[Prisa Media] Domain limitations in FPS

[nlozanoarguelles]

Hello,
I am the Data Director of Prisa Media, one of the largest media groups providing Spanish-speaking content. Our group consists of over 20 individual brands, each with its own specific domain. Our primary goal is to build a seamless cross-brand experience for our users, allowing them to effortlessly access and engage with content across our various brands.
However, the current proposal to enable first party cookies across multiple domains through the First Party Sets, which limits this feature to a maximum of three domains, poses a significant challenge to achieving this seamless cross-brand experience. With the deprecation of third-party cookies, tracking user preferences and facilitating cross-domain logged-in experiences will be significantly hindered, as over 90% of our traffic comes from anonymous users.
Restricting the number of domains that can share first-party cookies to three favors organizations that either have one large brand or have adopted a subdomain strategy. In our case, we have distinct vertical brands focused on different topics and formats (news, audio, video), and we prioritize brand recognition linked to content over the overarching Prisa Media brand message.
We propose that the feature should not limit the number of domains that can share first-party cookies. Instead, the focus should be on enabling a seamless cross-brand experience by validating and exemplifying how the feature will be used. Consideration could be given to limiting the names of cookies that are allowed to maintain value across domains, rather than restricting the number of domains themselves.
By removing the three-domain limit, First Party Sets would empower organizations like ours to provide a truly seamless user experience across multiple domains, benefitting both users and content providers.
We appreciate your attention to this matter and hope you will consider our proposal in support of seamless cross-brand experiences.
Best regards,
The Prisa Media Team

[brownwolf1355]

I agree with @nlozanoarguelles. There are many media groups that publish under numerous brands (much greater than 3), e.g., Gannette, Meredith, AdvanceLocal, American Cities Business Journal, etc. It seems like organizations with a large number of associatedSites could be highlighted and the community as a whole could review the validity of the FPS (e.g., confirm that it isn't collusion among a group of sites). This does raise the issue of how these kinds of circumstances are adjudicated if a fair and equitable manner.

[krgovind]

Thanks for sharing your feedback, @nlozanoarguelles. I have re-posted your comment to #93, since we are tracking feedback on the numeric limit in that issue.

Consideration could be given to limiting the names of cookies that are allowed to maintain value across domains, rather than restricting the number of domains themselves.

Regarding the restriction on the number of domains - note that First-Party Sets did not initially have the numeric limit; but we changed the proposal to have a limit (among other changes) based on community feedback. We explained the rationale for the changes here.

Could you clarify how restrictions on the names of cookies might help? I wonder if you're asking about limiting the amount of informational entropy shared across domains, as being discussed in #111?

[nlozanoarguelles]

From a security perspective I know that the cookie names would not be perfect since they could be "faked" by anyone, if I was suggesting that is because there are certain CMS or logging platform that have use their own cookie names that are well known across the internet and that their usage is directly linked to things like keeping the user session alive or storing the user preferences (as discussed in #111).
We would like to provide you with the following use cases that illustrate the importance of a seamless cross-brand experience from a publishing group perspective:

Preference/Consent selection:

Allowing users to set their preferences and consent choices across all domains within our media group ensures a consistent and transparent user experience. With a unified first-party cookie implementation, users' choices can be respected and maintained throughout their journey across our various brands without having to ask for it in every domain change.

Audience measurement:

In most of the markets we operate there is an industry measurement tool in order to measure audience size and engagement levels across the different publishing groups accurately. One of our market differenciators is the level of engagment from users (ratio of visits and time spent on site) and in order to measure this we need to be able to track user behavior across domains.

Analytics:

Cross-domain analytics are essential for understanding user behavior, identifying trends, and optimizing content across our brands. As part of our strategic vision we want to be able to position content produced by one of our brands in a different one to drive content discovery. By unifying first-party cookies across domains, we can gather more accurate and comprehensive data, leading to more informed decision-making and better user experiences, as well as take better decisions around where our newsrooms and studios should put their focus.

Continue listening/watching:

When users engage with audio or video content on one domain and move to another within our media group, it is crucial to provide a seamless experience by enabling them to continue listening or watching from where they left off. This requires the ability to share context and progress information across domains through first-party cookies.

Single sign-on:

A cross-domain single sign-on (SSO) experience allows users to log in to one of our brands and automatically be logged in to others. This provides a frictionless experience for users and encourages engagement across our various brands, which is not possible without the ability to share authentication context across domains.

Investment tracking for advertisers:

Advertisers quite often decide to launch campaigns across all of our network and they expect us to be able to track the performance of those campaigns so they can make informed decisions about their future investments. By enabling first-party cookies to be shared across domains, we can accurately measure the reach, frequency, and impact of their campaigns, leading to more effective advertising strategies, as well giving them the chance of deploying frequency cap and post-view strategies.

Affinity tracking:

Understanding user affinity towards specific topics or content types helps us provide more personalized and engaging experiences. By tracking user behavior across our multiple domains, we can identify patterns and trends that inform our content and marketing strategies, ultimately enhancing the user experience.

We believe that these use cases demonstrate the importance of a seamless cross-brand experience regardless of number of domains owned by the publishing group.

[Nathaniel-Francis]

Hello, I'm the Revenue Operations Director at Bauer Media and i strongly agree with @nlozanoarguelles. We also have a portfolio of sites and the three domain limit on first party sets would cause the same issues for us as outlined above