The search giant has taken its time. They're 4 years ahead of Firefox Mozilla's Firefox browser, and the Apple Safari browser, but with their alternative tracking system, 'Privacy Sandbox,' in place It's time to put an end to tracking cookies in Chrome completely and forever.

When will cookies from third parties be eliminated from Chrome?

In just a few weeks, according to the latest release from Google themselves.

In a blog post on Wednesday (Dec.14), Anthony Chavez the vice president for Privacy Sandbox wrote: "On January 4, we'll be testing Tracking Protection, a new feature that restricts cross-site tracking, by limiting websites' access to third-party cookies by default.

"We'll make this available to 1% of Chrome users across the globe, a key milestone in the Privacy Sandbox initiative that will get rid of third-party cookies from everyone during the second half of 2024, subjecting us to addressing any remaining concerns about competition from the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)."

What are cookies from third parties used to do and why is it a big deal?

Third-party cookies are small pieces of information stored in your browser by websites different from the one you're currently using. These cookies are created by third-party companies or domains that don't belong to the primary website you're interacting with. They're used for personalizing marketing and web analytics by tracking user behavior across different websites.

It is crucial to stop them for online businesses since cookies aid sites in making money by enabling targeted ads. Ads that are targeted will result in higher ads which, in turn, generates more income for publishers, advertisers, as well as online platforms.

Google's plan to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome - the world's most-used web browser - won't go unchallenged. Several antitrust investigations from both the CMA and the EU Commission and the CMA are currently in progress.

A lot of advertisers depend on cookies to earn their money and their job is likely to become tougher in the near term. Publishers have also expressed concern. It becomes more difficult to make money from websites and ads yields decrease. This could lead to a decline in the quality of content available on the internet. Or, more likely, we will see more publishers switching to subscription-based models and more emphasis on first-party data gathering - often done via registration on websites.

But what happens to the little guy, the casual web browser? Well, for them the end of third-party cookies has numerous positives. First, we are now harder to track( "harder" but still nevertheless not unattainable). In addition, it fulfills the ever-increasing demands of customers to be more secure with their data.

What's the Google Chrome's new "Tracking Protection"?

It's essentially the function that can stop the use of cookies from third-party websites to trace you when you browse the internet.

Google has stated that we will not receive everything at once. Participants will be picked randomly and receive a message when they launch Chrome on a desktop or Android.

Gradually it will be rolled out to increasing numbers of users.