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What are your thoughts on third-party cookie blocking?

Supun Kavinda's photo
Supun Kavinda
·May 4, 2020

In March, safari started blocking all third party cookies. And, Google Chrome is also doing the same by 2022, with some exceptions.

At the moment, safari blocks all third-party cookies which makes some tasks hard, or even impossible.

  • Affiliate tracking. Most companies use third-party affiliate trackers. So, they cannot track users on Safari now. And, they won't be able to do it on Chrome after 2022. So, will third-party affiliate companies (like HasOffers, Tapfilliate) die?
  • When using a third-party commenting platform, you'll always have to click the login button every time you need to comment using your account.

The only way to access third party cookies is by using the Storage Access API, which requires the approval of the user. (The message on safari is like "Allow example.com to use cookies while browsing example2.com").

But, in safari, (unfortunately) this access permission is only valid for the current tab session (if you close the tab, you'll need to give access again). And, the user should click a button or tap the screen if we need to request access.

For commenting platforms, this works fine. It can show a login button and the user will need to click it every time to comment (Yes, it's annoying).

However, ad companies (including Google Ads), affiliate companies won't be able to track users. They can't add a button like "Track my data to give someone else a commission" and ask users for permission.

I have to say that this is definitely a good approach to user's privacy.

I'd like to ask, as devs, what are your thoughts on this update?