Google is scheduled to soon unveil a newly designed function in its widely used Chrome browser. The function would offer end users a greater level of control in declining and removing tracking cookies, reported the Wall Street Journal earlier today, citing individuals who are said to be familiar with the matter.
Cookies are small files that follow and monitory the activities of internet users and are primarily used by advertisers to target consumers with advertisements that are based upon the specific interests that have been noted while browsing. Although Google’s new tools are not in fact expected to greatly reduce its ability to collect this type of data, it is likely to help the company to gain a substantial advantage over its web-based advertising rivals, the newspaper stated.
Google’s three billion active users help to make the company one the largest seller of web-based advertisements in the world, collecting nearly a one-third of all such revenue, more than that earned by rival Facebook’s 20%, according to data coming from research firm eMarketer. The firm anticipates that total digital advertising spending in the United States alone will to increase by 19% to approximately $130 billion by the end of this year.
Google developers have been hard at work on the cookies plan for several years now, stopping and starting the project along the way, but hurried the project along after news was released last year that the personal and private data of Facebook users was being shared with Cambridge Analytica without user approval.
Google is primarily targeting cookies being installed by third parties who are looking to turn a profit from the information. This would differ from the information being collected by owner of the website that a user is actually visiting. Back in 2017, Apple Inc. put a stop to the vast majority of cookies on its Safari browser, stopping the tracking by default. Mozilla Corporation’s Firefox would go on to do the same one year later.
Google was contacted by Reuters’ and asked for a comment, but company representatives declined to speak on the matter.
