Chrome is Coming For Your IP Signals

By Susie Stulz and Andrew Byrd – AdMonsters Wrapper

Who’s That Creeping on Your IP Address? Chrome Introduces New IP Protection Feature

Say goodbye to tracking IP addresses on Chrome browsers and hello to stricter privacy guidelines. Google’s almighty hand is stripping away another industry standard as they prepare for a new IP Protection feature. The new feature will enhance user’s privacy by masking their IP addresses using proxy servers.

Traditionally, IP addresses allowed websites and online services to track a user’s online presence to create a consumer profile. It was a one-stop shop to understand a consumer’s online presence. However, this technique, like many digital media techniques before the privacy reckoning, allowed a big bad wolf to sneak into consumer’s digital homes.

Unlike third-party cookies, consumers do not have a direct way to evade covert tracking through IP addresses. So, how do consumers stop this big bad wolf from blowing down their digital homes and using their data without permission? For now, Google will implement its new IP Protection feature.

How Does IP Protection Work?

While websites can use IP addresses for tracking, they are also essential for crucial web functions such as directing traffic, preventing fraud, and performing vital network tasks. The IP Protection feature deals with this by directing third-party traffic from specific domains through proxies, rendering users’ IP addresses hidden from those domains.

The IP Protection feature description states, “Chrome is reintroducing a proposal to safeguard users from cross-site tracking through IP addresses. This proposal involves a privacy proxy anonymizing IP addresses for qualifying traffic, as outlined above.”

Why This Matters

But enough about those pesky consumers, right…just joking. How will this impact publishers?

Keith Petri, CEO of lockr, believes that Chrome’s foray into IP manipulation puts additional strain on the ecosystem and will undoubtedly impact publishers. The IP Protection feature targets vendors across the advertising industry, so it will not affect direct server calls on publishers’ infrastructure.

“However, it will impact the majority of third-party tools publishers utilize to manage their advertising business, including analytics, data management platforms, supply-side platforms, ad servers, and measurement companies,” said Petri.

This new brand of signal loss doesn’t extinguish all hope. Dan Rua, CEO of Admiral, said that any intelligent publisher is cultivating their first-party visitor relationships and data to compensate for the signal loss.

“Passive signals that avoid active consent are going the way of the Dodo bird,” says Rua. “You can’t flip a switch and immediately compensate for a lost signal or hope that Google will act in your best interest. It takes strategic decisions at the CEO/CRO level to prioritize visitor relationship management and consent-based data capture in 2024. It can start simply as email capture by default, but ultimately crosses departments and the entire visitor journey.”

Petri agrees that first-party relationships with consumers are the golden ticket to ensuring you don’t lose a large portion of your audience. Publishers can incentivize users to log in if they establish a clear value proposition and a healthy, consented relationship with consumers. Petri adds, “First-party, authenticated and consented users allow for the ability to clearly identify audiences across properties and devices, to profile and target, attribute, and re-engage.”

View the original article in AdMonsters Wrapper.