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

Remember when 2025 was supposed to be the first official year of the post-cookie era? Well, clearly that hasn’t happened and seems unlikely to happen anytime soon. And it certainly won’t happen until sometime after Google introduces its user choice mechanism in Chrome for people to allow or block third-party cookies.

“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 [a] wild amount of opt-out, 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 just — we don’t know how that’s going to shake out,” said Anthony Katsur, CEO of IAB Tech Lab, in the latest Digiday Podcast episode, which was recorded on the eve of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Annual Leadership Meeting in Palm Springs, Calif., which concludes on Jan. 28.

If Katsur had his way, though, the third-party cookie wouldn’t be on the chopping block in the first place. Moreover, other technologies like the IP address would continue to be available to be used for identifying audiences and tracking them across devices. At least until more inherently privacy-friendly identity options gain adoption.

But it may be a while before the digital advertising industry’s post-cookie identity picture really comes into focus.

“It will be the year of identity solutions, the year of ID-less [solutions] for, I think, the next decade. I think this is a 10-year trajectory we’re on. And I think it’s a combination of regulatory forces, machinations of Big Tech is what I think is going to drive this,” Katsur said.

Interview begins at 13:52.