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Google delays third-party cookie demise yet again

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Re: Google delays third-party cookie demise yet again

#21

Post by DoubleGlazing »

jsnell wrote: post #16
nerdjon wrote: post #8

I am not convinced this is ever going to actually happen. Google won't roll this out until they are sure that their new solution basically has the same effect for advertisers as cookies, but with a new fancy name with "privacy" in it (when its anything but). Google needs to be forced to spin out Chrome to someone else, it is a clear conflict of interest when nearly every (or every? are there any that haven't?) other…

This isn't Google strong-arming the web. This is Google desperately wanting to turn off third-party cookies, and being told again and again by regulators that they aren't allowed to do so.

But isn't that a direct by-product of Chrome being owned by Google.

If Chrome was made by an independent company regulators couldn't care less if they disabled third party cookies.

Re: Google delays third-party cookie demise yet again

#22

Post by SquareWheel »

nerdjon wrote: post #8

I am not convinced this is ever going to actually happen. Google won't roll this out until they are sure that their new solution basically has the same effect for advertisers as cookies, but with a new fancy name with "privacy" in it (when its anything but). Google needs to be forced to spin out Chrome to someone else, it is a clear conflict of interest when nearly every (or every? are there any that haven't?) other…

That doesn't reflect the reality of the situation. Google has been trying to make this transition happen for years. The CMA is the one strong-arming them into maintaining the status quo. The article even mentions 39 new concerns raised which has resulted in yet another extension.

Without this interference, third-party party cookies would have been dead years ago.

Re: Google delays third-party cookie demise yet again

#23

Post by nerdjon »

jsnell wrote: post #16
nerdjon wrote: post #8

I am not convinced this is ever going to actually happen. Google won't roll this out until they are sure that their new solution basically has the same effect for advertisers as cookies, but with a new fancy name with "privacy" in it (when its anything but). Google needs to be forced to spin out Chrome to someone else, it is a clear conflict of interest when nearly every (or every? are there any that haven't?) other…

This isn't Google strong-arming the web. This is Google desperately wanting to turn off third-party cookies, and being told again and again by regulators that they aren't allowed to do so.

Google has strong armed the web in other situations with Chrome, there are multiple cases of them implementing things that google has proposed to w3c but has not been accepted yet.

Regarding this, it's been 4 years. I am not letting google off the hook with this, especially when many other browsers already block third party cookies.

I stand by my opinion that an ad company operating a browser is a clear conflict of interest. If they didn't, this "privacy" feature would never have been a thing and this would have been done years ago.

Re: Google delays third-party cookie demise yet again

#24

Post by tempest_ »

jsnell wrote: post #16
nerdjon wrote: post #8

I am not convinced this is ever going to actually happen. Google won't roll this out until they are sure that their new solution basically has the same effect for advertisers as cookies, but with a new fancy name with "privacy" in it (when its anything but). Google needs to be forced to spin out Chrome to someone else, it is a clear conflict of interest when nearly every (or every? are there any that haven't?) other…

This isn't Google strong-arming the web. This is Google desperately wanting to turn off third-party cookies, and being told again and again by regulators that they aren't allowed to do so.

Who regulates 3rd party cookies (aside from Warren G)?

Re: Google delays third-party cookie demise yet again

#25

Post by denton-scratch »

It looks to me that the only reason Google is pursuing "Privacy Sandbox" is because Chrome dominates the browser marketplace. (I put it in quotes because it neither preserves privacy, nor is it a sandbox). If I don't want 3rd-party cookies (I don't!) then I just toggle them off in Firefox. Sandbox is opaque in the sense that ordinary users can't hope to understand it; and a privacy guarantee is useless, if the user can't understand it. WTF is k-anonymity? I looked it up on Wikipedia, and I still don't understand it.

I guess that's why the Competition and Markets Authority is involved.

Re: Google delays third-party cookie demise yet again

#26

Post by jsnell »

DoubleGlazing wrote: post #21
jsnell wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't Google strong-arming the web. This is Google desperately wanting to turn off third-party cookies, and being told again and again by regulators that they aren't allowed to do so.

But isn't that a direct by-product of Chrome being owned by Google. If Chrome was made by an independent company regulators couldn't care less if they disabled third party cookies.

We honestly can't know whether the regulators would care, or whether they would be making different decisions.

But that counterfactual seems totally irrelevant to the claims the GP was making?

Re: Google delays third-party cookie demise yet again

#27

Post by DanielHB »

akaxaka wrote: post #15
DanielHB wrote: post #10

the web version of Microsoft Teams doesn't work with 3rd party cookies disabled. I have been eagerly awaiting this change so I can use browser teams, it is the one thing I care about that doesn't work with 3rd party cookies disabled. edit: to my surprise apparently web teams (both "old" and "new") no longer needs 3rd party cookies enabled. Last I checked was a few months ago.

You could use Multi-Account Containers in Firefox for MS Browser Teams, to keep their 3rd party cookies contained to themselves (and thus useless).

I use Brave, when I want to use browser teams I just open another browser exclusively for that.

Re: Google delays third-party cookie demise yet again

#28

Post by everybodyknows »

hawski wrote: post #18
DanielHB wrote: post #10

the web version of Microsoft Teams doesn't work with 3rd party cookies disabled. I have been eagerly awaiting this change so I can use browser teams, it is the one thing I care about that doesn't work with 3rd party cookies disabled. edit: to my surprise apparently web teams (both "old" and "new") no longer needs 3rd party cookies enabled. Last I checked was a few months ago.

It is annoying, but Firefox asks if you want to allow to use the 3rd party cookies for specific domain. Example of how it looks: https://hacks.mozilla.org/files/2021/02/Screenshot-2021-02-0...

In the example, the 3rd party is a sub-domain name. Are sub-domains treated the same as unqualified, "second level" domain names?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name

Re: Google delays third-party cookie demise yet again

#29

Post by jampekka »

denton-scratch wrote: post #25

It looks to me that the only reason Google is pursuing "Privacy Sandbox" is because Chrome dominates the browser marketplace. (I put it in quotes because it neither preserves privacy, nor is it a sandbox). If I don't want 3rd-party cookies (I don't!) then I just toggle them off in Firefox. Sandbox is opaque in the sense that ordinary users can't hope to understand it; and a privacy guarantee is useless, if the user c…

k-anonymity means there must be at least k persons (or similar) that have identical data in the dataset. E.g. with k=5 there has to be at least 5 rows for each unique set of column values.

It's easily broken if multiple such datasets are combined. And that's probably exactly what the commercial surveillance industry does.

Re: Google delays third-party cookie demise yet again

#30

Post by DanielHB »

TheJoeMan wrote: post #17
DanielHB wrote: post #10

the web version of Microsoft Teams doesn't work with 3rd party cookies disabled. I have been eagerly awaiting this change so I can use browser teams, it is the one thing I care about that doesn't work with 3rd party cookies disabled. edit: to my surprise apparently web teams (both "old" and "new") no longer needs 3rd party cookies enabled. Last I checked was a few months ago.

Pure speculation, but maybe there's more to this. If Teams refuses to work in Chrome, it might drive run of the mill employees to Edge?

That seems a bit too conspiracy theorist, especially considering most people have 3rd party cookies on and teams has been around for a long time now (I assume before Google announced removing 3rd party cookies)

I think the answer is more banal in that some of their oauth flow runs in a different domain from the main application. I think this is tied to wanting to reuse part of oauth flow in the desktop application.

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