COOKIE VIEWER CHROME TRIAL

The company is promising a вЂњmore detailed scheduleвЂќ will be posted on its Privacy Sandbox website.

вЂњWe plan to conclude this origin trial in the coming weeks and incorporate input, before advancing to further ecosystem testing,вЂќ Google says. Google is pointing to a вЂњrigorous, multi-phased public development process, including extensive discussion and testing periodsвЂќ for FLoC and other proposals, a fairly obvious signal that it will end up changing or replacing FLoC. The best response Google has really gotten is this analysis from Mozilla that identifies some problems in a way that doesnвЂ™t completely slam the door on future Firefox adoption. However, not a single other browser vendor has signaled that it is on board with using FLoC, and several have explicitly said they would block it. It is a very complicated attempt to create groups of demographically similar users in a semi-anonymous decentralized system that advertisers could use to target ads. The most contentious of those proposals has been the вЂњFederated Learning of CohortsвЂќ technology, or FLoC.

It has bundled several efforts under the rubric of a вЂњ Privacy Sandbox,вЂќ a catch-all term for a bunch of different new proposals for Chrome and the web. One reason is that, as a steward of the open web, Google is attempting to develop its new privacy technologies out in the open via the usual process of creating web standards. And no matter what it does, it will come under heavy fire from regulators, privacy advocates, advertisers, publishers, and anybody else with any kind of stake in the web.ДЇinding a way to balance those conflicting incentives has proven difficult to say the least. The less Google cuts off tracking, the more likely it is to come under fire for not protecting user privacy. The more Google cuts off third-party tracking, the more it harms other advertising companies and potentially increases its own dominance in the ad space. In the blog post announcing the delay, Google says that decision to phase out cookies over a вЂњthree month periodвЂќ in mid-2023 is вЂњsubject to our engagement with the United KingdomвЂ™s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).вЂќ In other words, it is pinning part of the delay on its need to work more closely with regulators to come up with new technologies to replace third-party cookies for use in advertising.ДЇew will shed tears for Google, but it has found itself in a very difficult place as the sole company that dominates multiple industries: search, ads, and browsers.

ThatвЂ™s why the term вЂњcookiepocalypseвЂќ has taken hold. Other browsers like Safari and Firefox have already implemented some blocking against third-party tracking cookies, but Chrome is the most-used desktop browser, and so its shift will be more consequential for the ad industry. Google is announcing today that it is delaying its plans to phase out third-party cookies in the Chrome browser until 2023, a year or so later than originally planned.

COOKIE VIEWER CHROME TRIAL

Cookie viewer chrome