Why do tracking cookies come back

When the user visits a website it might store some cookies to recognize the user in future visits. When you visit that website again, it will remember you from your last visit.

These cookies remember your preferences, language, login details, customize your browsing experience and display targeted ads. You visit a site, a third-party advertiser leaves a cookie on your browser. The cookie which contains a unique identifier will follow you around the web. Advertisers use the information collected via tracking cookies to serve users custom ads across the web and in their social media feeds. Third-party tracking cookies are set by advertising networks such as doubleclick.

Do Not Track is a web browser setting that enables users to opt-out of tracking by websites they do not visit. Google had announced that its Chrome browser will begin blocking cross-site tracking cookies and replace them with more privacy-conscious technologies.

The search engine has recently noted that it will extend its self imposed deadline of and will now look at for the phase-out.

The timeline had to be pushed as Google cited the need for sufficient time to experiment and figured out a technology to address the concerns of regulators, publishers, advertisers and users. Google launched its Privacy Sandbox initiative to find a solution that enables users to personalize or target web ads while still preserving privacy.

Advertisers will then target their ads to cohorts, rather than individual users. Hey, a quick question? Does your website use cookies that need prior consent? Scan your website for cookies and find out. No, Thanks. What are tracking cookies?

What are third-party tracking cookies? What information do tracking cookies collect? However, the problem with periodic deletion is that they will keep tracking you for the time they are on your system. This means all your activities will be tracked for a week. When you open a website, it asks for cookie permissions. If you deny that permission, the website will most likely not let you view its contents.

This beats the whole purpose of going online. So what should you do? We all know that when we go incognito, our browsing history is not recorded. When you close the session close the window of your browser , all the cookies that were stored in that session are cleared out. This means that even though you accepted the cookie declaration form, there will be no more stored cookies on your device.

And if you open the website again, it will forget that you ever visited and will display the cookie consent form once again. It does not save your browsing history, removes your cookies, and basically keeps you anonymous. Except for one little issue — you might forget to open the incognito window. We open a regular tab thinking it was an incognito tab and then forget about it.

Carry out the regular browsing and think we are safe from being tracked. But the regular browsing session saved everything. And now you have cookies. The solution? Something like Tor but maybe faster. Maybe something like Kingpin. It will simply detect and give you the option to remove the cookie again when it next scans your computer. It can be difficult to block a specific bad cookie from ever coming back onto your computer, but there are steps you can take to minimize your computer's exposure to tracking cookies.

You can go into your browser's privacy settings and disable third-party cookies, which will keep tracking services from installing their cookies on your computer through different websites. You can go further to block all cookies from your computer, but this will prevent websites from remembering you between visits and may prevent certain websites from working properly. You can also choose to use private browsing sessions in your browser, where your browser will delete all the cookies you accumulate at the end of your browsing session.

This will allow websites that require cookies to work properly but will still keep websites from remembering you between visits. Micah McDunnigan has been writing on politics and technology since Watch this video to learn more about how Unified Ad 2. These high-profile deals , particularly with vendors that are also the largest technical gateways to inventory, measurement and data for their clients, is necessary to achieve the industrywide collaboration vibe that TTD is going for.

The UID 2. Being an industry collaboration, it relies heavily on action from advertisers and publishers to make it work. Additionally, Unified ID 2. The Trade Desk has said it will eventually be administered by an independent entity, but it has yet to name one. Okay, there has been a lot of talk about the future, but cookie blocking is here today.

What can you do to replace the tracking cookie and still connect with your audience? Here are a few tactics that can help you break your cookie habit.

Contextual advertising is basically ads that are relevant to the other content on the screen. Think of it this way:. With behavioral targeting, someone like you may get ads for martech platforms, ad agencies and the like everywhere you go on the web.

With contextual targeting, the ads you see are based on the content you are looking at instead of your overall behavior profile. The move to contextual targeting will also mean a move back to focusing on producing and distributing relevant content. Content is the new cookie says the content marketer!

This is a bit easier said than done, though, as it will take more alignment between advertisers and publishers to make it work at scale. This article in Marketing Land outlines the four key steps publishers and advertisers need to take to executing this alternative to cookie-based behavioral targeting. The tools for contextual keyword advertising are available in Google AdSense, which allows you to place image, video, and text ads on the pages of participating sites online.

This article in Disruptive Advertising shows you how to get started with contextual advertising. They only see ads that are relevant to the content they are currently consuming, so they are more relevant and in turn, more likely to feel invited to the party. This is not to mention that cookies are device-specific, so when someone goes from their work computer to home or switches from desktop to mobile, or even switches between browsers on the same device, the retargeting trail goes cold.

It also causes trouble with suppression, so you also end up wasting money on retargeting people who already converted on their other devices. This is where people-based advertising comes and bridges the gap. Introduced to the marketing world by Facebook, people-based advertising relies on a unique identifier that is related to the user, not the device.

This data, combined with available first-party brand data, allows brands to target customers in real-time, across devices and channels.