Google abolishes third-party cookies
Third-party cookies have been an integral part of the internet for many years. Google plans to put an end to this type of tracking soon.
Wherever you go on the internet, the same question pops up in one way or another: "Do you want to allow the use of cookies?" The data records that browsers store on users' computers and smartphones are a key pillar of personalized online advertising.
However, in view of government regulations and users' growing awareness of their data security, many browser providers see a so-called "cookie-less future" on the horizon. Following the actions of Apple and Firefox developer Mozilla against third-party cookies, Google also wants to push them out of its Chrome web browser this year.
The company took its first step at the beginning of the year. Since January 4, around one percent of Chrome browser users have had their access to third-party cookies restricted by default, as the company announced. Participants in the test phase were selected at random.
In the second half of the year, these cookies are then to be completely abolished - "provided that any remaining concerns of the UK competition authority have been resolved by then", Google online reports. However, the cookie banners that pop up when a page is opened will remain for the time being.
Cookies relevant for advertising
With the help of cookies, websites can recognize their visitors. For example, a browser can remember a login or the contents of a virtual shopping cart.
Above all, however, cookies make personalized advertising possible. Third-party cookies, which are not set by the visited website itself, but by embedded content from other sites, are particularly controversial. They allow advertising service providers to track users across multiple pages and create profiles for advertising purposes.
Third-party cookies allow users to be tracked "very granularly across different websites by third-party providers", says Lidia Schneck, Partner Manager at Google. With the so-called Privacy Sandbox, this should be limited in the future so that advertisers only receive very limited information about users' interests "in order to prevent the identification or recognition of a user."
Various applications have been developed together with the industry for this purpose. From the end of the year, third-party providers will no longer be able to track the individual surfing behavior of users across different websites.
Instead, the websites that a user visits are then marked with overarching advertising topics, for example - i.e. with categories such as "sport", "travel" or "pets". The browser records the user's most frequent topics, saves them locally on the end device and, if required, shares a maximum of three advertising topics with the advertising providers for the past three weeks.
The aim is to display advertising that is relevant to users without advertisers knowing which specific websites have been visited. In the Chrome settings, they can see which advertising topics have been assigned to them and make changes if necessary.
Sharp criticism from the advertising industry
The advertising industry has criticized the planned abolition of third-party cookies. This will not strengthen data protection, but rather Google's dominant position in the advertising market, says Bernd Nauen, Managing Director of the Central Association of the German Advertising Industry (ZAW). This is because Google's wealth of data is primarily based on first-party data, which Google collects for itself through user logins, its own first-party cookies or search queries.
Outside of Google services and a few other "mega platforms", users could only be shown advertising based on their presumed interests to a very limited extent if cookies were abolished, says Nauen. "Going back to spam, pop-ups and excessive banner advertising on topics that put me off rather than interest me is certainly not the solution."
According to the ZAW, the scope of the advertising industry should not be restricted by individual market-dominant platforms. Such a decision must lie with the legislator, who has also passed laws to prevent rules that are detrimental to competition from being imposed by such platforms. The competition authorities are therefore called upon more than ever. (SDA/swi)
