Why Google's Fingerprinting Policy is Bad for Publishers
March 4, 2025
March 4, 2025
Effective February16, 2025, Google has lifted its ban on device fingerprinting in its ad products, marking a major reversal from its 2019 stance, when it condemned the practices as a method that "subverts user choice and is wrong."
Instead of enforcing a strict prohibition, Google is now placing compliance responsibility on advertisers. This shift aligns with its broader Privacy Sandbox initiative, which seeks to balance user privacy with the commercial needs of digital advertising. Several factors likely contributed to this change, including the delayed phase-out of third-party cookies and increasing competition from Apple’s stricter privacy policies.
While Google claims Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs) will help mitigate risks, details on their implementation remain unclear.
Fingerprinting is a method used to track users online by collecting information about their devices, such as screen resolution, installed fonts, and browser configurations. Unlike cookies, which users can delete or block, fingerprinting creates a persistent identifier that is much harder to avoid. This raises substantial privacy concerns, as users have little to no control over how they are tracked across the web.
Fingerprinting will operate at multiple levels of the advertising ecosystem, often without direct involvement from advertisers. The primary method is probabilistic matching, which combines hardware, software, and behavioural signals to generate unique user identifiers. Techniques include browser canvas rendering, WebGL fingerprinting, and cryptographic hashing, with accuracy rates typically between 90-99%, depending on factors like device changes and browser privacy settings.
While fingerprinting provides a powerful tool for identity resolution in a post-cookie world, it raises significant privacy concerns—many of which remain unresolved.
Google’s recent announcement that it will allow fingerprinting in advertising is a significant and concerning shift in the digital advertising landscape. While the company positions this move as a necessary step to improve ad targeting and measurement, the reality is that it could have severe consequences—especially for publishers who rely on digital advertising for revenue.
With fingerprinting becoming a widespread tracking method, more ad tech companies and advertisers will rely on this technique rather than working directly with publishers for audience data. This weakens publishers' ability to monetize their content effectively, as advertisers can track users independently without engaging with the publisher’s first-party data.
Google is already a dominant force in digital advertising, and this move further entrenches its control. By enabling fingerprinting, Google can gather even more granular user data, giving it an advantage over independent publishers. Smaller publishers will find it even harder to compete for ad dollars when Google can offer superior targeting capabilities across its vast ecosystem.
Fingerprinting is widely considered a more invasive tracking method than cookies. Regulators worldwide, particularly in the EU under GDPR and in California under CCPA, have already taken steps to limit such practices. By embracing fingerprinting, Google is putting publishers at risk of being caught in regulatory crackdowns. If users become more wary of how they are tracked, they may also adopt more aggressive ad-blocking measures, further reducing publishers' revenue.
Publishers have been investing heavily in first-party data strategies to reduce their dependence on third-party tracking. Fingerprinting undermines these efforts by allowing advertisers to track users without relying on publisher-provided data. This could erode the value of publishers’ own audience insights, making it harder for them to build sustainable advertising businesses.
Regulatory scrutiny of device fingerprinting is intensifying, casting doubt on its long-term viability. Compliance requirements vary significantly across global markets:
While fingerprinting offers an alternative tracking method, its legal standing remains uncertain:
With growing regulatory pressure, the future of fingerprinting remains unpredictable, raising critical questions for advertisers and platforms alike.
Rather than accepting this shift, publishers should push for stronger privacy protections and advocate for advertising solutions that respect user choice. Investing in privacy-focused ad models, such as contextual advertising and consent-based data collection, can help mitigate some of the risks posed by fingerprinting. Additionally, industry groups and regulators must scrutinize Google’s move and ensure that it does not lead to further monopolization of digital advertising.
Google’s decision to allow fingerprinting may benefit its bottom line, but for publishers, it’s a step in the wrong direction. If the digital ad ecosystem is to remain fair and competitive, fingerprinting should not become the industry standard—it should be challenged and restricted.
.png)