Third-Party Cookie Deprecation

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Third-party cookies have historically been used for cross-domain tracking of end-user activity. They collect analytics data that are then leveraged to provide a more personalized user experience. In recent years, however, major browsers have opted to phase out third-party cookies in order to improve their compliance with privacy regulations.

As of January 2021, Coveo implemented a way for clients to send a tracking ID (the client ID) through our API, thereby removing the need for a third-party cookie to track user visits. Clients deploying newer versions of Coveo search interfaces don’t rely on third-party cookies to track their end users; they rely on other mechanisms (e.g., first-party cookies) that makes tracking IDs unique to their website. Meanwhile, those who use the older version of the Coveo JavaScript Search Framework (JSUI) dating pre-January 2021 still use third-party cookies to track user activities between visits.

In order to respect compliance goals and browser evolution, Coveo will deprecate third-party cookies by December 2022. Clients who still rely on a JSUI version dating from before January 2021 will be required to upgrade to a newer version prior to the deprecation.

Important

If you don’t upgrade your Coveo solution to a newer version, you will no longer be able to track user visits once the deprecation is completed. This will also impact Coveo Machine Learning (ML), the Visit Browser, and several other major features that rely on visits.

Step 1: Verify the JSUI Version

Verify which JSUI version your Coveo implementation is currently using.

Step 2: Upgrade Your Implementation

If you’re using a JSUI version that predates the January 2021 version, you must upgrade your implementation. We recommend that you upgrade to the latest version available. At minimum, you must upgrade to the version that includes the January 2021 JSUI release.

The following table lists the January 2021 version upgrades for the applicable integrations:

Integration Upgrade

Coveo for Salesforce

Upgrade to 4.13 (or higher).

Coveo for Sitecore

Upgrade to 5.0.943.3 (or higher).

Coveo for ServiceNow

Upgrade to 21.2.51 (or higher).

Coveo for Zendesk

Upgrade all search pages to 2.10083 (or higher).
Notes

The Coveo for Adobe and Coveo for Slack integrations are not impacted by the deprecation since they were originally released after January 2021.

You also have the option to forego the integration upgrade, and instead upgrade your JSUI package to the January 2021 version (or newer) only. However, we still recommend a full package upgrade for Coveo for Sitecore, especially for clients using a significantly older version.

Step 3: Test Your Upgrade

Once you’ve completed the upgrade, test your implementation to ensure that the upgrade is successful and that the cookie header was set. This is good for seeing if there are elements in your implementation that aren’t using the client ID.

Note

If you have a custom integration with custom events, you may notice that the client ID doesn’t pass. This may be resolved by adding the set cookie header parameter in Coveo UA, which lets you drill down on the custom events and retrieve the information that the client ID would have gotten had it passed.

You can do this by creating a custom dimension and report in the Coveo Administration Console.

Add a Custom Dimension

  1. On the dimensions page, create a custom dimension.

    • Ensure that you give the dimension a meaningful display name (e.g., Third-Party Cookie).

    • For the API name, enter c_third_party_cookie_set.

    • Under Related events, ensure that all three checkboxes are selected.

Add a Custom Dashboard

  1. On the Reports (platform-eu | platform-au) page, add a blank dashboard. Ensure that you give the dashboard a meaningful name (e.g., Third-Party Cookie).

  2. Access the Edit mode of the dashboard.

  3. Enter a section name.

  4. Add a Table card.

    • Ensure that you add the following dimensions:

      • Origin 1 (Page/Hub)

      • Event Type

    • Ensure that you add the following metrics:

      • Search Event Count

      • Custom Event Count

      • Click Event Count

    • Ensure that under Advanced Settings, you add the custom dimension that you previously created and set it to True.

    • Ensure that you’ve adjusted the date range to include the date that the upgrade was completed.

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