Google Is Finally Killing Cookies. Advertisers Still Aren't Ready

Google is going forward with sweeping changes to how companies track users online moves that have been years in the making. Advertisers still aren't ready.

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The changes, among the biggest in the history of the $600 billion-a-year online ad industry, center on the use of cookies, technology that logs the activity of internet users across websites so that advertisers can target them with relevant ads.

Starting Thursday, Google will start a limited test that will restrict cookies for 1% of the people who use its Chrome browser, which is by far the world's most popular. By year's end, Google plans to eliminate cookies for all Chrome users.

Marketers, advertising technology companies and web publishers are working to ensure their businesses can weather the transition. They said Google, which has introduced software tools designed to help replace cookies, hasn't done enough to prepare the market.

The industry is now here ear-ready, said Anthony Katsur, chief executive of the IAB Tech Lab, an ad-tech industry trade group that is funded by its members including Google.

He said Google should give people more time to test its replacement technologies before eliminating cookies and that Google's planned timing for the full ban-near the crucial fourth-quarter advertising blitz-would be brutal for the industry.

"The timing remains poor Launching it during the industry's greatest revenue-generating part of the year is just a terrible decision," Katsur said.

Google executives said their efforts to eliminate cookies involved extensive collaboration with the internet ecosystem. Many in the advertising industry have urged Google to push ahead with the changes following previous delays in the process, they said.

Google's tools for replacing cookies are intended to help the industry meet business goals while respecting consumer privacy, they said. "We're confident in the ability for the industry to navigate the transition," said Anthony Chavez, a Google vice president overseeing the changes.