Sounds crazy, right? Except it isn’t.
As you might have heard, Firefox plans to block all third party cookies, which will drastically decrease the ability to track your browsing habits. That’s ok. Up until now, it’s been up to the user to do that or not. Some cookies are better/more functional than others. Those which help websites load faster are good.
When those cookies are blocked, what will happen? It won’t change where ads get displayed, but it will change which get displayed since cookies won’t be used (as much) to profile users.
That will make ad prices drop. Guess who doesn’t want that to happen (or if it does, to have a better strategy)? The largest advertising company in the world, that’s who: Google. Sooo…plan B.
Why not tie an anonymous identifier to Chrome? Then, sell the key to companies and advertisers yet still control the system, at a price. Your browser has just become your tracker. The NSA might already be doing that, and if not, will be.
Cookies shmookies. They didn’t tell you much. The browser? It will tell you everything. Google might play nicely and let you change the numbers in the identifier, or create a different ‘identity’.
Me? I’m heading to Firefox if Google does this.
I think they’re crazy…because if they do this to Chrome, what’s to say they won’t (or haven’t) do/done it to the Android OS? I think that would be close to corporate suicide.
But then, most will probably say, “meh” and buy stock.
Source:
http://www.ghacks.net/2013/09/20/google-chrome-potential-target-googles-post-cookies-plan/?_m=3n%2e0038%2e1010%2ehj0ao01hy5%2e11gd