Google Removes Third-Party Cookies Years after Safari, Mozilla and Edge

We are at that stage of the internet age where every click, swipe, and search leaves a trail, hence privacy has become a serious concern for the tech giants. Google, the search giant that shapes much of our online experience has decided to block third-party cookies on its Chrome browser.

Third-party cookies are used to track users around the web, building up a detailed profile of them that could include not only interests but also deeply personal information such as gender, sexuality, religion, and political affiliation -- practically everything. 

The update by Google will lay the groundwork for a broader third-party cookie phase out in the second half of 2024 (under a schedule that has been pushed back several times). As of now, the blockage will roll out for 1% of Google’s users which is 30 million, Anthony Chavez, leader of Google's Privacy Sandbox project wrote in a blog post.

Google is not the first one to take this step, browsers such as Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari block third-party cookies by default. Even’s Microsoft Edge offers the same with a "strict" privacy setting. 

According to analytics firm StatCounter, Google’s Chrome accounts for 63% share of web usage. With its existing dominance, Google took its own sweet time to balance privacy without hurting its online ad business, the largest revenue contributor of the company.

With the Privacy Sandbox initiative the ad-driven ecosystem won’t cripple. However, this ambition of Google hasn't escaped the eyes of regulators, who perceive this move as potentially augmenting Google's already powerful influence.

If all goes well, Google will continue rolling out Tracking Protection to make the internet more private until it has disabled third-party cookies for all Chrome users by mid-2024. It’s a slow rollout to give advertisers, publishers, and ad-tech firms time to “test our readiness for a web without third-party cookies” as per Google.