With the privacy debate that has been going on online recently, questions are being asked about the role online platforms and tools play in this and some people are worried about the services they use on a daily basis. Most of the websites we use regularly track our movements online and use this data to create profiles of who we are and can sell that to advertisers without us knowing.
These websites use Cookies and these help them collect data on the people who visit the websites and can decide to track other sites that they may end up visiting. This is how you may end up seeing ads of products or services and you are not sure how it got to you. There are some ads that you may see and not be worried with but since most of these websites sell your data without consent, serious privacy issues need to be addressed.
Google wants to tackle this problem head-on through its browser, Chrome. According to the Bleeping Computer, the latest Chrome Canary version features a flag (an experimental feature) that is labeled ‘Enable improved cookie controls UI’. With this feature enabled, an option called ‘Block third-party cookies’ will be included in the Cookies and Site Data screen.
This is a noble cause by Google but we cannot overlook the fact that the company is one of the leading advertisers online and it collects user data and behavior online and sell that to advertisers. Maybe Google wants to block cookies from suspicious websites but not all cookies. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
Mozilla Did It First
The new flag on Chrome comes a few days after Mozilla rolled out Firefox 69 which allows the blocking of all third-party tracking cookies. This is done by default through the Advanced Tracking Protection feature. To see the same feature on Chrome is interesting and probably Google has been working on it for long but it looks like they are copying Mozilla.
Unlike Google, Mozilla does not earn its income from advertising so it is able to boldly do this without affecting its bottom-line. Google, on the other hand, has to be careful to be seen as doing something but not do so much to affect its core business.
Previously, Google has said that if cookies are blocked completely, advertising companies will employ other invasive methods to track users’ activities. This meant that the company wasn’t willing to do anything radical about them until now.
Also Read: Google Chrome will get a Pause/Play Button on the Toolbar