Google has started restricting third-party cookies for certain Chrome users, which is a first move towards eventually removing the files that have sparked privacy concerns.
Jerrymusa.com reports that Google claimed that it could only completely remove third-party cookies with the agreement of Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority, which is examining the effects on other firms.
Google made the announcement in 2020 that it planned to phase out cookies.
The business stated in a blog post that referenced a start date of Thursday that “as per previously announced plans, Chrome is restricting third-party cookies by default for one percent of Chrome users to facilitate testing, and then ramping up to 100 percent of users from Q3 2024.”
Cookies are tiny files that track user behaviour on websites in order to target advertisements.
have recently been subject to increased regulation, notably laws in California and the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union, which was enacted in 2016.
Cookies set by websites you visit and not by your browser are known as third-party cookies.
Although Google stated in January 2020 that it would start removing third-party cookies in two years, there have been multiple delays in this announcement.
Google has been developing a different method for Chrome that will target audience segments, including hundreds or thousands of people, known as Federated Learning of Cohorts, or FLoCs, rather than tracking individual users.