San Francisco (AFP)
Google announced Tuesday to give itself two years to remove from its browser "cookies" from websites, these small electronic identification modules that follow you on the internet to better target advertising and denounced by privacy activists .
The web giant said its "Privacy Sandbox" program launched in August would still allow advertisers to deliver targeted messages, while preventing people from being tracked by these "cookies" when using the Google Chrome browser.
The aim is to make "cookies" from third-party sites (which do not come from the browser used but from the site visited), "obsolete" within "two years," said Justin Schuh of Chrome Engineering in a blog post. .
These small tracers, installed automatically when you visit a website, are used to identify a user, to save their preferences but also to establish their profile and to know if they have seen or clicked on an advertisement. Their use is denounced by supporters of privacy, but defended by developers of free online services who survive on the advertising revenue they generate.
"Our objective with this open source initiative (whose codes are accessible to everyone, editor's note) is to make the web more private and secure for users, while supporting publishers", assured Mr. Schuh.
Blocking cookies altogether is not a good solution for the American giant, who fears that this will encourage even more insidious tracking methods.
Google did not specify what it intended to replace these third-party "cookies", but said "to work actively" so that developers and publishers have the opportunity to experiment with new mechanisms.
It remains to be seen whether the phasing out of these trackers will give Google more control over its online advertising, a sector it currently dominates alongside Facebook.
© 2020 AFP