Google has delayed a major privacy change to its Chrome browser, pushing back a plan to block third-party cookies until late 2023.
Last year, the search giant said it would prevent the world’s most widely used browser from accepting the snippets of text called third-party cookies that help advertisers, publishers and data brokers profile you to help advertisers target ads toward you. The change would prevent an advertiser that recorded your visit to a dieting website from later showing you ads for weight loss programs on other sites, for example.
On Thursday, Google pushed that move out by nearly two years, allowing itself more time to develop and test privacy-preserving alternatives to third-party cookies, and for websites to adopt the changes. The company said it had delayed the change, part of a collection of adjustments to what Google calls its Privacy Sandbox, to chart a better course for advertisers and everyone else on the web.
All Chrome’s top rivals, including Apple’s Safari, Mozilla’s Firefox, Microsoft’s Edge and Brave Software’s Brave, take more aggressive measures at stopping tracking than Google.
MacDailyNews Take: Shocking.
Smart people who are concerned with protecting their privacy use Apple products. Certainly not Google and/or Facebook. — MacDailyNews, September 26, 2018
and, our plan includes the possibility to change those plans at the end of 2023. Or, we’ve also considered redefining the definition what is block. We’ve always thought it sounded so cruel and definitive…especially since facilitative is one of our core ideals.
Thanks–Sundar
Maybe Google saw a benefit of taking it ‘slow’ and becoming the best supported browser by still supporting cookies when other major browsers will possibly ‘break’ sites that are slow to change.