GOOGLE SAYS IT WILL STOP TRACKING USERS ACROSS WEB

The situation

Google says it won’t develop new ways to follow individual users across the internet after it phases out existing ad tracking technology from Chrome browsers.

“Today, we’re making explicit that once third-party cookies are phased out, we will not build alternate identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web, nor will we use them in our products,” David Temkin,

Google’s director of product management for ads privacy and trust, said in a blog post.

What are third-party cookies?

These have long been a key tool for marketers to deliver targeted ads, but they’ve also been a source of privacy concerns, so Google has proposed instead grouping together web users with similar interests and keeping web histories private on user devices.

When will it happen?

Google plans to roll out the changes, dubbed “privacy sandbox,” by next year.

What won’t change

Google will continue to be able to track users through its own services, like Search or Maps.

Is everybody happy?

No. Smaller players in the online ad industry in particular are concerned that the tech giant’s already dominant power in online advertising will only grow.

James Rosewell, CEO of Marketers for an Open Web, a group of media and advertising companies lobbying against the changes, said the move would squeeze out the small set of online advertising companies that compete for the sliver of online ad business left behind by Google and Facebook.