Safari and Firefox block third-party cookies. What now?

[darkxavier]

So Safari and Firefox now block third-party cookies. Many affiliate networks now use first-party cookies but many still use third-party cookies. For affiliate networks that provide affiliates will links that use third-party cookies is there a workaround for this? I seriously don't want to be reliant on third-party cookies if they're just going to be useless at getting commission for a significant portion of my traffic.

 

[Graybeard]

That's old news really. What is new is the SameSite= attribute in a cookie
Is setting Same-Site attribute of a cookie to lax the same as not setting the Same-Site attribute?

If you are using PHP --you need to upgrade to 7.3 to set this attribute in a cookie.

Cookie tracking keeps getting progressively worse.

The only sure way to track is to database referrals by an identifier. That's costly in IT and Server resources.

Slippage is what I call cookie or accounting failure that results in the slippage of a payment to a referring party (usually and 'affiliate'). No one is at fault when a client browser deletes your cookie -- too bad you lose -- been that way forever.
Return cookies fail a lot of the time -- guess who just puts that extra money in their pocket? Figure that into your cost of doing business. Or, into your tactics ... establish remarketing communication with your referrals --email, sms ...

 

[affiliateforever]

So trick is to use Video Player with scarcity and count down and the 75% off - all at the same ? And pray s/he got the email and opened it ?

 

[affiliateforever]

Or do only FB chat and SMS ?

 

[darkxavier]

I have to be honest, I don't really undestand what you two are talking about
I feel crushed, I feel like there are all these barriers in the way and I will never be able to make money with affiliate marketing and I should just quit now like I quit everything else.

 

[affiliateforever]

I have to be honest, I don't really undestand what you two are talking about
I feel crushed, I feel like there are all these barriers in the way and I will never be able to make money with affiliate marketing and I should just quit now like I quit everything else.

Why would you think we know what we're talking about just because we use some jargon ...

Graybeard was addressing your - browser blocks 3rd party cookie - concern.
So u understand cookies and browsers - right?

Do you know about pixels ? Fb pixels for example?

 

[affiliateforever]

Why would you think we know what we're talking about just because we use some jargon ...

Graybeard was addressing your - browser blocks 3rd party cookie - concern.
So u understand cookies and browsers - right?

Do you know about pixels ? Fb pixels for example?

I'm curious if the Fb pixel is blocked by the latest generation browsers.
Any answers ?

 

[Steve @ Voluum]

At first, these reports were giving me a feeling of uneasiness as well - after all, it seems tracking as we know and use it today might no longer be possible or limited in a very near future.

Since then, a fair amount of time, money and people have been (and will further be) invested into designing a new way of tracking at Voluum. Redirectless tracking is a natural development from direct tracking method but better and more complex. A campaign with redirectless tracking will be future-proof when it comes to browser vendors that are introducing tracking restrictions since it won't be using cookies, nor redirects.

It works like this: just like with the Direct Tracking Pixel, you put a script on a landing page, a visitor goes from an ad to a landing page directly, and the script reports a visit to Voluum. Then a visitor clicks a click URL, but (and this is the part where it works in a different way to DTP) it leads directly to an offer page. Not through Voluum, but again, directly. And this script reports it again. So a visitor goes from an ad through a landing page to an offer without any redirect (DTP redirect through Voluum after clicking a click URL).

It's still in beta but available upon a request. The results we see so far are very promising!


Karolina

 

[Graybeard]

Reject insecure SameSite=None cookies - Chrome Platform Status

Facebook's cookies label the secure attribute as true so they will continue to work. Unless a person is using an ad blocker

Adblock stops events.js (the facebook pixel script) from loading in my Firefox. That is 10% to 40% of all traffic (depending on the site's traffic).

Sort of hard to test without a specific click path and website with the facebook tracking script. A pixel that is a remote image would track BTW <img src="h ps://obscure.com/444/506838.png" width="3px" height="1px" >
** I failed to mention the 304 (cached) issue -- the image server has to be set with an expired cache ... good explanation HTTP Caching  |  Web Fundamentals  |  Google Developers

 

[darkxavier]

Thank you all for your replies but I am struggling to understand, I'm so not tech savvy, sorry.

Is there any way to do a sort of bypass so third-party cookies that are blocked no longer become blocked? Can one code a workaround on their website?

 

[Graybeard]

this is worth a read -- good explanation of this subject --was doing something else and this was included;
Cookies, document.cookie
>>>

Third-party cookies are traditionally used for tracking and ads services, due to their nature. They are bound to the originating domain, so ads.com can track the same user between different sites, if they all access it.

Naturally, some people don’t like being tracked, so browsers allow to disable such cookies.

Also, some modern browsers employ special policies for such cookies:

Safari does not allow third-party cookies at all.
Firefox comes with a “black list” of third-party domains where it blocks third-party cookies.

Please note:

If we load a script from a third-party domain, like <script src="https://google-analytics.com/analytics.js">, and that script uses document.cookie to set a cookie, then such cookie is not third-party.

If a script sets a cookie, then no matter where the script came from – the cookie belongs to the domain of the current webpage.
<<</quote

 

[darkxavier]

"When Apple announced the initial ITP it caused a wave of anxiety among ad tech vendors that rely on third-party cookie tracking and revenues were affected. But gradually companies adapted and a range of workarounds were created to help circumvent the issues. One such workaround was to store third-party cookies as first-party cookies. To close those loopholes, Apple has developed 2.1 to counter those workarounds.“It’s [ITP 2.1] become something of an arms race between the Apple webkit Safari developers and ad tech firms,” said Sam Vining, head of data and consultancy at iCrossing. “It [ITP 2.1] was a response to the response [to ITP 2.0.].”"
From an article I read, I can post the link because I'm still under 10 posts.

 

[darkxavier]

damn, I have Firefox too and of course seeing the same thing

 

[Graybeard]

Bypass is what way?
Cookies have rules and browser's have rules -- these things are carved in stone by the RFC (internet laws (so to speak)) and the developers of the browser in question (Chrome, Firefox, other) nothing you can do.

• If your offer tracks the referral by using a cookie -- if it not done correctly >>> you are screwed.
• If you are being paid for ad views then the views should be able to be tracked by the referring URL or account id without a cookie. User uniqueness for views is what might be cookie tracked -- if anything, you might as an advertiser over pay or as a publisher be overpaid -- if the cookie is not found.

In high volume visits are counted by the user's cookie. You can't (or normally don't) use a database to do this when there are a few billion events per day or similar ... the lookup time is too long and it would use huge server resources.

The only bypass is to use cookies that will work or not to use cookies at all.

 

[Graybeard]

Bad news guys ... Firefox 70.0 (64-bit)

connect.facebook.net=blocked
and googlesyndication = allowed