Google plans toditch third-party cookies on Chromenext year — just like Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox browser has done.
To replace the cookies system, the company introduced a new productcalled Privacy Sandboxthat will let advertisers gather some amount of data without compromising users’ data integrity.
Last week, the company has assured that it won’t build any backdoors to this sandbox for its own apps.Jerry Dischler, the company’s VP for Ads, said ata virtual marketing eventthat the company’s own app won’t take any shortcuts:
We’ll be using these APIs for our own ads and measurement products just like everyone else, and we will not build any backdoors for ourselves.
It’s promising to hear this, but ad-makers have voiced concerns in the past that this new format will force them to adapt to this standard because of Google’s hold on the digital ad industry. Plus, the Big G could design it in a way that itsown apps could benefit from gathering data— even if they don’t use any backdoors.
[Read:This dude drove an EV from the Netherlands to New Zealand — here are his 3 top road trip tips]
The company is already testingFederated Learning of Cohorts(FLoC) — the cookie replacement that’s part of the Privacy Sandbox — on Chrome.
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A researcher from theElectronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has already called FLoCa “breach of user trust.”Plus, the UKs’ Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened up an investigation looking intothe privacy implications of this new technique. It won’t be easy for Google to convince all parties involved when this rolls out officially.
Story byIvan Mehta
Ivan covers Big Tech, India, policy, AI, security, platforms, and apps for TNW. That’s one heck of a mixed bag. He likes to say “Bleh.“Ivan covers Big Tech, India, policy, AI, security, platforms, and apps for TNW. That’s one heck of a mixed bag. He likes to say “Bleh.”
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