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Why Google is phasing out third-party cookies - Marketplace [marketplace.org]:

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From pretty much the very beginning, the web has been fueled by ads. And those ads have been finding their way to relevant users via cookies — those are little bits of code that websites can place on your computer so advertisers can basically follow you around online.

And from pretty much the very beginning, privacy advocates have complained that cookies are a privacy nightmare.

This week, Google started its project to phase out third-party cookies [blog.google] on its Chrome browser, the world’s most popular browser. [statista.com] But the change isn’t about all cookies.

“Websites still allow for first-party cookies, which is very useful for the website to be able to remember, for instance, that you’ve found a product that you want to purchase, and it will stay in your checkout,” said Garrett Johnson, a professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.

The change is about third-party cookies, the ones that track you across sites.

That is changing the way everybody does business online — and not just businesses.

“The deprecation of the third-party cookie in 2024, is really poised to shake things up. Because, you know, we’re essentially going to have to recalibrate how we effectively find voters and target to them online,” said Kate Holliday, vice president of politics and public affairs at advertising firm Powers Interactive Digital [powersinteractive.com].

With this phaseout, Google is introducing what it calls its “privacy sandbox”: a set of new tools that still track your behavior online.

“We’re aiming to make it possible to show relevant ads without showing who the user is. And so the user themselves hopefully will see relevant ads still after we make this change fully,” said Victor Wong, Google’s senior director of product management for the effort.

Other companies are also trying to come up with cookie replacements of their own. And while the transition away from cookies has begun, nobody is getting away from targeted online ads anytime soon.

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we've-been-blocking-them-since-1997 dept.

Google Chrome Rolls Out Support for 'Privacy Sandbox' to Bid Farewell to Tracking Cookies [thehackernews.com]:

Google has officially begun its rollout of Privacy Sandbox in the Chrome web browser to a majority of its users, nearly four months after it announced the plans [thehackernews.com].

"We believe it is vital to both improve privacy and preserve access to information, whether it's news, a how-to-guide, or a fun video," Anthony Chavez, vice president of Privacy Sandbox initiatives at Google, said [privacysandbox.com].

"Without viable privacy-preserving alternatives to third-party cookies, such as the Privacy Sandbox, we risk reducing access to information for all users, and incentivizing invasive tactics such as fingerprinting."

To that end, the search giant is initially leaving nearly three percent of users unaffected by the change in order to conduct sufficient tests. General availability is expected to encompass all users in the coming months.

Privacy Sandbox is Google's umbrella term [thehackernews.com] for a set of technologies that aim to eliminate third-party tracking cookies on the web and replace them with privacy-preserving alternatives, while still serving tailored content and ads.

The company is also simultaneously testing Privacy Sandbox on Android [thehackernews.com] in beta to eligible mobile devices running Android 13.

Central to the project is a Topics API, which sorts users into different topics (that can change over time) based on the sites visited and the frequency with which those sites are visited, which websites can query to infer what topics a specific user is interested in and serve personalized ads without knowing who they are.

In other words, the web browser acts as an intermediary between the user and the website. Users can further control their experience [google.com] by customizing the ad topics they're interested in, the relevance and measurement APIs they want enabled, or entirely opt out of these features.

However, Privacy Sandbox is not without its fair share of criticism, with Movement For An Open Web noting [movementforanopenweb.com] last week that "Google gathers reams of personal data on each and every one of its users, sourced through an opt-in process that it's hard for most web users to avoid."

The development comes as Google is enabling [thehackernews.com] real-time protections against phishing attacks through improvements to Safe Browsing [google.com], without any prior knowledge of users' browsing history.

Google did not disclose the exact technical aspects involved, but it has leveraged Oblivious HTTP relays [chrome.com] (OHTTP relays [fastly.com]) as part of Privacy Sandbox to incorporate anonymity protections and mask IP address information.

"Previously, it worked by checking every site visit against a locally-stored list of known bad sites, which is updated every 30 to 60 minutes," Parisa Tabriz, vice president of Chrome, said [blog.google].

"But phishing domains have gotten more sophisticated — and today, 60% of them exist for less than 10 minutes, making them difficult to block. By shortening the time between identification and prevention of threats, we expect to see 25% improved protection from malware and phishing threats."

Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter [twitter.com] and LinkedIn [linkedin.com] to read more exclusive content we post.

Google's New Tracking Protection in Chrome Blocks Third-Party Cookies [thehackernews.com]:

Google on Thursday announced that it will start testing a new feature called "Tracking Protection" beginning January 4, 2024, to 1% of Chrome users as part of its efforts to deprecate third-party cookies [thehackernews.com] in the web browser.

The setting is designed to limit "cross-site tracking by restricting website access to third-party cookies by default," Anthony Chavez, vice president of Privacy Sandbox at Google, said [blog.google].

The tech giant noted that participants for Tracking Protection will be selected at random and that chosen users will be notified upon opening Chrome on either a desktop or an Android device.

The goal is to restrict third-party cookies (also called "non-essential cookies") by default, preventing them from being used to track users as they move from one website to the other for serving personalized ads.

While several major browsers like Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox have either already placed restrictions [mozilla.org] on third-party cookies via features like Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) and Enhanced Tracking Protection in Firefox, Google is taking more of a middle-ground approach that involves devising alternatives where users can access free online content and services without compromising on their privacy.

In mid-October 2023, Google confirmed [google.com] its plans to "disable third-party cookies for 1% of users from Q1 2024 to facilitate testing, and then ramp up to 100% of users from Q3 2024."

Privacy Sandbox, instead of providing a cross-site or cross-app user identifier, "aggregates, limits, or noises data [privacysandbox.com]" through APIs like Protected Audience (formerly FLEDGE), Topics, and Attribution Reporting to help prevent user re-identification [privacysandbox.com].

In doing so, the goal is to block third-parties from tracking user browsing behavior across sites, while still allowing sites and apps to serve relevant ads and enabling advertisers to measure the performance of their online ads without using individual identifiers.

"With Tracking Protection, Privacy Sandbox and all of the features we launch in Chrome, we'll continue to work to create a web that's more private than ever, and universally accessible to everyone," Chavez said.

Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter [twitter.com] and LinkedIn [linkedin.com] to read more exclusive content we post.

Everything You Need to Know About Third-Party Cookies - Securiti [securiti.ai]:

When browsing the web, there's a high chance that you've come across a popup notification telling you that the website uses cookies. Many times, users go ahead and hit agree without fully knowing what they are signing up for. For all you know, you agree to first-party or third-party cookies.

Internet cookies aren't those artery-clogging goodness made by grandma. Instead, an internet cookie is a small piece of data from a particular website stored on a user's computer while they browse the web.

One of the common purposes of internet cookies is to track users as they browse through multiple websites and display them with personalized ads (based on their web searches, likes, and dislikes). Before further ado, let's get down to third-party cookies, how they collect user data, and their legal implications.

What are Third-Party Cookies?

Unlike a first-party cookie set by the website's server, a third-party cookie is usually set by a third-party domain/server (i.e. an ad-based vendor). Third-party cookies are dropped via a specific vendor code or tag deployed on a particular website and stored under a different domain. A third-party cookie is available to any website that loads the third-party server's code.

Third-party cookies have multiple purposes, such as keeping track of users' browsing activities to show them personalized ads of goods and services. For instance, if you search for a Halloween costume, you may see your screen filled with ads regarding Halloween costumes on multiple websites, especially on social media sites such as Facebook.

Even if the user terminates the session or closes their browser, ads will continue targeting as the tracking data is stored on the users’ computer.

Simultaneously, cookies also have native functions such as remembering a user's login credentials for a particular website, enabling them to instantly log in without manually adding their email address and password.

How Third-Party Cookies Work?

Third-party cookies work by embedding JavaScript from one website into another. This enables them to transfer the habits of a user across multiple websites. Third-party cookies accumulate data gathered between browsing sessions and map a clear picture of the user.

For instance, when users are on a shopping site, they browse through multiple categories, scrolling through the items they like. Typical cookies injected by the shopping site would allow it to remember the things a user has looked at and added to their cart. On the other hand, third-party cookies would not forget this data but may share it with other websites.

With third-party cookies in place, once you revisit the site, you will be shown the items you've previously looked at along with related articles that you might like (based on your previous selections). Again, the primary aim of such third-party cookies storing a user's online activity is to increase the likelihood of a conversion.

Users who scratch their heads thinking why they're being displayed ads on sites they're visiting for the first time, the answer is most of the time simple – third-party cookies. Third-party cookies are one of the most reliable ways to send users targeted ads across the web.

First-Party vs. Third-Party Cookies First-Party Cookies

First-party cookies are primarily used to improve how users interact with websites and are made by the host domain, which is the website you visited. These are accepted as an agreement between the user and the website to improve operations and are not controversial.

First-party cookies connect your browser to the website and exchange only the most fundamental data. There isn't much debate about their application. First-party cookies only save the data you provide on the website and maybe your IP address.

Third-Party Cookies

Third-party cookies are crafted by external sources, not the website owner. These are considered "non-essential cookies" under data privacy laws [securiti.ai]. A lot of these cookies, mostly tracking cookies [securiti.ai] from marketing firms, display ads for items similar to your purchases or cart additions, largely because of online tracking.

In short, first-party cookies are linked to a particular website. To make the website easier to use, they retain some personal information. On the other hand, third-party cookies allow an external party to monitor your online purchases and other activities.

Are Third-Party Cookies Safe?

Cookies set by third parties aren't a big risk. Cookies aren't inherently dangerous, and they don't infect your computer with malicious viruses or malware [securiti.ai]. To some users, however, cookies may be considered an invasion of privacy.

How to Enable Third-Party Cookies?

Depending on your browser, you can use the instructions below to enable third-party cookies.

Google Chrome To enable cookies in Google Chrome (Windows):

1. Select the Chrome menu icon
2. Select Settings.
3. Near the bottom of the page, select Show Advanced Settings.
4. In the “Privacy” section, select Content Settings, then Cookies.
5. Ensure the slider is off to Block third-party cookies on the cookies page.
6. Close and reload the browser.

To enable cookies in Google Chrome (Mac):

1. Open Chrome preferences, click Settings, then Show Advanced Settings.
2. Under Privacy, click on Content Settings.
3. Ensure “Block third-party cookies and site data” is not checked.
4. Close and reload the browser.

To enable cookies in Google Chrome (Android):

1. On your Android device, open the Chrome app.
2. At the top right, tap More and then Settings.
3. Tap Site Settings and then Cookies.
4. Next to “Cookies,” switch the setting on.
5. To allow third-party cookies, check the box next to “Allow third-party cookies.”

Safari To enable cookies in Safari (Mac):

1. Go to the Safari drop-down menu.
2. Select Preferences.
3. Click Privacy in the top panel.
4. Under ‘Block Cookies’ select the option ‘Never.’
5. For increased security, once you have finished using the site, it’s advised to change the Privacy setting back to Always.

To enable cookies in Safari (iPhone/iPad):

1. Open your Settings.
2. Scroll down and select Safari.
3. Under Privacy & Security, turn off “Prevent Cross-Site Tracking” and “Block All Cookies”.

Mozilla Firefox

1. For Windows users - Click on the Tools menu and then select Options.
   For Mac users - choose Firefox Preferences.

1. Select the Privacy & Security panel.
2. Under Cookies and site data, set the checkbox to Accept cookies and site data from websites.
3. Close and reload the browser.

Note: Please make sure ‘Accept third-party cookies and site data’ is set to “Always”.

Microsoft Edge

1. Click on the three horizontal dots on the top right corner and then click Internet Options.
2. Then drag nearly the bottom and go to Advanced Settings.
3. Under the Privacy Section, drag down until you find a text box with three options to Allow/Block the cookies.
4. Choose “Don’t block cookies.”
5. Close and reopen the browser.

Original Submission