The search giant has had its time. They are two years behind Microsoft's Firefox browser as well as Apple's Safari browser. But, with their alternative user tracking system, known as 'Privacy Sandbox now in place, it's time to end the tracking cookies that are in Chrome once and for all.

When will cookies from third parties be eliminated in Chrome?

In mere weeks According to the most recent release from Google themselves.

In a company blog on Thursday (Dec.14), Anthony Chavez the Vice President of Privacy Sandbox wrote: "On January 4, we'll start testing Tracking Protection, a new feature that will limit cross-site tracking by limiting website access to third-party cookies on default.

"We'll make this available to 1 percent of Chrome users globally, one of the key milestones in our Privacy Sandbox initiative to remove third-party cookies for everyone during the second half of 2024, subject to the resolution of any remaining competition concerns raised by British authorities' Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)."

What do third-party cookies serve to do and why is it an important issue?

Third-party cookies are small bits of data that are stored on your browser by websites different from the one you're currently using. These cookies are developed by third-party companies or domains that don't belong to the primary website that you interact with. They're used to provide personalized advertising and website analytics by monitoring user behavior across various websites.

Eliminating them is vital to online businesses as cookies help sites earn money by providing targeted ads. Targeted ads mean better performance of ads, which will result in higher revenue for advertisers, publishers, along online companies.

Google's plan to eliminate third-party cookies in Chrome - the world's most popular web browser - is not going to go unchallenged. A variety of antitrust probes from both CMA and the EU Commission and the CMA are currently in progress.

Many advertisers depend on cookies to generate revenue and their work will get tougher in the near term. Publishers have also been concerned. It becomes more difficult to make money from websites, and ad revenue decreases. This could lead to a decline in the quality of content that we find on the web or, more likely, we'll witness more publishers moving to subscription models as well as more emphasis on first-party data capture - most typically done through registration with websites.

What about the small guy, the casual internet browser? Well, for them the end of third-party cookies has many positives. For one, we're now more difficult to track( "harder" but still not impossible). Furthermore, it addresses the increasing demands of consumers to have better data privacy.

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

It's the principle function that will stop websites from using cookies of third parties to follow you while you browse the internet.

Google said that they won't get it all at once. Participants will be picked at random and get a message when they launch Chrome on a desktop or Android.

In the coming months, it will be rolled out to many more users.