Gizmodo: Google’s Plan To Quash Cookies Draws Scrutiny From Regulators. “On Friday, UK’s antitrust authority announced a new investigation into Google’s plan to end support for third party cookies in Chrome. The probe, it explained, is meant to determine whether the change ‘could cause advertising spend to become even more concentrated on Google’s ecosystem,’ potentially […]
CNET: Why you’re hounded by pop-ups about cookies, and how they could go away. “California voters approved a privacy law in November that creates an incentive for companies to stop pestering you about cookies. It can be hard to tell from many of the pop-ups, but businesses are asking you to give them permission to […]
Reuters: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules. “France’s data privacy watchdog has handed out its biggest ever fine of 100 million euros ($121 million) to Alphabet’s Google for breaching the country’s rules on online advertising trackers (cookies).”
The Register: When you tell Chrome to wipe private data about you, it spares two websites from the purge: Google.com, YouTube. “Programmer Jeff Johnson noticed the unusual behavior, and this month documented the issue with screenshots. In his assessment of the situation, he noted that if you set up Chrome, on desktop at least, to […]
Mashable: New tool makes it easy to see which websites are in bed with Facebook. “The internet is a labyrinthian place, and Facebook is hiding around almost every corner. A new tool, dubbed Blacklight, helps you spot the behemoth lying in wait. Developed and released by the Markup, Blacklight reveals what trackers are running in […]
Digiday: ‘Re-architecting the entire process’: How Vice is preparing for life after the third-party cookie. “Vice Media Group pulls in 57.5 million global unique visitors a month, according to Comscore; Vice itself says it has a global audience of ‘more than 350 million individuals.’ But only a minority of those users are logged in at […]
Gizmodo: Google’s Next Chrome Update May Cause ‘Modest Breakage’ To The Internet. “Version 80 of Chrome is coming to the stable channel of the browser, and with it, a change in the way cookies are handled. As the cookies crumble, it turns out, so does the Internet, with Google saying it hopes that it will […]
TechCrunch: Cookie consent tools are being used to undermine EU privacy rules, study suggests. “Most cookie consent pop-ups served to internet users in the European Union — ostensibly seeking permission to track people’s web activity — are likely to be flouting regional privacy laws, a new study by researchers at MIT, UCL and Aarhus University […]
Reuters: Internet users must actively consent to use of cookies, EU court rules. “Internet users must actively consent to companies storing cookies that are used to track online browsing behavior, the European Court of Justice said on Tuesday in a ruling that could significantly effect ePrivacy regulation.”
New York Times: I Visited 47 Sites. Hundreds of Trackers Followed Me.. “Earlier this year, an editor working on The Times’s Privacy Project asked me whether I’d be interested in having all my digital activity tracked, examined in meticulous detail and then published — you know, for journalism. ‘Hahaha,’ I said, and then I think […]
Freedom to Tinker: Deconstructing Google’s excuses on tracking protection. “Blocking cookies is bad for privacy. That’s the new disingenuous argument from Google, trying to justify why Chrome is so far behind Safari and Firefox in offering privacy protections. As researchers who have spent over a decade studying web tracking and online advertising, we want to […]
CNBC: U.S. appeals court voids Google ‘cookie’ privacy settlement that paid users nothing. “A federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down Google’s class-action settlement meant to resolve claims it invaded the privacy of millions of computer users by installing ‘cookies’ in their browsers, but paying those users nothing for their troubles.”
The Mozilla Blog: Firefox Now Available with Enhanced Tracking Protection by Default Plus Updates to Facebook Container, Firefox Monitor and Lockwise. “Last year, we announced our new approach to anti-tracking, and our commitment to help people stay safe whenever they used Firefox. One of those initiatives outlined was to block cookies from known third party […]
AP: Apple, Firefox tools aim to thwart Facebook, Google tracking. “Facebook and other companies routinely track your online surfing habits to better target ads at you. Two web browsers now want to help you fight back in what’s becoming an escalating privacy arms race. New protections in Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox browsers aim to […]
Oh, why not. From The Drum: Oreo’s latest gimmick lets fans virtually launch cookies into space via Google Earth. “Mondelez’s Oreo has rolled out a mobile game that lets fans of the cookie brand launch Oreos into space and watch them fall into glasses of milk all over the world.”