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> The Alphabet Inc. unit has been working with publishers, marketers and regulators on its plan to replace cookies, the software marketers use to track people’s

> The Alphabet Inc. unit has been working with publishers, marketers and regulators on its plan to replace cookies, the software marketers use to track people’s online activity and tailor ads accordingly, through an initiative known as the Privacy Sandbox. How about not fumbling around, not "working with" anyone, but just flipping the damn third-party cookies setting to "disabled" by default without providing any replacement at all? It takes less than a minute to make that change in the code.

IMTDb 4y ago
It also takes you less than a minute to change the "disable all cookies" settings to true in your browser. Then tell us how you feel about not being able to connect on any websites, and how long until you revert the setting. Cookies allow marketers to identify you - which is bad. They also allow all your tools to identify you - which is good. It's not like cookies are this inherently evil thing that has no legitimate use. They serve a real purpose but are also being abused. And as it turns out, it's not that simple to keep their usefulness while addressing their abuse. Because ultimately, both marketers and tools use the cookies in the exact same way, it's what they do after that is the issue. Edit: hadn't seen you were talking about third-party cookies specifically. I fully agree with that. I have personally disabled them since safari disables them by default, and I have little to no impact on my day to day.
- ehsankia 4y ago
  Also, like it or not, the majority of the internet runs on ads currently. Remember the outrage from Youtube creators when adpocalypse happened and everyone's income just dropped? Now imagine you're a website owner and suddenly your website isn't making any more money and needs to shutdown.
  - grishka 4y ago
    I am a website owner. It costs me a whopping 45€/month to run. I'm paying that from my own money and I plan to keep it that way forever. Not everything that could possibly be used to earn money should be used to earn money. I enjoy respecting my users.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Then you shut it down. The Internet doesn't have an obligation to sustain anyone's business model indefinitely.
    - grishka 4y ago
      Or run untargeted ads. Those are still a thing.
- grishka 4y ago
  I'm only talking about THIRD-PARTY cookies. First-party cookies are here to stay — that's absolutely unquestionable. But third-party cookies have very limited useful use cases. I can't really remember anything except comment widgets like Disqus. > it's not that simple to keep their usefulness while addressing their abuse It very much is. First-party cookies are mostly used for good, and third-party cookies are mostly used for evil.
  - fastest963 4y ago
    There still are legitimate use cases for third-party cookies. Let's say you pay for YouTube Premium. Would you be okay seeing ads in YouTube videos embedded on other sites? Should YouTube disallow embedding? That's just 1 of many examples of user expectations that break without third-party cookies.
nightpool 4y ago
States and governments have literally sued Google over their plans to remove third-party cookies. Advertising is a multi-hundred-billion dollar business. There are a lot more players than just Google here, and none of them want Google to rock the boat. The EU Commission has already launch an anti-trust investigation over their removal of third-party cookies. How do you think Google waking up tomorrow to announce the removal of third-party cookies would go over, from their perspective? If they don't "work with" anyone? You can even see people claiming this in this very thread: > Google would probably face legal issues if they did this too fast, other ad networks depends a lot more on these tracking cookies than Google does so they would sue Google for using their browser dominance to hurt their advertising competitors.
- grishka 4y ago
  Then it's just one more reason why the world's biggest online advertising company shouldn't be allowed to also own the world's most popular search engine, the world's most popular mobile operating system, and the world's most popular browser. > How do you think Google waking up tomorrow to announce the removal of third-party cookies would go over, from their perspective? If they don't "work with" anyone? People (those of them who still don't block ads for some reason) will cheer that it's the end of creepy targeted advertising.
  - nightpool 4y ago
    I agree with you, but it's become increasingly clear that regulators are unwilling to break Google up. So in the meantime we have to deal with these half-solutions and investigations that help nobody and hurt everybody.
- JoshTriplett 4y ago
  > States and governments have literally sued Google over their plans to remove third-party cookies. ... While continuing to track people by other means. Rip out both and the problem should go away (at least, if the regulators actually care about users). Google's approach has been "fine, we'll add a way for all ad companies to track people, not just us". Another fair approach would have been "fine, we'll prevent all ad companies from tracking people, including us".

IMTDb 4y ago

It also takes you less than a minute to change the "disable all cookies" settings to true in your browser. Then tell us how you feel about not being able to connect on any websites, and how long until you revert the setting. Cookies allow marketers to identify you - which is bad. They also allow all your tools to identify you - which is good. It's not like cookies are this inherently evil thing that has no legitimate use. They serve a real purpose but are also being abused. And as it turns out, it's not that simple to keep their usefulness while addressing their abuse. Because ultimately, both marketers and tools use the cookies in the exact same way, it's what they do after that is the issue. Edit: hadn't seen you were talking about third-party cookies specifically. I fully agree with that. I have personally disabled them since safari disables them by default, and I have little to no impact on my day to day.

ehsankia 4y ago
Also, like it or not, the majority of the internet runs on ads currently. Remember the outrage from Youtube creators when adpocalypse happened and everyone's income just dropped? Now imagine you're a website owner and suddenly your website isn't making any more money and needs to shutdown.
- grishka 4y ago
  I am a website owner. It costs me a whopping 45€/month to run. I'm paying that from my own money and I plan to keep it that way forever. Not everything that could possibly be used to earn money should be used to earn money. I enjoy respecting my users.
- int_19h 4y ago
  Then you shut it down. The Internet doesn't have an obligation to sustain anyone's business model indefinitely.
  - grishka 4y ago
    Or run untargeted ads. Those are still a thing.
grishka 4y ago
I'm only talking about THIRD-PARTY cookies. First-party cookies are here to stay — that's absolutely unquestionable. But third-party cookies have very limited useful use cases. I can't really remember anything except comment widgets like Disqus. > it's not that simple to keep their usefulness while addressing their abuse It very much is. First-party cookies are mostly used for good, and third-party cookies are mostly used for evil.
- fastest963 4y ago
  There still are legitimate use cases for third-party cookies. Let's say you pay for YouTube Premium. Would you be okay seeing ads in YouTube videos embedded on other sites? Should YouTube disallow embedding? That's just 1 of many examples of user expectations that break without third-party cookies.

nightpool 4y ago

States and governments have literally sued Google over their plans to remove third-party cookies. Advertising is a multi-hundred-billion dollar business. There are a lot more players than just Google here, and none of them want Google to rock the boat. The EU Commission has already launch an anti-trust investigation over their removal of third-party cookies. How do you think Google waking up tomorrow to announce the removal of third-party cookies would go over, from their perspective? If they don't "work with" anyone? You can even see people claiming this in this very thread: > Google would probably face legal issues if they did this too fast, other ad networks depends a lot more on these tracking cookies than Google does so they would sue Google for using their browser dominance to hurt their advertising competitors.

grishka 4y ago
Then it's just one more reason why the world's biggest online advertising company shouldn't be allowed to also own the world's most popular search engine, the world's most popular mobile operating system, and the world's most popular browser. > How do you think Google waking up tomorrow to announce the removal of third-party cookies would go over, from their perspective? If they don't "work with" anyone? People (those of them who still don't block ads for some reason) will cheer that it's the end of creepy targeted advertising.
- nightpool 4y ago
  I agree with you, but it's become increasingly clear that regulators are unwilling to break Google up. So in the meantime we have to deal with these half-solutions and investigations that help nobody and hurt everybody.
JoshTriplett 4y ago
> States and governments have literally sued Google over their plans to remove third-party cookies. ... While continuing to track people by other means. Rip out both and the problem should go away (at least, if the regulators actually care about users). Google's approach has been "fine, we'll add a way for all ad companies to track people, not just us". Another fair approach would have been "fine, we'll prevent all ad companies from tracking people, including us".