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.

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raindog308

Dread Lord of LowEnd Content at LowEndBox

I'm raindog308, techno polymath and long-time LowEndTalk community Administrator. My technical interests include all things Unix, perl, python, golang, shell scripting, vintage operating systems such as MVS, and relational database systems such as Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

I also enjoy using LEBs! I have an empire of little guys for VPNs, larger guys for apps, and big guys for databases and storage. When I'm not in front a screen I'm into German Shepherd dogs, quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop roleplaying games, and forest hiking.

I enjoy writing technical articles here on LowEndBox to help people get more out of their systems. You can find me on LowEndTalk @raindog308

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