Guide
Google’s Topics API analyses your browsing history – here’s how to disable it
by Florian Bodoky
Google Chrome: Third-party cookies remain longer than planned (again)
25.4.2024
Translation: machine translated
Almost four years after the initial announcement, Google Chrome still uses third-party cookies. And this will remain the case until the beginning of 2025, as Google has to deal with objections from the British market regulator.
Safari and Firefox have been rid of them since 2020 - the third-party cookies. This means that you are (or have been) tracked by advertisers on the internet. Which pages you visit, which topics you are interested in, and so on. So that they can show you suitable adverts. Google then announced that it would also be saying goodbye to third-party cookies by 2022. In 2021, Google postponed this date to 2023. In 2022, the search engine giant announced that 2023 would be the end of cookies in Chrome. Now it suddenly says: early 2025 - even though the new tracking method, the Topics API, is actually already in place.
Tests drag on, Brits grumble
The testing of the new tracking method seems to be dragging on. Although the technology was rolled out to some users at the beginning of this year, there are "still challenges in reconciling the different feedbacks (...)", Google reports on its blog.
One of these feedbacks comes from the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). They don't seem to be very happy about the way Google's new tracking method works. Topics API is a so-called privacy sandbox mechanism. This means that you are no longer "spied on" from all sides, but your tracked interests and habits remain with Google. Third parties only receive information about your interests on request - and only on a topic-specific basis. They then no longer know details about your surfing habits. They then display adverts based on the topics that interest you. You can find out all the details here:
The CMA's concerns are not about your privacy. Rather, they are concerned that this technology would give Google's advertising division an unfair competitive advantage. In the new system, Google would be the only player to have all the tracking information of Chrome users.
Public tests until the end of June
Google has now started a series of public tests for the new advertising and display system, which will last until the end of June. After that, the company will wait until the CMA has "reviewed all concerns about the new system and analysed the results of the industry tests". The results of the tests with the various market participants will then determine whether and to what extent Topics API will be allowed to go on sale. It will therefore not be possible to abolish third-party cookies "before the second half of the fourth quarter of 2024".
Header image: Shutterstock
I've been tinkering with digital networks ever since I found out how to activate both telephone channels on the ISDN card for greater bandwidth. As for the analogue variety, I've been doing that since I learned to talk. Though Winterthur is my adoptive home city, my heart still bleeds red and blue.