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Google announced Thursday its grand plans that will initiate the demise of internet cookies on January 4th, 2024. On that date, the company will block third-party cookies by default for 1% of Chrome desktop users or about 30 million people. But what’s wrong with cookies and what does Google have in mind as their replacement? Let’s find out.
Cookies are small pieces of data that websites store on your browser when you visit them. They are used to remember your preferences, track your online behaviour, and show you personalised ads. However, cookies also have some drawbacks. They can invade your privacy by collecting sensitive information about you, such as your browsing history, location, and device information. They can also slow down your browser performance by consuming bandwidth and memory. And they can pose security risks by allowing hackers to access your data or inject malicious code into your browser.
These are some of the reasons why Google wants to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome by 2024. Third-party cookies are cookies that are set by a website other than the one you are visiting. For example, if you visit a news site that has ads from another site, the ad site can set a cookie on your browser that tracks what you click on the news site’s ads. This way, the ad site can show you more relevant ads based on your interests.
But advertising is core to Google’s business. It can’t simply flip off cookies, and consequently, tracking, without having alternative ad tech ready. Hence its Privacy Sandbox initiative was born to develop more “privacy-first” approaches.
How did Google’s scheme to kill cookies come about?
Google first unveiled its Privacy Sandbox concepts back in 2019. The overarching goal was retiring third-party cookies in Chrome and testing possible replacements for targeted advertising. Many technologies were proposed to fill this role. However, by 2021 Google FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) emerged as the leading candidate and the company initialised its testing. But due to privacy concerns, FLoC was later scrapped too.
Out of the ashes rose Topics, the latest attempt to balance privacy and ad targeting. Specifically, Ad Topics is one piece of the wider Privacy Sandbox plan to transition Chrome from cookies to more privacy-centric tracking.
What is Google’s Ad Topics, the cookie killer?
Ad Topics leverages your recent Chrome browsing to assign you interest “topics” to enable relevant ads. It works somewhat similarly to the scrapped FLoC idea, except it doesn’t group users into cohorts. Instead, it simply compiles a list of topics that interest each user.
For example, if you browsed sites about “Travel” and “Photography”, those may become assigned topics. Each week, the topics update but are retained for three weeks.
When you visit a website, it can request these topics from the Topics API to show ads matching your interests. Rather than unique IDs, this provides advertisers with a high-level overview of a user’s recent interests. Topics are computed locally on your device rather than sending your full history to Google. The company insists this approach reveals less about your personal browsing habits.
What is Google’s Tracking Protection and how does it use Ad Topics?
Tracking Protection is a new Chrome feature that blocks third-party cookies by default, stopping most cross-site tracking. On January 4th, Google will enable it for 1% of global Chrome users across Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS.
Instead of using cookies, Chrome itself will now categorise your interests locally on your device. These new tracking categories are Ad Topics that we discussed above and sort users into buckets like “Fitness Enthusiast” or “Pop Music Fan” based on browsing history. The categories stay in your browser rather than getting sent to websites.
When you visit a website, Chrome will share these category labels to give publishers and advertisers useful insight for contextually relevant ads and content recommendations. However, the exact sites you visit are not shared, providing a more privacy-centric approach compared to third-party cookies.
If you’re one of the few selected to trial Tracking Protection, Chrome will notify you with a prompt when you next open the browser. You can then choose to leave the feature enabled or disable it for now.
Over 2023, Google plans to gradually expand Tracking Protection to more users. It aims to switch it on for all Chrome users globally in the second half of 2024, effectively killing third-party cookies. However, the company admits there may be compatibility issues with some websites in the transition period. If Chrome detects a site is broken, it will allow you to temporarily re-enable third-party cookies.
Are cookies actually on the way out?
If Google manages to fully block third-party cookies in Chrome by mid-2024, it could effectively spell their demise. Given Chrome’s 60%+ market share, most advertisers would be forced to adopt alternatives like Ad Topics.
Will Tracking Cookies give an unfair advantage to Google?
These moves are hugely impactful since most internet users are on Chrome – when complete, Google could essentially eliminate cookies for good. But regulators and competitors have concerns about whether Topics will provide an unfair advantage to Google’s ads business if cookies disappear.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority is monitoring Tracking Protection rollout to ensure it doesn’t benefit Google in selling its own ads over competitors. Google itself has left wiggle room on the 2024 target date if antitrust issues emerge needing more time to address.
Only time will tell if eliminating third-party cookies benefits users without handing Google even more control over the online ads industry.
© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd
First published on: 15-12-2023 at 19:52 IST
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