Google Breaks Promise to Block Third-Party Cookies

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Last week, Google backtracked on its long-standing promise to block third-party cookies in Chrome. This is bad for your privacy and good for Google’s business. Third-party cookies are a pervasive tracking technology that allow companies to snoop on your online activity for surveillance and ad-targeting purposes. The consumer harm caused by these cookies has been well-documented for years, prompting Safari and Firefox to block them since 2020. Google knows this—that’s why they pledged to phase out third-party cookies in 2020. By abandoning this plan, Google leaves billions of Chrome users vulnerable to online surveillance.

How do third-party cookies facilitate online surveillance?

Cookies are small packets of information stored in your browser by websites you visit. They were built to enable useful functionality, like letting a website remember your language preferences or the contents of your shopping cart. But for years, companies have abused this functionality to track user behavior across the web, fueling a vast network of online surveillance. 

While first-party cookies enable useful functionality, third-party cookies are primarily used for online tracking. Third-party cookies are set by websites other than the one you’re currently viewing. Websites often include code from third-party companies to load resources like ads, analytics, and social media buttons. When you visit a website, this third-party code can create a cookie with a unique identifier for you. When you visit another website that loads resources from the same third-party company, that company receives your unique identifier from the cookie they previously set. By recognizing your unique identifier across multiple sites, third-party companies build a detailed profile of your browsing habits. 

For example, if y

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