After four years of preparation, instead of canceling cookies, Google announced that it’s cancelling its deprecation of third party scripts in Chrome which would have prevented them from running without user intervention. This was always a controversial move by the biggest player (by orders of magnitude) in online advertising and tracking. Their replacement solution, called Privacy Sandbox, would have mostly served… you guessed it: Google. Not competitors, and not the entire advertising ecosystem.

Advertisers worldwide were struggling to rush forward with cookie-independent ad targeting. Regulators were scrutinizing Google’s decisions and threatening oversight. On top of this, the timing was never right–both for Google and its customers traditionally dependent on third party scripts for tracking.

What will Google’s decision mean for you? While Chrome will continue to run third-party scripts, it’s critical to remember that lesser-used browsers now block them by default, specifically Firefox and Safari. Increasingly, users on mobile and desktop alike use plugins or other software settings to block tracking. We estimate that about 20 to 30 percent of your site visitors aren’t being tracked. This will increase. So get ready.

For measurement, the future is first-party. This is where your own domain delivers all tracking scripts. Data is captured and stored in your own reporting system that’s, preferably, not provided by a third party. Organizations should own their data in our opinion, and benefit from it. Sure, this means implementing first-party analytics instead of the much easier choice of outsourcing it to you-know-who. But the harder choice prepares your organization for the future, and provides better privacy protections to visitors.

For advertising, the future is uncertain. Cookie-powered programmatic marketing has already declined in efficacy for years. Placement with publishers and networks aligned with your target audience is returning as a strategy, but is overpriced. Our advice: keep building your first-party data for targeting. This has never been more important. Organizations investing the time and budget to do this will see long-term benefits.