On Tuesday, Google He did sound the death sentence for the most invasive Internet crawlers, as he indicated that his Chrome browser will gradually eliminate the use of cross-website cookies, which have underpinned digital advertising for 25 years.
Following the recent bans introduced by Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla, Google said it would also aim to make “so-called” third-party cookies that follow Internet users from one site to another, sometimes tracking their browsing for months.
The changes in Chrome launched just over a decade ago, but now dominating the desktop browser market, will restrict the flow of data to advertising agencies and brokers, a trend that digital marketing specialists They are referred to as the apocalypse of cookies.
But like many of the privacy-friendly reforms that are being introduced in the United States and Europe, the measure can further strengthen Google and other great internet guardians, such as Amazon and Facebook, which have accumulated large amounts of internal data. about its users that will be increasingly valuable.
In a blog post on Tuesday, Google said it hopes to develop alternative tools to “keep a website supported by advertising” in a way that “would make third-party cookies obsolete ” within two years.
Such alternatives could make Chrome an even more important intermediary, by maintaining information about users that it would selectively share with agencies that want to direct and measure advertising.
Lukasz Olejnik, associate researcher at the Center for Technology and Global Affairs at the University of Oxford, said that the gradual elimination of cookies would “seriously” curb the ability of companies to extract “private and sensitive knowledge” about web users.
Sites web can still label people with “own cookies” to record their behavior. But third parties may not place them on sites to be able to profile users as they move through the network.
The change occurs when the Irish data protection authority investigates the online advertising exchange of Google, known as Authorized Buyer s, which is at the center of the bidding process for online advertisements. Following complaints from Brave, a browser, the regulator investigates whether Google’s online advertising exchange illegally takes advantage of confidential personal information about internet users.
In doing that consent is a more important factor in the transfer of personal data on the network, changes could also help online publishers and media companies, whose ad sales suffer because other sites site can track your readers and address them easily.
Although the advertising industry has prepared for the disappearance of third-party cookies, the gradual elimination will be disruptive, hitting the concept of an open network for online advertising that has dominated the market since the invention of said tool in 1994 Changes in the entire digital advertising supply chain will be required.
For some time Google has been prepared to tighten its privacy rules and aims to eliminate third-party cookies within two years. In August, it launched a “privacy sandbox” (secure environment for limited privacy execution) to develop tools that avoid the need to use them. Last month he announced other changes in Chrome that limited the use of certain types of third-party cookies.
In his blog post, Justin Schuh, director of engineering for Chrome, made a veiled reference to the prohibition of cookies from Apple, suggesting that the techniques “mitigation” led to the use of other screening techniques to “reduce privacy and control. ”
Two years
Google will develop an alternative tool to keep the web supported by advertising in two years.
Advantage
Gradually deleting cookies will seriously curb the ability of companies to extract private and confidential information.
Changes
Google already makes important changes with the aim of tightening its privacy rules.