What Is the New Facebook First Party Cookie Option?
Last week Facebook made an announcement that they would be debuting new Facebook first party cookie option for its advertising platform. This move follows in the footsteps of both Microsoft and Google and allows Facebook advertisers to once again use analytics from Apple’s Safari browser to measure and optimize their campaigns on the social network.
This move is in response to Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) which the web browser uses to limit third-party trackers from capturing cross-site data while using Safari. In the future, Apple plans to tighten up its ITP protocol call to limit third-party cookie storage from 24 hours to not at all, rendering them essentially ineffective. Mozilla, developer of the Firefox browser recently announced that they too will be taking a similar approach to blocking third-party cookies due to the increasing pressure from worldwide data protection regulations. Expect Google to follow in the footsteps of these other web browsers companies due to these increasingly strict data regulations.
How Does the Facebook First Party Cookie Option Work?
The change to Facebook First Party Cookie Option will automatically take effect on October 24 for anyone with a Facebook Ad account. However, users can opt out at any point by going into the Settings tab in the Events Manager, at the pixel level, and under the Measure and Report section of the Ads Manager. For users, privacy settings or control over ads will not change in the Ad Preferences section. Facebook is stressing that business still must disclose how they use cookie and share the data collected according to its business tool terms,
A Facebook spokesman described how the new Facebook pixel will work after the change takes effect:
“When someone clicks on an ad on a Facebook platform, the landing page URL will contain a unique string of code. If any pixels on the site that a user lands on are opted into sharing first-party cookie data with Facebook, the URL parameter will be written into the user’s browser as a first-party cookie. Opted-in advertisers’ pixels will then include the first-party cookie with all events sent to the social network.”
