this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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Google Just Disabled Cookies for 30 Million Chrome Users. Here’s How to Tell If You’re One of Them | It’s the beginning of the end in Google’s plan to kill cookies forever::It’s the beginning of the end in Google’s plan to kill cookies forever.

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[–] TheBananaKing 133 points 11 months ago (1 children)

third party cookies != cookies

Unless they've invented a stateful http, cookies aren't going anywhere.

[–] Substance_P 72 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

Not really a win for the casual web user - What Google will stop doing is selling web ads targeted to individual users’ browsing habits, and its Chrome browser will no longer allow cookies that collect that data for the means of selling to third party advertisers.

Meanwhile, Google will still track and target users on mobile devices, and it will still target ads to users based on their behavior on its own platforms, which make up the majority of its revenue and won’t be affected by the change.

Ad companies that rely on cookies will simply have to find another way to target users.

[–] CaptainSpaceman 52 points 11 months ago

Ad companies that rely on cookies will simply have to find another way to target users.

Aka pay google instead of getting that info for free

[–] Buffalox 43 points 11 months ago (2 children)

that sounds a lot like unfair competition, to a degree that it is highly illegal in most countries.

[–] homesweethomeMrL 25 points 11 months ago

Only where non-corrupt politicians agree to enforce the law.

So. Yknow.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)
[–] carl_dungeon 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Chromium is open source but isn’t chrome a closed source down stream project? Kinda like how Google’s RCS is in no way open despite all their BS ads bitching about iMessage?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)
[–] raldone01 2 points 11 months ago

Privacy Sandbox so the privacy doesn't get out. 😃

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Well that decreases the total tracking Chrome web users would be exposed to. Google would track the same, third parties would track less. If third party ad networks weren't total pieces of shit that leak private data all over the place including to data brokers, I'd have a bigger problem with it. Right now, in a sort of a fucked up way, it's a net positive.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Killing 3rd party cookies is good, but doing it in a way that drives business to Google Ad Services seems like a textbook case of anticompetitive behavior to me. I wonder what makes them think they can get away with it. Or maybe they don't think they can but they're grasping at straws to keep their money printing machine operational.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I wonder what makes them think they can get away with it.

That part:

Killing 3rd party cookies is good,

There doesn't seem to be any pushback for keeping third party cookies, just the "Privacy Sandbox" is not a better solution by any means.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 11 months ago (4 children)

So that means Chrome won't spy on me anymore, right?

... right guys?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 11 months ago (1 children)

They are making sure nobody else will track you

[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago

This.

Google isn't pro privacy, they're anti competitive.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago

Sure, buddy, sure 👍

[–] homesweethomeMrL 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] YoorWeb 5 points 11 months ago
[–] crsu 53 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Google should not be setting standards on something that is supposed to be open. Google should be getting dismantled and divided into individual companies that would fail without the surveillance apparatus that is the real product, which is why it will never happen and why they're given unchecked power

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Google is not the only browser vendor trying to kill third party cookies.

[–] DacoTaco 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Go on. Who else is?
Firefox has protections in place to put them in containers, and users can block them if they choose but neither is killing them.

Let alone kill them to replace it with your own worse system lol

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] DacoTaco 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Brave is chromium, so that doesnt count lol.
But huh, TIL.
Nice to see that safari and firefox already had plans to fully block them. Im kinda scared of websites breaking as in my current firefox setup, that blocks 3th party cookies, things like teams are broken already without an exception so im sure this will block a lot of shit. Thats good, but oh shit...

[–] Kethal 29 points 11 months ago

Firefox did this 4 years ago and didn't replace them with an alternative tracking method.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Back in 2019, years of bad news about Google, Facebook, and other tech companies’ privacy malpractices got so loud that Silicon Valley had to address it.

Google, which makes the vast majority of its money tracking you and showing you ads online, announced that it was embarking on a project to get rid of third-party cookies in Chrome.

“We are making one of the largest changes to how the Internet works at a time when people, more than ever, are relying on the free services and content that the web offers,” Victor Wong, Google’s senior director of product management for Privacy Sandbox, told Gizmodo in an interview in April of 2023.

If you open up Chrome’s settings, you’ll find a bunch of nice toggles and controls about cookies under the “Privacy and security” section.

Other browsers, such as Firefox, DuckDuckGo, and Apple’s Safari blocked third-party cookies a while ago, and they haven’t replaced them with new tracking tools, more private or otherwise.

“Google and its subsidiary companies have tightened their grips on the throat of internet innovation, all while employing the now familiar tactic of marketing these things as beneficial for users,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a recent blog post.


The original article contains 1,292 words, the summary contains 202 words. Saved 84%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] Lutra 1 points 11 months ago

Sure is nice of Google to change things for the better of the world. I'm sure they stand to gain nothing from this. < /sarcasm>