Google announced that it will phase out third party cookies in its Chrome browser. According to the tech company in a blog post, “Over the next two years Google intends to stop supporting third-party cookies in its Chrome browser”
A cookie is a small piece of data sent from a website and stored on the user’s computer by the user’s web browser while the user is browsing. Cookies were designed to be a reliable mechanism for websites to remember stateful information (such as items added in the shopping cart in an online store) or to record the user’s browsing activity (including clicking particular buttons, logging in, or recording which pages were visited in the past). They can also be used to remember arbitrary pieces of information that the user previously entered into form fields such as names, addresses, passwords, and credit-card numbers. (Wikipedia)
So digital advertisers use cookies to keep tabs on a person’s online whereabouts. When you visit a website whose advertisers use cookies, they’ll be able to track you as you visit other sites that also use their cookies. That’s why the same products and ads often appear to “follow” you around the internet.
This is coming late in the day as Apple Inc’s Safari and Mozilla Corp’s Firefox browsers already block third-party cookies. Google has always argued that blocking cookies is heavy-handed and adversely affects revenue for internet publishers.
“Some browsers have reacted to these concerns by blocking third-party cookies, but we believe this has unintended consequences that can negatively impact both users and the web ecosystem. By undermining the business model of many ad-supported websites, blunt approaches to cookies encourage the use of opaque techniques such as fingerprinting (an invasive workaround to replace cookies), which can actually reduce user privacy and control. We believe that we as a community can, and must, do better. ” says Justin Schuh – Director, Chrome Engineering in the blog post.
Google says it wants to phase out cookies ensuring a good solution for users, publishers, and advertisers, while mitigating workarounds. It says it will will launch anti-fingerprinting measures to “detect and mitigate covert tracking and workarounds” later this year.
Google will also continue its work to make current web technologies more secure and private. Starting in February, Chrome will limit insecure cross-site tracking, by treating cookies that don’t include a SameSite label as first-party only, and require cookies labeled for third-party use to be accessed over HTTPS. This will make third-party cookies more secure and give users more precise browser cookie controls.
The phasing out of third party cookies would certainly be good news for privacy advocates who have long cried out against the use of cookies for enabling companies to secretively track users’ browsing habits
