So big media company, major app provider, significant CTV player, you probably have some form of ID solution. If you are mid to long tail open web, mid to long tail ctv, mid to long tail app company, you're probably going leaning more towards an ID less solution. So lower fidelity because you may not be able to attract the number of logged in users that a larger company would be able to do. So I do think we're going to see a shakeout where there'll be ID based solutions, I think probably for the larger media companies or just the larger inventory owners. So it doesn't have to be a media company, it could be a commerce media platform, it could be an app provider, it could be a traditional media company publisher. I think you'll see a lot of identity based solutions live there. I think others will be more ID less. So I think you're going to see this. I think we'll see the shakeout over the next decade. I do think it's about a decade where you'll see that. I think you'll start to see that kind of split out like oil and water.

[Tim Peterson]

Okay. So any hope that I had had of going to ALM and the industry's identity picture coming into crystal clear view, I should just disabuse myself of that notion now.

[Tony Katzer]

Yes, I would completely disabuse yourself of that notion because again, these are glacial changes. Tim, do you remember how many years it was the year of mobile until it actually was the year of mobile? It was the year of mobile from 1999 until I think the actual year of mobile crossed over was 2019. So it was the year of mobile for like 15 years. And I think that, I think we're looking at, I think we're looking at that in our industry as well. It will be the year of new identity solutions, the year of idless for the next, I think the next decade. I think this is a 10 year, I think this is a 10 year trajectory we're on and I think it's a combination of regulatory forces, big tech, machinations of big tech is what I think is going to drive this.

[Tim Peterson]

Okay, all right. Well, it'll give you and I things to be talking about for a decade now. So I'll have to track that focus.

[Tony Katzer]

We mutually have our hands full for the next seven to 10 years.

[Tim Peterson]

I guess there's job security in that.

[Tony Katzer]

Exactly.

[Tim Peterson]

Tony, really enjoyed this conversation. Thanks for coming on the show, Tim.

[Tony Katzer]

Always a pleasure. Thank you. You do great work.

[Tim Peterson]

Really appreciate it.

[Tony Katzer]

Thank you so much.

[Tim Peterson]

Thank you. I appreciate that. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Digiday Podcast. If you enjoyed it, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening. Get more from Digiday with our daily newsletter sent out each weekday morning. Visit digiday.comnewsletters to sign up.