Google plans to stop the use of cookie tracking

Google announces to stop the usage of third-party cookies in its browser Google Chrome and proclaim they will not implement other similar technologies that could track individuals while surfing on the web.

Cookies are small pieces of code used on almost every website. They are automatically downloaded when a user visits a website and from then on send data from the user back to the website operator. From this data, companies can create profiles of the user and personalize advertising based on the data collected. Originally, cookies were intended to give web browsers a “memory”. With cookies, online shops save shopping carts and users can stay logged in to online sites.

In a Blogpost published on March 3rd, 2021, David Temkin, Director of Product Management, Ads Privacy and Trust at Google, announced that the next update Google Chrome in April will allow cookie tracking to be turned of completely. With Google Chrome, only so-called “first-party cookies” of the respective website operator remain permitted. The decision will have lasting consequences, as Google Chrome has been the most widely used browser since 2012. The move comes after Google’s competitors Apple and Mozilla announced similar mechanisms for their Safari and Firefox browsers (please see our blog post). Temkin writes:

Keeping the internet open and accessible for everyone requires all of us to do more to protect privacy — and that means an end to not only third-party cookies, but also any technology used for tracking individual people as they browse the web.

Since the personalized advertising based on data, and thus the tracking of the data, is Google’s core business, Google will not stop either the data collection or the personalization of the advertising. Instead of individual profiles, Google will form cohorts of people with similar interests, to which advertising will be tailored. These cohorts are said to be broad enough to preserve the anonymity of individual users. This concept is called “Federated Learning of Cohorts” (FLoC). Google Ads FLoC based advertising is said to start in the second quarter of 2021.

Data will then be collected by the browser and stored locally and not by cookies. Every URL on a website and every content accessed can then be accessed by Google targeting algorithm. Algorithms on the end device are to calculate hash values from the browser history, for example, which enable the assignment to such a cohort. Google sends a selection of ads to the browser, which selects ads that match the cohort and shows them to the user.

While third-party cookies are gradually becoming obsolete, Google is replacing them with a system that Google can completely control itself. This will make it more difficult for competitors such as Facebook Ads in the future, as they will have to rely primarily on first-party data and on data obtained from cookies in smaller browsers.