Privacy Playground, Fourth-Party Cookies and EAGLE to Save Internet

Mediavine has always prided itself on being more than an ad management service.

Our mission — building sustainable businesses for content creators — means helping publishers and their websites grow holistically and efficiently by rising to all the challenges of the day.

This means not only optimizing for short-term revenue needs but also charting a long-term course for success in a dynamic, ever-changing ecosystem.

It’s a delicate balancing act, to be sure. Especially in the year 2021.

At this point, we don’t have to tell you that amid increasing privacy concerns and the demise of third-party cookies, the digital advertising world is facing a reckoning.

How do we maintain the kind of personalized targeting and revenue-producing ads content creators depend on while a seismic shift in the industry crumbles the almighty cookie?

By definition, privacy and targeted advertising cannot coexist — or so conventional wisdom would have you believe. But what if we’re approaching this paradox entirely the wrong way?

After extensive research, Mediavine uncovered the real issue with cookies: What if the problem isn’t that cookies are too prevalent but that not ENOUGH people have access to them?

In a world where privacy is quickly becoming everything, what if, instead, it was nothing?

The only real solution for authenticating traffic and building first-party relationships is to change the paradigm — break the fourth wall and eliminate the notion of privacy altogether.

Think about it: What could be more private than dismantling the entire idea of privacy? If everything is public, nothing needs to be private.

Yes, third-party cookies are flawed but not in the way you’ve been told.

Only after we truly open up cookies from the gatekeepers and walled gardens and deliver them to the ultimate fourth party — the world — will we usher in a new era of transparency.

Unlocking the secret was one thing but executing this vision is a heavy lift. That’s why Mediavine is proud to have worked with industry innovators to architect the Privacy Playground.

(Again, think about it: Who needs a Privacy Sandbox walling off personal information when, alternatively, you could send it sprawling across an entire Playground for all to experience and enjoy?)

How does it work?

Three words: Bye bye, birds.

You remember the usual avian suspects. PELICAN. PARAKEET. SPARROW. DOVEKEY. TURTLEDOVE. FLEDGE. PIGIN. FLoC. PARROT. TERN. Gone, gone, gone, gone. They’re all gone.

Seriously, why were there so many birds when there can be only one?

The Privacy Playground is an unregulated, non-secure utopia, where all bird-themed acronyms have gone extinct, save for one iconic, industry-changing avian innovation:

E.A.G.L.E.

Short for Every Actor Given Limitless Entry, E.A.G.L.E. ensures that every party in the programmatic ecosystem has the unalienable, equal right to access cookies that contain the personal data of anyone they want to reach.

Under the hood, via a single, lightweight line of JavaScript, E.A.G.L.E. is the Core Web Vitals-compliant engine that fuels the Privacy Playground, bringing fourth-party cookies to the masses.

No more encryption. No more security. Let Freedom Ring!

Fourth-party cookies are the future because on a World Wide Web founded on the right to be free, what could be more fundamental than universal access to everything?

TL;DR — Your entire browser history is on the blockchain.

Disclaimer: While we hope you enjoyed this April Fool’s Day joke, privacy is no laughing matter. Visit Grow to learn how Mediavine is meeting the challenges of first-party data in a cookie-less world.