On Monday, Google abruptly announced that its long-awaited removal of Chrome’s tracking cookies had failed. The corporation was struggling to negotiate with authorities to balance its interests with those of the marketing industry, but no one expected this.
The business suggested an improved method that prioritises user choice on July 22 before revealing the bombshell. Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we would create a new Chrome experience that enables consumers make an informed choice across their online browsing.”
You may wonder what that signifies, but we don’t know. This may involve selecting between tracking cookies, Google’s semi-anonymous Topics API, and semi-private browsing. You can alter your web-wide preference at any time. The catch—even this isn’t agreed upon. “We’re discussing this new path with regulators,” Google stated, prompting the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority to carefully evaluate their strategy.
This hurts Chrome’s 3 billion users, most of whom will never change their settings and would benefit from a more private browser by default. Apple’s ad, disguised as a pro-Safari promotion, depicted customers being spied on while browsing the web before Safari protects them.
Interestingly, EFF cautioned that Google’s Privacy Sandbox allows advertisers to target advertising based on online behaviour even after Chrome’s long-overdue phaseout of third-party cookies, only hours before the shocking news.
Google’s Privacy Sandbox program, aimed at replacing tracking cookies, has had a history of failures. Apple clarified in a WebKit update accompanied their attack advertisements that grouping users around shared interests would not prevent digital fingerprinting as promised.
“We look forward to continued collaboration with the ecosystem on the next phase of the journey to a more private web,” Google said. However, keeping monitoring cookies while conceding that plan B to create a more private online has failed risks sounding fake. Remember, Google’s pledge to eliminate monitoring cookies turned four this year.
Google’s action “underscores their ongoing commitment to profits over user privacy,” says EFF. Since 2020, Safari and Firefox have banned third-party cookies by default. Google promised to follow suit. Third-party cookies are one of the most common tracking tools, allowing advertising businesses and data brokers to collect and sell user data.
Expect considerable analysis of this story in the coming days.
