DIGITAL ROUNDUP

May 2025

Welcome to this month’s edition of the roundup to some core updates in the digital advertising industry.

NB: the following represents my own opinion & not that of my employer

Google abandons 3rd party cookie deprecation on Chrome

Google have declared that 3rd party cookies will no longer be deprecated on Chrome, sticking to its current setup.

(https://privacysandbox.com/news/privacy-sandbox-next-steps/)

DEEPDIVE

Google have abandoned their plans to deprecate 3rd party cookies on their browser Chrome or introducing some form of user prompt for opt in, instead reverting back to a space where 3rd party cookies may continue to exist. This brings some closure to a 6 year period where Chrome have attempted to remove 3rd party cookies under the oversight of the CMA / ICO regulators in the UK.

There are a couple of key points to consider here as per my LinkedIn reaction:

  • Antitrust cases in the US and soon to be UK / EU have put Google under significant pressure. We will cover the AdTech one shortly but the original Antitrust case in the US for Google’s dominance of the Online Search market may net out in the potentially selling of Chrome, to which the likes of OpenAI & Perplexity are watching with interest if Google are forced to sell Chrome.

  • Android and the mobile app side of things has been particularly quiet over the past few years. Google will have been paying close attention to what Apple are having to deal with as a consequence of what they did with the IDFA on iOS, the latest being a €162.4m fine by the French Competition watchdog.

  • Privacy Sandbox has been the subject of the CMA’s attention for a set of workarounds to provide advertising use cases without reliance on a 3rd party cookie. Whilst certain proposals have had significant pushback from the wider industry & the CMA themselves, the Privacy Sandbox was always meant to be more than just ads use cases, which we see from proposals like CHIPS & IP Protection moving forwards regardless of this updated news.

  • Chrome still blocks 3rd party cookies by default on Incognito browsing and on the creation of a new Chrome Profile unless you opt out. This has changed over the past few years so the theme that Chrome does not block 3rd party cookies at all is false.

Ultimately whilst the news of what Google’s plans were for 3rd party cookies has been eagerly anticipated, this should not really change the fact that 3rd party cookies are a flawed, inaccurate way of running effective paid advertising campaigns. Investing in privacy centric solutions alongside first party data remains critical for advertisers alike to stay ahead of an evolving ecosystem, where web based traffic isn’t necessarily the primary focus. The reality is that the large majority of advertisers & agencies are nowhere near evolving to this new world, either stuck in old habits or unable to convince the key stakeholders to pivot. If Chrome does end up being bought out, then the likelihood of 3rd party cookies shifting again is still quite possible but the mantra should be to continue to think about your wider media mix beyond just concentrating on Chrome.

Google lose AdTech antitrust case for open web advertising

Google have lost another antitrust case in the US, this time for adtech but primarily the publisher side of open web advertising.

(https://www.adexchanger.com/platforms/google-is-found-guilty-of-operating-an-ad-tech-monopoly/)

DEEPDIVE

A US federal case has found Google guilty of illegally building a monopoly power to fuel its web advertising business whilst violating antitrust laws, primarily on the publisher side through its adserver (DFP) and ad exchange (AdX), which unifies under the Google Ad Manager (GAM) SSP solution. This follows a separate ruling where Google was judged to be monopolising the Search advertising ecosystem, where the DOJ are seeking to make Google break up Chrome/Android. Google as expected have appealed this latest ruling.

The focus is primarily on the open web advertising ecosystem, where Google have leveraged their publisher adserver with a 91% marketshare in conjunction with their ad exchange to gain a significant advantage over their competitors, which has now fallen subject to breaching antitrust laws. Solutions within GAM such as First Look, Last Look & Unified Pricing Rules meant publishers were forced into leveraging Google’s solutions to maximise revenue through Google Ads, which in turn meant Google could take a higher take rate for their services.

From the buy-side perspective, there was no specific fallout as it relates to Google’s buy side platforms in Google Ads or DV360. So do not expect any large changes into how these platforms operates, specifically with relation to the access to YouTube inventory which for now is still only accessible via a Google platform. However depending on the nature of the fallout to the publisher / supply side, the role of GAM and AdX as the largest SSP globally could have implications on how inventory / features is made available into Google Ads / DV360. Specifically this could spell some danger to a lot of the ad features like Customer Match which predominantly operate only on GAM inventory.

It remains to be seen who the true winners are, but the independent publisher ad exchange & ad server market would be a prime candidate to benefit from any drop in marketshare from Google’s end.
As for the who ends up losing out, aside from Google, publishers themselves may be having to figure out what they can / cannot do without a Google powered tech stack, in order to futureproof their revenue. Especially smaller publishers here. Initiatives from competitors such as Magnite’s ClearLine or TTD’s OpenPath may prove more lucrative. However the crosswinds of user behaviour shifting towards apps / streaming / retail media  and the agentic future nature of Gen AI means that the ecosystem is already evolving.

OTHER KEY CALLOUTS

SOCIAL / SEARCH HIGHLIGHTS 📱

  • Google have launched a PMAX reporting open source solution via gTech (Github)

  • Apple will move Search Ads attribution to using SKAdNetwork v1 to 3 in a significant change (Apple)

  • Adobe have put out some analysis on the impact of GenAI on US retail website behaviour on Adobe Analytics (Adobe)

  • Meta have made a move for retail media budgets with new APIs and reporting, but has since been proven inaccurate by Meta (Adweek)

  • Google have made adjustments to search ads auctions specifically lower down the page (Google)

  • Apple and Meta have had new fines of €200m & €500m applied for DMA related cases in the EU (Europa)

  • Meta have started their global ads rollout on Threads, to be available for all advertisers in May (Meta)

PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS 🌐

  • TheTradeDesk are subject to 2 lawsuits for breaking US privacy laws in California (Adweek)

  • Deliveroo have launched their retail media network in the UK in partnership with SMG (Deliveroo)

  • PayPal have expanded their ad offering into the UK (Adweek)

  • Bauer Media have acquired Clear Channel Europe-North, to expand into DOOH as Bauer Media Outdoor (Bauer)

  • CM360 will soon bring back attribution reporting including better path to conversion & assisted conversions (Google)

  • Spotify have formally launched their ad exchange partnering with leading SSPs & DSPs (Spotify)

  • WeAre8 have launched a programmatic solution in partnership with Magnite (MediaLeader)

IDENTITY HIGHLIGHTS 🆔

  • Data Protection Commission in the EU have launched an enquiry into X’s Grok Gen AI solution for training on personal data in EU/EEA (DPC)

  • Google ran their annual data protection forum in EMEA, concentrating on ads (Google)

  • WPP have announced their acquisition of InfoSum as the largest independent data clean room (WPP)

  • Apple have added support to Safari to a Google Privacy Sandbox solution CHIPS for partitioned access to 3rd party cookies (Apple)

  • Google have announced several new features for BigQuery at Google Cloud Next (Google)

  • Didomi have acquired AddingWell as a tag manager to incorporate into their CMP (Didomi)

  • ID5 and Index Exchange have announced a new partnership for addressability (ID5)

  • Mozilla and Anonym have announced a new Private Audience solution for ads (Mozilla)

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