6 ms·

It is called "third party cookies" not "ad cookies". You can have ads without third party cookies and third party cookies have other purposes than ads. I know

by GuB-42 4y ago

It is called "third party cookies" not "ad cookies". You can have ads without third party cookies and third party cookies have other purposes than ads. I know that ads currently are the main use for third party cookies, but I think that everyone who has any interest in these news know what a third party cookie is, so why not use the proper term? I actually thought it was some ad specific Chrome feature, like the Advertising ID in Android, but no, it turns out these are just third party cookies.

jefftk 4y ago
The official blog post just talks about third party cookies: https://blog.google/products/chrome/update-testing-privacy-sandbox-web/ https://blog.google/products/chrome/update-testing-privacy-s... I think the main reason Bloomberg is calling them ad cookies is because it is the impact on advertising that's causing this delay. Google promised regulators that they wouldn't get rid of cookies without a replacement for advertising, and those replacements aren't ready yet. On the other hand, this is really hard and I don't know if Google is actually going to be able to do this ever. (I used to work on this)
- ilovegorhill 4y ago
  This is the actual link that should have been posted to HackerNews: https://developer.chrome.com/blog/expanding-privacy-sandbox-testing/ https://developer.chrome.com/blog/expanding-privacy-sandbox-...
  - jefftk 4y ago
    I'd missed that post, and it's an excellent summary of where this work is!
- JoshTriplett 4y ago
  > Google promised regulators that they wouldn't get rid of cookies without a replacement for advertising This is an excellent example of theoretically good intentions (promoting competition) leading to terrible results (preventing the removal of something largely unwanted that's abused by advertisers).
- SilverBirch 4y ago
  It might be that Bloomberg geniunely doesn't understand what these are since you can get past their soft paywall by removing their cookies.
  - gruez 4y ago
    but those are first party cookies, not third party.
greenthrow 4y ago
It's also important to point out that phasing out third party cookies while still maintaining tracking in Chrome for themselves seems like a clear antitrust issue. They are effectively making it harder for any competing ad service to track users without making it any harder for themselves.
- londons_explore 4y ago
  They're proposing an alternative ad-targeting system which any other provider would be able to use too. Obviously they still get the benefit of designing such a system, and can tailor it to the needs of their products.
Pakdef 4y ago
> and third party cookies have other purposes than ads. for some reason MS Teams won't work without third party cookies... not sure why... I hope I never have to use it again
- jacquesm 4y ago
  MS Teams should be classified as malware / spyware.
- shafyy 4y ago
  It's exteremely annoying and I'm forced to use it with my current client. MS Teams is worse in everythign they do compared to their competitors. I miss notifications all the time.
  - Pakdef 4y ago
    You made me think of this cool video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg
superb-owl 4y ago
This is technically correct. But from the perspective of a non-technical audience, calling it an "ad cookie" makes a lot of sense. It conveys a lot more information about why people should care, and why Google and others might be reticent to end their usage. Maybe an "ad-enablement cookie" or a "tracking-enablement cookie" would be better. But the technical term of art, "third party cookie," is french to most people. As long as they make a note of the technical term (it's in the first line!) I think they're well within the limits of journalistic license.
tomxor 4y ago
> It is called "third party cookies" not "ad cookies". You can have ads without third party cookies and third party cookies have other purposes than ads. As one of the few people who is affected by a legitimate use case of third party cookies that are not ads... this is bullshit, 99% of use cases are for ads, it's an ad cookie.
- ilovegorhill 4y ago
  Yep. I've been browsing the Internet with third-party cookies blocked by default for several years, and only have three exceptions in my list: Google Drive (to be able to play videos), Mega (the file hosting site), and the official Xbox site (because it wouldn't show the list of games on Xbox Cloud Gaming).
- fomine3 4y ago
  Enterprise internal sites/SSO tend to rely on third party cookies, because it's enterprise and they can completely control what browser should be used.
  - hedora 4y ago
    Sounds like a great data feed for industrial espionage.
- iainmerrick 4y ago
  Out of interest, what's that legitimate use case?
  - tomxor 4y ago
    Embedding paid content from one domain into another (i.e authz is needed to prove rights to access), it's common to store the session data in a cookie for the embedded site, at which point it's a third party cookie. More concretely my particular case is to do with learning management systems which commonly use LTI to embed external content (outside of the US at least). That external content is hosted by some other system (can be another LMS) which usually store their session information in a cookie just because that's how it's always been done - The solution is to not use cookies, it's not needed, each resources can re-auth over the launch protocol (LTI) anyway, and for individual frames to be able to continue navigation/access - the session info can live anywhere else, in the URL for old fashioned navigation, or as part of the initial request body if subsequent requests are done over AJAX.
iainmerrick 4y ago
third party cookies have other purposes than ads Do they? Like what? Third-party cookies can be convenient, sure, but in almost all cases you don't need to use them and you can still get done what you need to get done. Except when you want to track users for ads. (You can obviously track users without third-party cookies, too, by various fingerprinting methods, but at that point it's a lot clearer that what you're doing is nefarious and doesn't have the user's consent.)
- dartharva 4y ago
  Most of Google's enterprise offerings (like G Suite, Data Studio, etc.) simply refuse to work properly if you don't allow third party cookies. Heck, you can't even download anything or preview a video from Drive without it.
  - iainmerrick 4y ago
    Only because they don’t care to put in the work necessary to fix it.

by GuB-42 4y ago

jefftk 4y ago

The official blog post just talks about third party cookies: https://blog.google/products/chrome/update-testing-privacy-sandbox-web/ https://blog.google/products/chrome/update-testing-privacy-s... I think the main reason Bloomberg is calling them ad cookies is because it is the impact on advertising that's causing this delay. Google promised regulators that they wouldn't get rid of cookies without a replacement for advertising, and those replacements aren't ready yet. On the other hand, this is really hard and I don't know if Google is actually going to be able to do this ever. (I used to work on this)

ilovegorhill 4y ago
This is the actual link that should have been posted to HackerNews: https://developer.chrome.com/blog/expanding-privacy-sandbox-testing/ https://developer.chrome.com/blog/expanding-privacy-sandbox-...
- jefftk 4y ago
  I'd missed that post, and it's an excellent summary of where this work is!
JoshTriplett 4y ago
> Google promised regulators that they wouldn't get rid of cookies without a replacement for advertising This is an excellent example of theoretically good intentions (promoting competition) leading to terrible results (preventing the removal of something largely unwanted that's abused by advertisers).
SilverBirch 4y ago
It might be that Bloomberg geniunely doesn't understand what these are since you can get past their soft paywall by removing their cookies.
- gruez 4y ago
  but those are first party cookies, not third party.

greenthrow 4y ago

It's also important to point out that phasing out third party cookies while still maintaining tracking in Chrome for themselves seems like a clear antitrust issue. They are effectively making it harder for any competing ad service to track users without making it any harder for themselves.

londons_explore 4y ago
They're proposing an alternative ad-targeting system which any other provider would be able to use too. Obviously they still get the benefit of designing such a system, and can tailor it to the needs of their products.

Pakdef 4y ago

> and third party cookies have other purposes than ads. for some reason MS Teams won't work without third party cookies... not sure why... I hope I never have to use it again

jacquesm 4y ago
MS Teams should be classified as malware / spyware.
shafyy 4y ago
It's exteremely annoying and I'm forced to use it with my current client. MS Teams is worse in everythign they do compared to their competitors. I miss notifications all the time.
- Pakdef 4y ago
  You made me think of this cool video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg

superb-owl 4y ago

This is technically correct. But from the perspective of a non-technical audience, calling it an "ad cookie" makes a lot of sense. It conveys a lot more information about why people should care, and why Google and others might be reticent to end their usage. Maybe an "ad-enablement cookie" or a "tracking-enablement cookie" would be better. But the technical term of art, "third party cookie," is french to most people. As long as they make a note of the technical term (it's in the first line!) I think they're well within the limits of journalistic license.

tomxor 4y ago

> It is called "third party cookies" not "ad cookies". You can have ads without third party cookies and third party cookies have other purposes than ads. As one of the few people who is affected by a legitimate use case of third party cookies that are not ads... this is bullshit, 99% of use cases are for ads, it's an ad cookie.

ilovegorhill 4y ago
Yep. I've been browsing the Internet with third-party cookies blocked by default for several years, and only have three exceptions in my list: Google Drive (to be able to play videos), Mega (the file hosting site), and the official Xbox site (because it wouldn't show the list of games on Xbox Cloud Gaming).
fomine3 4y ago
Enterprise internal sites/SSO tend to rely on third party cookies, because it's enterprise and they can completely control what browser should be used.
- hedora 4y ago
  Sounds like a great data feed for industrial espionage.
iainmerrick 4y ago
Out of interest, what's that legitimate use case?
- tomxor 4y ago
  Embedding paid content from one domain into another (i.e authz is needed to prove rights to access), it's common to store the session data in a cookie for the embedded site, at which point it's a third party cookie. More concretely my particular case is to do with learning management systems which commonly use LTI to embed external content (outside of the US at least). That external content is hosted by some other system (can be another LMS) which usually store their session information in a cookie just because that's how it's always been done - The solution is to not use cookies, it's not needed, each resources can re-auth over the launch protocol (LTI) anyway, and for individual frames to be able to continue navigation/access - the session info can live anywhere else, in the URL for old fashioned navigation, or as part of the initial request body if subsequent requests are done over AJAX.

iainmerrick 4y ago

third party cookies have other purposes than ads Do they? Like what? Third-party cookies can be convenient, sure, but in almost all cases you don't need to use them and you can still get done what you need to get done. Except when you want to track users for ads. (You can obviously track users without third-party cookies, too, by various fingerprinting methods, but at that point it's a lot clearer that what you're doing is nefarious and doesn't have the user's consent.)

dartharva 4y ago
Most of Google's enterprise offerings (like G Suite, Data Studio, etc.) simply refuse to work properly if you don't allow third party cookies. Heck, you can't even download anything or preview a video from Drive without it.
- iainmerrick 4y ago
  Only because they don’t care to put in the work necessary to fix it.