It should be fairly common knowledge at this point how the internet seems to know, to an uncanny degree, exactly what products you’re looking for with its ads. Tracking cookies live in your browser, and tell the internet what products and pages you click on, alongside what you do on them — all accessible the moment you tick that ‘allow cookies’ box.
Recently, there has been some effort to make these cookies less of a privacy risk, with the aforementioned ‘allow cookies’ window becoming a requirement before websites can log your information. Safari and Mozilla even have options to reduce tracking cookies built in. Now, Google is looking to make the internet even more secure for its users by phasing out third-party cookies for those who don’t want everything they do tracked by websites.
Not fresh, not warm, not crispy — just slightly insidious
Anthony Chavez, Google's VP of the ‘privacy sandbox’, took to a blog post to talk about the company's plans to make Chrome a better place to browse the web. It’s all centered around what Google calls ‘Tracking Protection’, and it’s come in the form of an option in the Chrome browser itself.
Click a little eye icon in the address bar, and you’ll find a browsing experience free of third-party tracking cookies. It’ll work on either desktop or mobile versions of the app, although only Android for the latter platform.
There are some websites that require Cookies to run, so in that case, Chavez says that the browser will “prompt you with an option to temporarily re-enable third-party cookies for that website from the eye icon on the right side of your address bar.”
Not everyone is too happy about Google's new options, however, even if they are only rolling out to a few users to get things started. Businesses use Cookies as vital parts of their purchasing funnels, finding the right customers for their products and services.
The BBC points out in its report that Phil Duffield, the UK president at the Trade Desk, isn’t a massive fan of the idea. “Google's solution, the Chrome Privacy Sandbox, which only works on a Chrome browser, likely doesn't benefit anyone other than Google”.
Privacy, cookies, and making sales — iMore’s take
Duffield is predisposed to not like the idea, however — the Trade Desk works on helping companies buy ads for their online presence. Part of that is tracking the habits of the users that visit those company's sites, and deploying ads as necessary.
The answer, as always, is perhaps somewhere in between. Not an entire ban on third-party tracking cookies, but a drastic reduction in the amount of data that they are actually tracking as you browse through the halls of the internet. Something that would allow businesses to still be able to track their customer's wants and needs, whilst providing the user with the privacy that they need on the modern internet.
Even then, Google’s new plan might not become more than just a plan in some territories — as the BBC says, if the Competition and Marketing Authority decides that Tracking Protection harms other businesses, then it could well block the feature. Back to square one.
