WINTER 2025

28THE DISTRIBUTOR’S

28THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINKJoe DysartJoe Dysart is an Internet speaker and business consultant based in Thousand Oaks,California. A journalist for 20 years, his articles have appeared in more than 40publications, including The New York Times and The Financial Times of London.During the past decade, his work has focused exclusively on ecommerce.Telephone: 631-256-6602; web: www.joedysart.com; email: joe@dysartnewsfeatures.comGOOGLE TO WORLD:THESE COOKIES DON’T CRUMBLEGoogle has once again backed down from its threatto eliminate third-party cookies from its Chrome browser,triggering sighs of relief from many fastener distributors-- and inflamed diatribes from privacy advocates.Employed by ad tech companies to track where yougo on the Web -- and what you do once you get there-- cookies have been used since the mid-90s to create aprofile of your Internet buying habits so that goods andservices providers can better target you with advertising.Due to privacy concerns, Google had recently vowedto eliminate third-party cookies from its Chrome browserin 2025.But as it has already done many times in previousyears, the tech titan has yet again decided to hang ontothe tech for the foreseeable future.Instead, Google now wants to develop new optionsthat will enable users of its Chrome browser to easilyopt-out of the tracking cookies.Anthony Chavez, a Google vice president specializingin online privacy, says the Internet goliath plans to“introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets peoplemake an informed choice that applies across their Webbrowsing and they’d be able to adjust that choice at anytime.“We’re discussing this new path with regulators andwill engage with the industry as we roll this out.”Not surprisingly, many privacy advocates -- who havebeen hounding Google for more than five years to blockad tech companies from tracking the movements andCONTRIBUTOR ARTICLECOOKIES -- USED BY ADVERTISERS TO TRACK YOUR EVERY MOVEON THE INTERNET -- HAVE BEEN GIVEN YET ANOTHER LIFE BYGOOGLE.behaviors of Web users with cookies -- are incensed.Says Nathalie Maréchal, co-director, privacy anddata project, Center for Democracy & Technology:“Google’s recent announcement that it will abandon itsplan to phase-out the availability of third-party cookiesin its Chrome browser -- after repeatedly delaying theimplementation of the Privacy Sandbox it first announcedin 2019 -- is a massive disappointment for privacyadvocates.CONTINUED ON PAGE 98