Google is ending cookies and the ad industry has an alternative

Digital advertisers are pushing an alternative to web cookies that competes with a Google proposal, the latest industry effort to adjust to new curbs on how personal data is used online.

A group of ad executives and lawyers detailed an anonymous identifier on Wednesday that lets people control what ads they see on the web. The technology, called SWAN, is supported by ad-tech companies including PubMatic Inc., OpenX and Zeta Global Corp.

There’s now a 60-day public-comment period when marketers, publishers and others in the industry can try out the system before it launches in the summer.