Google backtracks on Chrome’s biggest privacy promise
A sweet tooth for ads means third-party cookies will stay.
JoriPress
- Google has abandoned its plans to deprecate third-party cookies in Chrome.
- This follows multiple extensions to the timeline for killing off the advertiser-friendly feature.
- Google instead proposes an “updated approach” to user privacy and tracking, while offering little detail.
Third-party cookies make targeted advertising on the modern web possible. Support for them allows advertisers to track your online movements across sites, keeping you uniquely identified, and all the while gathering data about your interests. With the power they have, and the level of insight they’re able to offer into our behavior, it’s little wonder that they’ve long been a target of privacy advocates. Back in 2020, Google signaled its intent to overhaul Chrome’s approach to user privacy and do away with third-party cookies as we knew them. In the time since, an ETA for that move has been sliding further and further back, and today Google finally throws in the towel, conceding that third-party cookies are here to stay.
In an update shared on Google’s Privacy Sandbox blog, VP Anthony Chavez explains, “we are proposing an updated approach that elevates user choice. Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we would introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing, and they’d be able to adjust that choice at any time.”
