Firefox Will Soon Block Third-Party Cookies

Excellent. Now we need to block third party javascript and then we have a chance at a more secure web. After all, any third party javascript could be done by an underwater call between the server and the provider of the service.

The GA script loads from google-analytics.com, not google.com.

    ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';

I don't really like this. I work in the advertising industry and retargeting is honestly one of the most exciting things to come out.

Sure there are ways of cookieless retargeting, but it is a hassle. I mean, everyone's heard of Samy's Evercookie right? Then there are TCP stack signatures, and other companies like a few European DSPs that use cookieless tracking to track a person (IMO it's quite easy to use a GET pixel to actually capture a person's TCP stack).

You can use 3rd party cookies for good and evil. For example, for my personal project, Fork the Cookbook (http://forkthecookbook.com) I'm working on using pixel drops to track how many people fork recipes from embedded recipes (how else would one measure success of an idea). Most analytics softwares like Google Analytics uses 3rd party cookies.

I'm not too sure about evil uses of 3rd party cookies. I do not consider retargeting to be evil. Other stuff like tracking browsing history can be done but it is extremely inefficient, and does not really return much for the amount of time and effort invested into it.

What about PII you ask? Start with drop sites, where people willingly submit their personally identifiable information, and then it's up to the DMPs to actually correlate the data, which can then be used as ad targeting information. As far as I can tell, even with the big hoohaa over companies like Rapleaf, the truth of the matter is that it's very very inefficient so far.

Privacy is simple IMO. Don't submit your information to websites that ask for anything more than what is needed. Banning third party cookies is like using a cannon to shoot a mosquito.

I blocked third party cookies in Chrome for awhile and finally gave up. It broke a surprising number of things, particularly Disqus embeds. Also the Instapaper bookmarklet although I admit that's a nerdy special case. Hopefully Firefox will have a way to let the user enable the few places where third party cookies are desired. That's a hard user interaction to get right.

(Disqus apparently now works without third party cookies: http://help.disqus.com/customer/portal/articles/466235-enabl...)

You could easily get the ad underwater and embed it properly.