Google to enable Chrome users to block tracking cookies

Google Chrome clampdown on tracking cookies unlikely to affect Google's own user tracking

Google is to release new privacy tools to enable Chrome users to block tracking cookies. The tool will provide information about what cookies are tracking them and will provide them with a range of options to either limit or block them.

Cookies are the text files stored by websites on PCs. They can contain configuration information, but are typically used to track users.

The introduction of the new tools is intended to keep Google ahead of rivals Safari and Firefox, which have been gaining ground by offering better cookie controls to users.

While the privacy tools are unlikely to affect Google's own user tracking, it could drastically affect rival digital advertising companies that use cookies to help them place and track online adverts. In other words, it could give Google an unfair advantage in the online advertising market.

The move comes as consumers and regulators across the world have started to demand more transparency from technology and other companies about how private data is used.

Google is reportedly taking other steps to limit non-cookie tracking methods, such as browser fingerprinting, in an effort to cut the amount of passive information that web browsers also provide to websites.

Browser fingerprinting refers to the data that browsers typically provide to websites about users' devices, such as screen size and resolution, CPU and other information. This can be used to profile users and, therefore, to identify and track individual users as they go from website to website.

"Our experience shows that people prefer ads that are personalised to their needs and interests," Google engineering vice president Prabhakar Raghavan claimed in a blog post, "but only if those ads offer transparency, choice, and control."

Google's new privacy tools is intended to make cookies more secure and private by default, requiring websites to specify when cookies will be used for cross-site tracking. It will enable users to delete all such undesired cookies, while leaving single domain cookies (such as those storing banking log-in credentials) unaffected.

The new changes will also let browsers to provide details about which website set those cookies, so that users can make an informed decision about how their data is used.

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