Perhaps the most burning issues surrounding the internet have lately been cyber security and privacy. A deeper analysis of the two reveals a very strong correlation between them. Our privacy is closely related, rather at times dependent on a robust cyber security apparatus in place.
The recent move by Google which is the subject of our news post is in fact more related to our privacy. We can clearly observe a trend towards strong regulation around how our personal information is gathered, stored and disseminated over the internet.
Web browsers are an inescapable reality of our daily lives. No matter what we want to search over the internet, our every move is not only being documented, but also used for highly targeted promotion and advertising. The story does not end here, it gets even worse when third parties are also allowed to track you.
The mechanism for this sort of monitoring is tracking cookies. They track and collect your browsing history stealthily in the background and relay this info to various marketing and promotion platforms. Virtually every major browser was guilty of this practice but the winds of change have begun to blow.
The recent move by tech giant Google to discontinue support for tracking cookies by the year 2022 is being welcomed by tech analysts, albeit with a pinch of salt. The move is being dubbed by some as an effort to preserve and further its own multi billion dollar thriving ads program.
If we view the move from a neutral perspective, one can’t help but appreciate this development as a step in the right direction. Google’s announcement comes as a follow up of the same practice being adopted by Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox. Microsoft has also made similar pledges for its Edge browser.
One thing that we can safely conclude is that all these developments by the world’s leading browsing platforms are a major step in the right direction. The outlined roadmap is also being welcomed by privacy advocates, but with the accompanying criticism that the Google should not have taken this long to move towards privacy protection.
