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This article seems to avoid talking about the elephant in the room: Every other browser just blocks third party cookies with no replacement. And Chrome would to

This article seems to avoid talking about the elephant in the room: Every other browser just blocks third party cookies with no replacement. And Chrome would too if it wasn't owned by an ad company. This should be the central argument the DOJ uses to separate Chrome from Google: The entire web for a monopoly-size portion of users is massively less secure because the web browser is owned by a company which is very vested in it being less secure.

modeless 2y ago
You have it backwards. Antitrust is the reason Google can't remove cookies. Because it would be anticompetitive toward their competitors in the advertising market. Google has wanted to block third-party cookies for a long time and they can't because they're not allowed to, legally.
- labster 2y ago
  They’ve already been found guilty of antitrust, so what do they have to lose? Honestly I’m surprised Google hasn’t offered to buy Truth Social for a few hundred million just to make this little antitrust problem go away.
- CharlesW 2y ago
  The parent commenter is correct: Chrome is blocking third-party cookies if the user chooses that behavior. The only thing that's changed is that they won't be doing it by default, or letting users know about this privacy-protecting option. From TFA: "Until today, Google was still planning to roll out a dialog in Chrome that would prompt users to turn off third-party cookies in favor of Google's updated solution. […] …Google won't be pushing that cookie dialog to users. You can still choose to disable third-party cookies in Chrome, though."
  - modeless 2y ago
    Nothing you said is in contradiction with what I said. Antitrust law is what prevents Google from default blocking third party cookies in Chrome.
    - kibwen 2y ago
      Then you agree that Chrome should be divorced from Google, so that Google is no longer forced into such a position?
      - pests 2y ago
        If the argument is removing third party cookies is detrimental to Google’s competitors then isn’t it just as detrimental after Chrome has been split up? Google is saying they’re fine with no third party cookies. The rest of the industry needs them. How do you protect user privacy while also not killing googles competitors? Which need is more important?
        bfdm 2y ago
        If chrome were split out (and subsequently stopped giving Google direct access to user data), Google would need them too. It would impact all ad players equally.
        creato 2y ago
        I don't think Google uses data from Chrome this way. I don't think Google actually wants to associate data with people so aggressively. It's obvious when that happens and it feels gross (this is why I stopped using Facebook 10+ years ago, I've never had an equivalent gross-out moment with Google). I'm guessing the reason google doesn't use third party cookies is because they get higher quality data from people being signed in to Google services, and that is independent of whether they are using Chrome or not.
        pests 2y ago
        Yea correct. They have numerous other ways of identifying you or fingerprinting you that cookies aren't all that important anymore.
        modeless 2y ago
        No, the antitrust argument is Google doesn't need third party tracking because they have a huge amount of first party data and ad inventory from search and YouTube and all their other web products. It's not from Chrome. Their adtech competitors don't have first party inventory or data and would be crushed.
- frollogaston 2y ago
  This reminds of how they sorta allow tracking pixels in Gmail, but that's a bit different because Google doesn't benefit from those at all. I'm guessing 3P cookies help Google too.
- cma 2y ago
  > Google has wanted to block third-party cookies for a long time and they can't because they're not allowed to, legally. There's no reason they couldn't allow add-ons to do it: but instead with manifest v3 I think it is impossible to do it in a general way isn't it? Like with the other ad-blocking you have to have a hardcoded number of rules you can define for blocking cookies in the requests as well, at least through the declarativeNetRequest API. Maybe it is possible for through one of the cookies APIs, but the cookie's API has race conditions where the site can still sometimes see them from what I understand and redirects can activate before your extension gets a chance to respond. And then of course extensions don't even run on mobile and that isn't an accident.
- ocdtrekkie 2y ago
  If Google is successfully forced to divest Chrome, Chrome will no longer be in competition with advertisers. So whether you or I are right about the cause, we should both be able to agree that for privacy reasons, Google must divest Chrome. I do disagree with your cause and effect though, they have gotten blocked from replacing third party cookies with privacy sandbox because it replaces a standard everyone can use equally with a Google-controlled system. They could have cited the industry standard to block third party cookies in other browsers and done so without a replacement, the reason they are being prohibited from doing so is because they are motivated to maintain data access for themselves via privacy sandbox. You can read countless statements from the Chrome team about Privacy Sandbox where they state how vital spying on users for ad targeting is, they've never "wanted" to remove doing so.
  - modeless 2y ago
    Chrome is not in competition with advertisers. If Google divests Chrome and Chrome removes third party cookies as a result, Google's adtech competitors will be crushed just as effectively as if Google removed third party cookies themselves. Google would survive just fine because they have lots of first party ad inventory and data, and all their adtech competition would be gone. This is the exact opposite of what the antitrust suit is trying to achieve. Those statements about tracking you're referencing are legal shielding against antitrust suits from adtech competitors.
    - ocdtrekkie 2y ago
      This suggestion that they don't need a replacement for third party cookies seems to directly contradict the number of attempts they've made to develop themselves a replacement. How do you square that belief?
      - modeless 2y ago
        The alternatives are designed to replace the function of third party cookies for Google's competitors to address their antitrust concerns and unblock removing third party cookies in Chrome which, as I said, Google wanted to do. Obviously the effort was unsuccessful. Google was attacked on both sides, on the one hand by adtech who objected to being forced by Google to use something less powerful than third party cookies, and on the other hand by other browser vendors who objected to adding adtech features and certainly didn't have any interest in helping Google avoid their antitrust problem, regardless of the fact that enabling Google to turn off third party cookies would be the better privacy outcome for users of Chrome. They had no interest in helping Chrome users; they preferred to promote alternatives instead.
decimalenough 2y ago
FWIW, Edge does not block third party cookies yet, although they are experimenting with it. https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2024/03/05/new-privacy-preserving-ads-api/ https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2024/03/05/new-privacy-p...
timewizard 2y ago
Ah.. I was wondering why they would even bother with something like Related Web Sets. https://privacysandbox.google.com/cookies/related-website-sets https://privacysandbox.google.com/cookies/related-website-se... I guess that was going to be too insane to actually manage.

modeless 2y ago

You have it backwards. Antitrust is the reason Google can't remove cookies. Because it would be anticompetitive toward their competitors in the advertising market. Google has wanted to block third-party cookies for a long time and they can't because they're not allowed to, legally.

labster 2y ago
They’ve already been found guilty of antitrust, so what do they have to lose? Honestly I’m surprised Google hasn’t offered to buy Truth Social for a few hundred million just to make this little antitrust problem go away.
CharlesW 2y ago
The parent commenter is correct: Chrome is blocking third-party cookies if the user chooses that behavior. The only thing that's changed is that they won't be doing it by default, or letting users know about this privacy-protecting option. From TFA: "Until today, Google was still planning to roll out a dialog in Chrome that would prompt users to turn off third-party cookies in favor of Google's updated solution. […] …Google won't be pushing that cookie dialog to users. You can still choose to disable third-party cookies in Chrome, though."
- modeless 2y ago
  Nothing you said is in contradiction with what I said. Antitrust law is what prevents Google from default blocking third party cookies in Chrome.
  - kibwen 2y ago
    Then you agree that Chrome should be divorced from Google, so that Google is no longer forced into such a position?
    - pests 2y ago
      If the argument is removing third party cookies is detrimental to Google’s competitors then isn’t it just as detrimental after Chrome has been split up? Google is saying they’re fine with no third party cookies. The rest of the industry needs them. How do you protect user privacy while also not killing googles competitors? Which need is more important?
      - bfdm 2y ago
        If chrome were split out (and subsequently stopped giving Google direct access to user data), Google would need them too. It would impact all ad players equally.
        creato 2y ago
        I don't think Google uses data from Chrome this way. I don't think Google actually wants to associate data with people so aggressively. It's obvious when that happens and it feels gross (this is why I stopped using Facebook 10+ years ago, I've never had an equivalent gross-out moment with Google). I'm guessing the reason google doesn't use third party cookies is because they get higher quality data from people being signed in to Google services, and that is independent of whether they are using Chrome or not.
        pests 2y ago
        Yea correct. They have numerous other ways of identifying you or fingerprinting you that cookies aren't all that important anymore.
        modeless 2y ago
        No, the antitrust argument is Google doesn't need third party tracking because they have a huge amount of first party data and ad inventory from search and YouTube and all their other web products. It's not from Chrome. Their adtech competitors don't have first party inventory or data and would be crushed.
frollogaston 2y ago
This reminds of how they sorta allow tracking pixels in Gmail, but that's a bit different because Google doesn't benefit from those at all. I'm guessing 3P cookies help Google too.
cma 2y ago
> Google has wanted to block third-party cookies for a long time and they can't because they're not allowed to, legally. There's no reason they couldn't allow add-ons to do it: but instead with manifest v3 I think it is impossible to do it in a general way isn't it? Like with the other ad-blocking you have to have a hardcoded number of rules you can define for blocking cookies in the requests as well, at least through the declarativeNetRequest API. Maybe it is possible for through one of the cookies APIs, but the cookie's API has race conditions where the site can still sometimes see them from what I understand and redirects can activate before your extension gets a chance to respond. And then of course extensions don't even run on mobile and that isn't an accident.
ocdtrekkie 2y ago
If Google is successfully forced to divest Chrome, Chrome will no longer be in competition with advertisers. So whether you or I are right about the cause, we should both be able to agree that for privacy reasons, Google must divest Chrome. I do disagree with your cause and effect though, they have gotten blocked from replacing third party cookies with privacy sandbox because it replaces a standard everyone can use equally with a Google-controlled system. They could have cited the industry standard to block third party cookies in other browsers and done so without a replacement, the reason they are being prohibited from doing so is because they are motivated to maintain data access for themselves via privacy sandbox. You can read countless statements from the Chrome team about Privacy Sandbox where they state how vital spying on users for ad targeting is, they've never "wanted" to remove doing so.
- modeless 2y ago
  Chrome is not in competition with advertisers. If Google divests Chrome and Chrome removes third party cookies as a result, Google's adtech competitors will be crushed just as effectively as if Google removed third party cookies themselves. Google would survive just fine because they have lots of first party ad inventory and data, and all their adtech competition would be gone. This is the exact opposite of what the antitrust suit is trying to achieve. Those statements about tracking you're referencing are legal shielding against antitrust suits from adtech competitors.
  - ocdtrekkie 2y ago
    This suggestion that they don't need a replacement for third party cookies seems to directly contradict the number of attempts they've made to develop themselves a replacement. How do you square that belief?
    - modeless 2y ago
      The alternatives are designed to replace the function of third party cookies for Google's competitors to address their antitrust concerns and unblock removing third party cookies in Chrome which, as I said, Google wanted to do. Obviously the effort was unsuccessful. Google was attacked on both sides, on the one hand by adtech who objected to being forced by Google to use something less powerful than third party cookies, and on the other hand by other browser vendors who objected to adding adtech features and certainly didn't have any interest in helping Google avoid their antitrust problem, regardless of the fact that enabling Google to turn off third party cookies would be the better privacy outcome for users of Chrome. They had no interest in helping Chrome users; they preferred to promote alternatives instead.

decimalenough 2y ago

FWIW, Edge does not block third party cookies yet, although they are experimenting with it. https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2024/03/05/new-privacy-preserving-ads-api/ https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2024/03/05/new-privacy-p...

timewizard 2y ago

Ah.. I was wondering why they would even bother with something like Related Web Sets. https://privacysandbox.google.com/cookies/related-website-sets https://privacysandbox.google.com/cookies/related-website-se... I guess that was going to be too insane to actually manage.