Google Is Finally Saying Goodbye to Cookies
Google is finally getting rid of cookies . It’s an odd claim considering the company has made many of its billions through Internet cookies. But it’s happening nonetheless: Cookies are being trashed, at least on Google’s side, as part of a broader effort to limit cross-site tracking on the Internet.
What are cookies?
Cookies are not a delicacy of the Internet. On the contrary , in fact. Internet cookies are files generated when you browse the web to identify your device. They are like an identification badge that you unknowingly wear as you navigate from site to site: when you make a connection to a website, it reads your cookies and in turn generates unique content based on your past browsing habits.
Cookies contain a lot of information about your online sessions, including your accounts, the items in your carts, the pages you visited, the time you spent on those pages, etc. They are not necessarily harmful: websites use them to remember your preferences. for example, when returning to a page, including the language you want to use. However, things get dicey when it comes to tracking and targeted advertising, which is a big part of what cookies are used for.
Companies rely on cookies to track you online: they want to know everything you do and how you do it, not because they want to steal your identity or build an incriminating case against you; rather, they want to bombard you with ads that they think you’ll actually click on. If an ad bot sees that you spend a lot of time looking for sneakers, especially Nike ones, you’re much more likely to click on a Nike ad than something completely random that has nothing to do with you.
Profile cookies are often incredibly accurate. While the jury is still out on whether our devices are actually listening to us, they honestly don’t have to: every time you get an ad for something you were just talking about, chances are it’s related to your profile or the profile of the person you are with us just “good”.
If you’re an advertiser or an organization that makes money from advertising (ahem, Google), cookies are great. But if you use the Internet, cookies are a serious privacy violation. Of course, there are worse things than targeted advertising, but being followed online to create a scarily accurate profile of your life isn’t what most of us signed up for here.
Google says goodbye to cookies
And so, we return to today’s news. Google actually announced back in December its intention to phase out cookies by default: starting today, January 4, it plans to limit website access to third-party cookies to 1% of Chrome users, with the approach Google calling “Tracking Protection” ” Considering Chrome has over three billion users worldwide , this likely means over 30 million Chrome users will see these changes today.
However, since cookies are still an integral part of the Internet, some sites only work properly if they are enabled. If you find a site that doesn’t work as expected after you enable Tracking Protection, Google will prompt you to re-enable third-party cookies to get the website back up and running.
How to tell if Google has disabled cookies for you
If you’re one of the more than 30 million users who now have cookies restricted by default, you’ll know if you’re paying attention to pop-ups. (So you won’t know if you’re like me.) Google says selected users will see a warning the first time they launch Chrome after the change, telling them they’ve been selected for tracking protection. The problem is that it’s all too easy to click the “Got it” button to dismiss the warning, so you might not even know you’ve been selected at all.
Luckily, turning on Tracking Protection displays a unique eye logo. If you see this, then everything is fine.
You can disable third-party cookies now
Even if you weren’t chosen to participate in Google’s testing, don’t worry: the company plans to roll out these changes globally by the second half of 2024, so they’ll eventually hit your browser. You can also manually block third-party cookies at any time: simply go to Chrome Settings > Privacy & Security > Third-Party Cookies . You can block third-party cookies in incognito mode or permanently. Just remember that doing so will break some websites that rely on cookies to function.
Google is late with cookies
If you’ve been keeping up with privacy trends in the tech world, it may seem too late. In recent years, other companies have actively pursued blocking cross-site tracking. Browsers like Safari and Firefox block cross-site cookie tracking by default. And while it’s not exactly the same, Apple famously disrupted the advertising market with the release of App Tracking Transparency in iOS 14.5 , which forced apps to ask for your permission to track you. (Answer: Hell no.)
However, this change is better late than never. Or that?
How Google Continues to Track You After Cookies
Unfortunately, this is not the end of Google’s anti-privacy efforts. Yes, it’s a step in the right direction, but the company is replacing an old, terrible practice with a new, slightly less terrible practice.
As Gizmodo’s Thomas Germain explains , tracking protection is part of Google’s larger ” Privacy Sandbox ” project. The dream, Google says, is to limit data collection so users can browse the Internet more privately, while supporting companies and websites so they can continue to make their content available for free.
To achieve this goal, Google will collect all important revenue-generating data from you. It stores this data in its sandbox, grouping individual pieces of data with other relevant groups. Google will share data with companies on an as-needed basis, but in a way that preserves your overall privacy: Companies will be able to see that your browsing habits are consistent with broader trends and may advertise accordingly, but will not be able to link them to you. specifically.
It’s not perfect, but it’s better than the way Google has operated for the last two and a half decades. Germain argues that Google can’t follow in the footsteps of privacy-conscious companies like Apple, DuckDuckGo and Firefox, which have eliminated third-party cookies without adding more tracking, because Google will have to answer to world governments asking why it stopped. exchange data with all your competitors.
However, it would be great if Google could come up with a solution that didn’t require us to trust it with all of our browsing data. For now, I’ll just use Safari whenever I can.