LiveIntent Blog
  • Solutions
    • Advertiser solutions
      Discover a new advertising channel for powering profitable growth.
    • Publisher solutions
      Maximize the revenue generated across email and web inventory
    • Identity data solutions
      Build stronger connections with addressable audiences everywhere.
  • Identity framework
  • Case studies
  • Company
    • Our story
      Learn more about us, our mission, vision, and the people behind it all.
    • Careers
      Grow and develop personally and professionally at LiveIntent.
    • Press
      Read up on how LiveIntent is innovating the digital ecosystem.
    • Events
      Check out our upcoming events and stay up-to-date with all things martech.
  • Resources
    • LiveIntent Library
      Learn how to harness the power of email with our eBooks, guides, and reports.
    • Blog
      Explore martech topics, strategies, and tactics with fun, insightful content.
    • Knowledge base
      Get answers to all your pressing product related questions.
    • Brand assets
      Everything you need to know about the LiveIntent brand all in one place.
Contact Us
LiveIntent Blog
  • Solutions
    • Advertiser solutions
      Discover a new advertising channel for powering profitable growth.
    • Publisher solutions
      Maximize the revenue generated across email and web inventory
    • Identity data solutions
      Build stronger connections with addressable audiences everywhere.
  • Identity framework
  • Case studies
  • Company
    • Our story
      Learn more about us, our mission, vision, and the people behind it all.
    • Careers
      Grow and develop personally and professionally at LiveIntent.
    • Press
      Read up on how LiveIntent is innovating the digital ecosystem.
    • Events
      Check out our upcoming events and stay up-to-date with all things martech.
  • Resources
    • LiveIntent Library
      Learn how to harness the power of email with our eBooks, guides, and reports.
    • Blog
      Explore martech topics, strategies, and tactics with fun, insightful content.
    • Knowledge base
      Get answers to all your pressing product related questions.
    • Brand assets
      Everything you need to know about the LiveIntent brand all in one place.
Log in Contact Us
  • Blog Homepage
  • Programmatic Advertising
  • Email Monetization
  • Identity Resolution
  • LiveIntent Culture
  • Real Time Banter
  • LiveIntentional
  • Subscribe

3 new insights from the inventor of website cookies

    • Identity Resolution
  • September 6, 2022
Victoria de Leon
Director, content marketing

Have you ever wondered what the inventor of website cookies thinks of his creation today — 28 years later? Or, better yet, what his favorite actual cookie is? (Spoiler: It’s oatmeal chocolate chip.)

Well, your questions have been answered.

Lou Montulli, who invented website cookies in 1994 while working at Netscape, recently participated in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) session. And he got candid about everything from privacy concerns and regrets to data protection and the importance of first-party targeting.

These insights are especially vital as publishers and brands prepare for the depreciation of the third-party cookie, which will change identity and addressability as we know it.

So, what did Montulli have to say about the past, future, and present of website cookies?

Let’s take a look.

Cookies have been exploited to track customers

Reddit user sf-keto asked: “Do you have any regrets about what the tracking system built on cookies became?”

Montulli responded with his main concern: Cookies were actually designed to explicitly avoid tracking. He made them to help individual websites better remember their visitors — like if they had items in their shopping carts — but they weren’t meant to track and target customers with ads across the web. He even wrote in a 2013 blog post: “I am not comfortable with being tracked across the web by Cookies.”

So, if Montulli had to redesign cookies today, he said, “The base design would be the same, but third-party cookies would have been scoped to a combination of the first party and third party so that they could not be exploited in the way that they are today.”

First-party cookies don’t have privacy concerns

Thankfully, an antidote to third-party tracking has emerged to help businesses better serve ads and protect customer privacy: first-party data.

As Montulli said: “First-party cookies do not have any privacy concerns that I know of […] I would agree with those who say third-party cookies can be a breach of privacy, but I would also point out that since 1996 there have been mechanisms in place to turn off or control the use of third-party cookies exactly for that reason.”

The problem with turning off those cookies is that it prevents businesses from learning about their customers and reaching them with relevant content. That’s why brands and publishers are turning to first-party data to deliver safer, more effective, and more user-friendly ad experiences.

Website “cookies” were named after fortune cookies

We’ve been subject to — and responsible for — endless third-party cookie puns like “as the cookie crumbles” and “Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?” And for good reason! Website cookies were actually named after fortune cookies — because, as Montulli put it, they’re “a message wrapped in a container.”

He said: “The name ‘cookies’ comes from a software trick from an old operating systems manual I read a few years earlier, a technique for passing information back and forth between the user and the system. For some reason, the small piece of data exchanged had been called a ‘magic cookie.'”

Montulli used that model to build out his own idea for a web-based cookie, which “would give the medium a sense of memory without compromising privacy.” Of course, we know how that part turned out. But even though the purpose of cookies was distorted, the name definitely stuck.

As third-party cookies continue to be phased out, publishers and brands can use first-party data to monetize their content, retarget customers, and improve identity and addressability across the web.

0
Tweet 0
Victoria de Leon
Director, content marketing

Must-Read Content

    • Identity Resolution

What is personalization and how to use it

  • Victoria de Leon
  • December 21, 2022
    • Identity Resolution

LiveIntent announces Identity Enrichment on Salesforce AppExchange, the world’s leading enterprise cloud marketplace

  • Adam Berkowitz
  • November 29, 2022
    • Identity Resolution

With great data comes great responsibility

  • Victoria de Leon
  • November 22, 2022
Learn more about Identity Resolution.
View Post
  • Identity Resolution

LiveIntent mentioned in the 2022 Gartner® Marketing Technology Vendor Essentials Guide

  • Adam Berkowitz
  • November 16, 2022
View Post
  • Identity Resolution

A year of Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection

  • Victoria de Leon
  • November 15, 2022
View Post
  • Identity Resolution

Single customer view: What is it and why does it matter?

  • Victoria de Leon
  • October 24, 2022
View Post
  • Identity Resolution

Customer segmentation: What is it and can identity resolution help?

  • Victoria de Leon
  • October 12, 2022
View Post
  • Identity Resolution

What’s an identity graph?

  • Renu Jinturkar
  • October 4, 2022
View Post
  • Identity Resolution

Identity resolution: Everything you need to know

  • Victoria de Leon
  • September 28, 2022
View Post
  • Identity Resolution

LiveIntent’s Identity Framework recognized as top 10 in the industry

  • Charlie Buckley
  • July 26, 2022
View Post
  • Identity Resolution

What’s second-party data?

  • Jessica Munoz
  • July 12, 2022
LiveIntent Blog
Think outside the inbox and discover all the innovative ways email can help you grow your business.
© LiveIntent 2022
  • Solutions
    • Advertiser solutions
    • People-Based audiences
    • Publisher solutions
    • Identity data solutions
    • Identity framework
  • Company
    • Our Story
    • Careers
    • Employee Resource Groups
    • Press
    • Events
    • Contact us
  • Resources
    • Case studies
    • Blog
    • Knowledge base
    • Brand assets
  • Legal
    • Powered by
    • Content policy
    • Website privacy policy
    • Services privacy policy
    • Do not sell my info
    • Ad choices
© LiveIntent 2022
Popular topics
  • People-Based Marketing
  • Meet-a-LiveIntenter
  • Email Revenue
  • Identity Graph
  • Subscriber Acquisition
  • First-Party Data
  • Direct-to-Consumer
  • Cookie Apocalypse