Google Chrome is eliminating cookies for 30 million users, providing relief for those tired of accepting them.
If you’re anything like us, you likely despise encountering a website for the first time only to be immediately bombarded with an irritating pop-up demanding your acceptance or rejection of third-party cookies before proceeding. However, there is some positive news for those who share this sentiment. Google, too, understands your frustration and intends to completely eliminate these pop-ups from Google Chrome. However, the motivation behind this decision extends beyond mere annoyance. Google believes that these pop-ups do not adequately protect your privacy and aims to introduce a superior alternative.
According to a report from Gizmodo, Google Chrome will block third-party cookies for 1 percent of users starting January 4th. That’s about 30 million Google Chrome users. Google does this through the tracking protection feature. Behind the blocking is a plan to replace it with a different kind of monitoring through its Privacy Sandbox project.
Google deletes third-party cookies
The Verge mentioned that the reason Google is replacing third-party cookies as user tracking tools with another tracking tool is to anonymize user data when it tracks user activity. This helps protect user privacy and allows APIs provided by Google to conduct their advertising business differently, allowing them to prevent cross-site tracking by advertisers. This stonewalling gives Google more power when brands run ads on websites.
For this reason, some regulators, such as the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), are keeping an eye to ensure that this change does not give Google an unfair advantage in the market. At the same time, Google has also promised that it will not unfairly share this information with advertisers for profit.
Andrea Coscelli, chief executive of the CMA, said in a statement: “The commitments we have received from Google promote competition, help protect the ability of online publishers to raise money through advertising and safeguard user privacy. While this is an important step, we are under no illusions that our work is done. We will keep a close eye on Google , as it continues to develop these proposals.”
