Google’s SameSite Cookie Update: What Does it Mean for You?

As you may have heard by now, all chromium-based browsers (Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge) are changing how third party cookies work. This is very important for most if not all businesses as Chrome owns 70% of the browser market (aka your customers).

So what exactly is Google Changing?

The Chromium team is a leading market move from http to https to better secure the web and the privacy of people’s data. Cookies designed to share data between sites and services must have a specific setting (SameSite) and must be transmitted using https for your content and sites to work correctly. Chrome began rolling out Chromium cookies and security updates on February 18th, 2020.

Impact of the Changes

If a cookie configuration or https are incorrectly implemented:

  • Mixed-content pages will show errors
  • Third-party cookies will not exchange data between sites / services. This means page and audience tracking across all Marketing Automation Platforms (MAP) will be impacted
  • Features or services that rely on data exchange between sites/services may break

What You Need to Know and Do

  • Ensure you have an SSL certificate setup on your website and web assets
  • Ensure you have an SSL certificate setup for your MAP landing pages and content
  • All of your marketing and web assets should display https with a padlock icon to confirm they are secure
  • If the padlock is not displaying on any given page or asset, utilize tools like WhyNoPadlock to determine what exactly the issue is on the page

Once you have confirmed that your website and other marketing assets are all secure, you are in great shape for this update. Just ensure you have scheduled reminders in place for when you may need to renew your SSL certificates and make sure that you never hyperlink to content that isn’t secure going forward.