Google Chrome will keep third-party cookies and offer another option for users to decide their preferences

July 23 (Portaltic/EP) –

Google has announced that it will keep third-party cookies in Chrome and, instead of eliminating them as planned, it will introduce a new “experience” that will allow users to “make an informed decision” about your browsing preferences.

Third-party cookies are those used by websites along with other mechanisms to track users’ browsing behavior on the Internet and to be able to propose topics of interest for advertising purposes, among others.

The company has been working for months on what It is known as Privacy Sandboxan initiative that seeks to offer respectful digital advertising with user data and protects people’s privacy online by eliminating these third-party tracking cookies in Chrome with alternative application programming interfaces (APIs).

In January of this year, Google had already managed to disable third-party cookies for 1 percent of users worldwide – that is, some 30 million people chosen at random, according to a report by Gizmodo at the time – and announced an extension of its plans just three months later.

It was in April that it announced a change in its timetable, which it had initially hoped would be completed by the end of this year and which it had moved to early next year because there were still “difficulties in reconciling the divergent opinions of the sector.”

The firm has now announced an update on the initiative, which has “received feedback from a wide variety of stakeholders,” including regulators, publishers, web developers and people in the advertising industry.

Google has also said that early testing by ad tech companies has indicated that Privacy Sandbox APIs “have the potential” to achieve what they set out to dothat is, continuing to offer advertising while protecting users’ privacy.

With this, he has recognized that “this transition requires significant work by many participants” and that it will have a impact on all people involved in online advertisingaccording to the document signed by the vice president of Privacy Sandbox, Anthony Chavez.

In this regard, he has advocated for “an updated approach that increases the user’s ability to choose” and has said that Instead of discontinuing ‘cookies’ of third parties, will introduce “A new experience in Chrome that allows people to make an informed choice that applies to all their web browsing and that they can adjust at any time.”

For the moment, it has not announced what the alternative to the planned elimination of cookies will be, but it has indicated that it will continue to make the Privacy Sandbox APIs available to developers and that it will invest in them. to “further” improve privacy and utility.

With this new approach, the tech firm also seeks to offer additional privacy controls and introduce IP protection in Google Chrome’s incognito mode.

The company also said it will continue to maintain contact with bodies such as the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in the United Kingdom to continue working on user privacy.