It Doesn’t Matter Where You Hide, Google Will Never Stop Stalking You

Ok! So Google keeps on winning while the rest are going nuts trying to figure out what to do.

When I first read the news about Google banning third-party cookies, I thought to myself: Wow! What a progressive move from Google. What I did not know was that, actually, they will not stop collecting our data, they will just stop selling web ads targeted to users’ browsing habits. (I had a feeling it could not be that good.) Even though it is a bad move for ad companies, it is a great move for Google.

First of all, what are cookies?

Cookies are tiny text files that websites you visit place on your browser. However, cookies do not only come from the domain you are visiting, “third-party cookies come from different domains. And it is good for us to start, at least, by understanding how cookies work. I do not know about you but when I am visiting a website, I always click “Accept cookies” without knowing what I am doing, so good thing we are having this conversation.

Google? Not really that progressive

We will think Google is a pioneer at making this move, However, Safari and Firefox had blocked third-party cookies from their browsers years ago, while Google just announced their intention to do it by 2022.

Who will suffer the consequences?

Small agencies and websites that rely on ads to make their profit. And while it seemed like a positive decision from Google it is actually a malicious one I would say because, at the end of the day, the consumer is not really benefiting from this, smaller businesses are not either, it is just Google creating a bigger space for them to play in.

Why is Google doing this?

Google’s “intention” is to build a more private web, however since most of us did not know exactly how third-party cookies work, we may not notice the change. And even though we know Google may not be doing this in consumers’ best interest, we will be actually slightly benefiting from this. How? This change will reduce the number of third-party cookies we come across, protecting us from ad companies we’ve never heard of and are not interested in.

And while we keep judging Google we seem to always go back to it

Yes, just like a toxic relationship. We know there are other options, however, we choose to continue our tight relationship with Google, even when it is not respecting our privacy.