Google might not track you anymore - using cookies, that is. A recent report says that Google is considering changing the way it tracks online browsing activities, retiring the "cookie" and replacing it with an anonymous identifier called AdID.
The change, if it proves to be truly in the works, would change the way online browsing activity is tracked for a lot of web traffic, and will certainly dramatically transform the advertising industry, as Google is the world's largest provider of search on the Internet and accounts for about a third of all online ad revenue. Google's web browser, Chrome, is now also the most popular web browser in the world.
The plans, first reported by USA Today from an anonymous source familiar to Google's plans, are to replace third-party cookies, which are little bits of code that works with your web browser to track identify you and follow your Internet browsing and search for marketing purposes. Instead of those cookies, an anonymous system that Google has purportedly been developing will provide information to advertisers. AdID, the name of the anonymized anti-cookies, would be transmitted to advertisers and ad networks who agree to Google's guidelines. The anonymous tracking system will supposedly give consumers more privacy than the current system.
Other web giants besides Google are already on the move against third-party tracking cookies, like Apple and Microsoft. Apple's Safari browser has banned third-party cookies since it was launched, and Microsoft's Internet Explorer has a "Do Not Track" option turned on by default. Mozilla's Firefox, according to the New York Times, is likely to join the Do Not Track bandwagon soon. In addition, Apple's iPhone already uses an anonymous identifier system for mobile advertising in its apps.
Of course, all of the aforementioned companies, except for Mozilla, could use a PR boost after being embroiled in the NSA PRISM government surveillance scandal throughout the summer. Since May, companies like Apple, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft, and others have lost some credibility on issues of customer privacy, as the Edward Snowden NSA leak implicated the companies as co-conspirators in a massive government surveillance effort.
Google, perhaps most of all, may be looking to gain some privacy cred back, as it has been unable to respond to the scandal with transparency statements and reports, the way other companies like Yahoo and Facebook have.
According to the USA Today's anonymous source, the change will happen in a matter of weeks, though Google has yet to make any official announcements or confirm the report. However, a Google spokesperson Rob Shilkin cryptically commented to DailyTech, saying, "Technological enhancements can improve users' security while ensuring the Web remains economically viable. We and others have a number of concepts in this area, but they're all at very early stages."
Though it is too early to tell what exactly AdID is, some critics are saying that unless Google publically shows what information the new standard tracks (as well as other details) AdID shouldn't be automatically trusted as a more private or anonymous tracking standard.