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 (gizmodo.com)
from L4s@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 04 Jan 2024 20:00
https://lemmy.world/post/10320953

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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autotldr@lemmings.world on 04 Jan 2024 20:00 next collapse

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!

Substance_P@lemmy.world on 04 Jan 2024 20:32 next collapse

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@lemmy.world on 04 Jan 2024 20:45 next collapse

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@lemmy.world on 04 Jan 2024 21:56 next collapse

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

homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world on 04 Jan 2024 22:58 next collapse

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

So. Yknow.

[deleted] on 04 Jan 2024 23:42 collapse

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carl_dungeon@lemmy.world on 04 Jan 2024 23:48 collapse

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?

[deleted] on 04 Jan 2024 23:56 collapse

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raldone01@lemmy.world on 05 Jan 2024 02:57 collapse

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

lolcatnip@reddthat.com on 04 Jan 2024 21:08 next collapse

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.

madis@lemm.ee on 05 Jan 2024 14:28 collapse

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.

[deleted] on 05 Jan 2024 05:40 collapse

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IvanOverdrive@lemm.ee on 04 Jan 2024 21:56 next collapse

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

… right guys?

crandlecan@mander.xyz on 04 Jan 2024 21:58 next collapse

Sure, buddy, sure 👍

homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world on 04 Jan 2024 22:56 next collapse

Haha! Ahhhh. No.

ianovic69@feddit.uk on 05 Jan 2024 08:51 collapse

Thanks for my next t-shirt print!

bionicjoey@lemmy.ca on 05 Jan 2024 04:03 next collapse

They are making sure nobody else will track you

laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 05 Jan 2024 05:00 collapse

This.

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

YoorWeb@lemmy.world on 06 Jan 2024 00:42 collapse

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/fb87b04b-bf03-4750-befb-2ee160bd0435.jpeg">

TheBananaKing@lemmy.world on 04 Jan 2024 23:42 next collapse

third party cookies != cookies

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

Aux@lemmy.world on 05 Jan 2024 00:29 collapse

You don’t need cookies to keep track of the state. JavaScript can do that without cookies, 3rd party clients can do that without cookies.

LiamMayfair@lemmy.sdf.org on 05 Jan 2024 01:27 next collapse

Still, the use of cookies as key elements used to persist client session identifiers in the browser is too widespread and relied upon by prevalent web powerhouses like PHP for Google to do away with them.

Moreover, as much as there may be more modern, sleek alternatives like browser session and application storage, you can’t realistically expect the entire web industry to completely migrate away from cookies just like that.

qisope@lemmy.world on 05 Jan 2024 01:59 next collapse

and if you’re working on a site with a ton of subdomains, sharing the local/session storage data between them is a pain when compared with cookies.

[deleted] on 05 Jan 2024 03:42 next collapse

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t3rminus@lemmy.world on 05 Jan 2024 04:41 collapse

They definitely used to, but haven’t for a long time. It’s been viewed as an unreliable and poor practice, especially with browsers like Safari and Firefox which have already disabled 3rd Party Cookies for some time now (or at least providing the option to, as a privacy feature).

Now CORS, OAUTH, and similar mechanisms do a better, more private, and more secure job of sharing state and authentication across domains and groups of services.

Aux@lemmy.world on 05 Jan 2024 10:38 collapse

The amount of tech relying on cookies is slowly decreasing. Removing cookie support completely today is not an option, but it will be in the future.

lefaucet@slrpnk.net on 05 Jan 2024 05:37 next collapse

There’s also a lot of security gotchas when relying purely on JS.

Aux@lemmy.world on 05 Jan 2024 10:37 collapse

Just lik with any tech. So what? Stop using internet alltogether?

lefaucet@slrpnk.net on 05 Jan 2024 23:54 next collapse

Nah, cookies + JS is a solid authentication combo. But just JS without cookies is kinda vulnerable. Wouldnt want Paypal or taxes being purely Javascript authenticated.

Heres a fun article

betterprogramming.pub/understanding-auth-and-cook…

Aux@lemmy.world on 06 Jan 2024 13:22 collapse

The article is paywalled. And if someone is incapable of securing their JS app, that’s on them. Cookies won’t help.

smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de on 05 Jan 2024 19:08 collapse

Just because something exists does not mean that it should be used literally everyfuckingwhere

Aux@lemmy.world on 11 Jan 2024 09:38 collapse

Go live in a cave.

wooki@lemmynsfw.com on 06 Jan 2024 01:09 collapse

Well there it is, the dumbest thing I’ve read on the internet today.

Go back to basics and start with html.

Aux@lemmy.world on 06 Jan 2024 13:23 next collapse

Lol ok.

Hadriscus@lemm.ee on 06 Jan 2024 14:39 collapse

My guess is, you could say the same thing without the aggression

crsu@lemmy.world on 05 Jan 2024 09:18 next collapse

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

madis@lemm.ee on 05 Jan 2024 14:27 collapse

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

DacoTaco@lemmy.world on 06 Jan 2024 00:42 collapse

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

madis@lemm.ee on 08 Jan 2024 05:48 collapse

Firefox, Safari and Brave.

DacoTaco@lemmy.world on 09 Jan 2024 10:54 collapse

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@lemmy.world on 06 Jan 2024 00:43 next collapse

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

Lutra@lemmy.world on 07 Jan 2024 04:12 collapse

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>