Signaling a major shift to its ads-driven business model, Google on Wednesday unequivocally stated it would not build alternate identifiers or tools to track users across multiple websites once it begins phasing out third-party tracking cookies from its Chrome browser by early 2022.
“Instead, our web products will be powered by privacy-preserving APIs which prevent individual tracking while still delivering results for advertisers and publishers,” said David Temkin, Google’s director of product management for ads privacy and trust.
“Advances in aggregation, anonymization, on-device processing and other privacy-preserving technologies offer a clear path to replacing individual identifiers.”
The changes, which could potentially reshape the advertising landscape, are expected only to cover websites visited via Chrome and do not extend to mobile apps.
At the same time, Google acknowledged that other companies might find alternative ways to track individual users. “We realize this…