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Comment by CharlesW | Hacker News Reader

The parent commenter is correct: Chrome is blocking third-party cookies if the user chooses that behavior. The only thing that's changed is that they won't be doing it by default, or letting users know about this privacy-protecting option.

From TFA: "Until today, Google was still planning to roll out a dialog in Chrome that would prompt users to turn off third-party cookies in favor of Google's updated solution. […] …Google won't be pushing that cookie dialog to users. You can still choose to disable third-party cookies in Chrome, though."

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Nothing you said is in contradiction with what I said. Antitrust law is what prevents Google from default blocking third party cookies in Chrome.

Then you agree that Chrome should be divorced from Google, so that Google is no longer forced into such a position?

If the argument is removing third party cookies is detrimental to Google’s competitors then isn’t it just as detrimental after Chrome has been split up?

Google is saying they’re fine with no third party cookies. The rest of the industry needs them.

How do you protect user privacy while also not killing googles competitors? Which need is more important?

If chrome were split out (and subsequently stopped giving Google direct access to user data), Google would need them too. It would impact all ad players equally.

I don't think Google uses data from Chrome this way. I don't think Google actually wants to associate data with people so aggressively. It's obvious when that happens and it feels gross (this is why I stopped using Facebook 10+ years ago, I've never had an equivalent gross-out moment with Google).

I'm guessing the reason google doesn't use third party cookies is because they get higher quality data from people being signed in to Google services, and that is independent of whether they are using Chrome or not.

Yea correct. They have numerous other ways of identifying you or fingerprinting you that cookies aren't all that important anymore.

No, the antitrust argument is Google doesn't need third party tracking because they have a huge amount of first party data and ad inventory from search and YouTube and all their other web products. It's not from Chrome. Their adtech competitors don't have first party inventory or data and would be crushed.

Killing Google's competitors would be a good thing but only if Google was also killed at the same time. The differential is the problem.

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