What's the catch? Google doesn't need cookies anymore because they can track users with Android/Chrome/GMail/some other trick?
That combined with the rollout of Manifest V3 permits them to axe adblockers whilst keeping full tracking enabled.
The userbase percentage lost from Firefox users (around 3%, everything else runs a Firefox derivative or is iOS with Safari, which Google assumes is dead in the water due to the DMA) isn't enough to not have them transition fully to the Topics API at this point because of the ad profits they think they can get out of unwinding adblockers in Chrome. Google is closing the advertising jaws around Chrome and this is what that looks like.
The Topics API requires Google to approve your script before it works and if they didn't care about Ads and third party cookies, they'd have turned it off long ago.
https://blog.google/products/chrome/privacy-sandbox-tracking...
On January 4, we'll begin testing Tracking Protection, a new feature that limits cross-site tracking by restricting website access to third-party cookies by default. We'll roll this out to 1% of Chrome users globally, a key milestone in our Privacy Sandbox initiative to phase out third-party cookies for everyone in the second half of 2024, subject to addressing any remaining competition concerns from the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/653a58e2e6c96...
We would like to reassure the ecosystem that deprecation of third-party cookies can only take place once the competition concerns, identified by the CMA during its investigation, are addressed by Google. We have asked Google to be clear about this in its communications. Under the Commitments, there will be a Standstill Period of 60 days that applies before third-party cookies can be removed. This period can be extended to 120 days. During the Standstill Period, we will determine whether third-party cookie deprecation can go ahead based on the evidence we are gathering. This includes evidence from tests of the tools conducted by Google and other market participants. Our aim is to gather evidence of the likely impacts of the changes by the middle of 2024. The Standstill Period will take place following this, and once testing has been completed.
Why spread misinformation so confidently if you aren't aware of what's happening in this case? It's not hard to find information about how regulators are making it hard for Google to remove third party cookies.
(Disclosure: until 2022 I worked in this area at Google)
logged in everywhere
Maybe, maybe not. Firefox market share is trivial at this point. I doubt Google invests a lot of time in figuring out how to track Firefox users specifically. Safari, especially on mobile, is a far more juicy target.
Combine that with standard fingerprinting techniques.
Can you explain this? I don't thinks this is the case. Disclosure: I work at Google but not on Chrome.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/google-agrees-to...
That doesn't sound like any sort of tracking backdoor in Chrome. That sounds like that same type of tracking would happen in Firefox private browsing mode. Well, maybe not because I think Firefox private mode has some sort of code that tries to strip out trackers. But if you disable that feature in Firefox, it sounds like Google would track Firefox private mode users the same as Chrome incognito users. I guess then you could consider the lawsuit to be complaining that Chrome doesn't have a feature to strip out trackers in incognito mode. Is that a realistic feature expectation?