On February 4, 2020, Google will release Chrome version 80 which will make changes to improve the security of applications by treating cookies that do not specify the SameSite attribute as SameSite=Lax. The announcement can be seen here, https://blog.chromium.org/2019/10/developers-get-ready-for-new.html.
- Will ad delivery be interrupted by this change?
First, ad delivery will continue regardless of how 360 Match is used. First party delivery will be completely unaffected by this change. For example, if your site is www.company.com and the ad server is configured as ads.company.com then no change should be required.
2. I use the ad server on multiple sites with different domains, and the ad server is considered a third party on some of these. How will this affect me?
When the ad server is considered a third party, i.e. a different domain than the site itself, and you are not using user registration or state vector identifiers in ad requests, then you are relying upon a cookie the ad server sets in order to track impression limits and other data. Unless this cookie is marked as SameSite=None; Secure, it will no longer be transmitted by Chrome to the ad server while visiting your site, causing the ad server to generate a different identifier for the visitor that lacks any prior data stored under the old cookie value. If you use the ad server as a third party, you must use secure ad calls.
3. When will 360 Match support SameSite=None; Secure?
A configuration change will be rolled out on Monday, February 3 to add the ‘secure’ attribute to cookies generated by the ad server. A new configuration item will appear in the user interface during the upgrade Tues., Feb. 4 that will give you complete control over the cookie attributes, allowing you to set ‘SameSite=None; Secure’ yourself if desired, or a different setting if you so choose. An update to the ad server that supports the setting in the user interface will complete the rollout by Thursday, Feb. 6.
