The US Department of Justice is concerned about Google’s intention to block tracking cookies because doing so could hinder rivals in the advertising market.
Department investigators are talking to advertising industry executives, but it is unclear whether legal action will follow. Reuters news agency reports this based on insiders.
Google announced a while ago that it would build a ‘privacy sandbox’ in Chrome, the most used browser worldwide. As a result, cookies from other companies would no longer work properly. Internet users are sometimes followed at a detailed level utilizing tracking cookies. This allows advertisers to offer them particular advertisements.
Technology companies such as Google have been criticized for years for the use of cookies. At the beginning of March, the American company announced that it would no longer sell advertisements itself based on the specific browser behaviour of individual users.
“Keeping the internet open and accessible to everyone requires more action to protect privacy,” Google wrote in a blog post.
“That means an end to third-party cookies, as well as any technology used to track individual people as they browse the web.” Apple previously made it impossible to use the cookies in its Safari browser. Firefox also focuses explicitly on privacy.
