Everyone is making too much money using third party cookies so they’re not going away “yet”.

You may recall that back in January of 2020, Google announced that they were going to remove third party cookies from Chrome.  Apple did this way back in 2017 with Safari, and Firefox, Brave, etc. are now also locking them.  But Google is treating third party cookies like an alcoholic who’ll give up drinking…just not yet.

First there was the Federated Learning of Cohorts, which used every possible privacy-trashing technique to do the same thing third-party cookies did.  Then Google announced it was replacing FLoC with Topics, which is more of the same.  This is all part of the Privacy Sandbox Initiative.

Does anyone really take Google seriously here?  It’s like a two-pack-a-day cigarette smoker agreeing to quit by switching to light smokes.  Ridiculous.

A report today indicates that Google has pushed by ending third party cookies  until 2024 so its parters have more time to adapt, etc.  In response, Internet advertising stocks are trading up.

Huh.  So I guess third party cookies really do have an economic value that is not reproduced with “FLoCs/Topics/whatever is next,” eh, Google?  In other words, the reason you’re delaying is not because you’ve found something better but rather because you haven’t found a replacement.  This is because there isn’t one.  The market acknowledges this.

The golden age of easy advertising targeting may come to an end someday, but Google is trying to make it as late as possible.

raindog308

Raindog308 is a longtime LowEndTalk community administrator, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, Raindog runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, Raindog is a lover of German Shepherds, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.