It would be nice to have the option to not just block your data from being accessible to a 3rd party but also feedback junk data into the system. Pollute the data stream until it’s no longer useful to the powers that be while still retaining functionality for the user.
One can dream.
Hell yeah!
Yeah it’s called data poisoning and you can do it with extensions like AdNauseum and TrackMeNot but I’m very confused why this strategy is not more popular.
Does an extension exist to do this?
If it does I’m not aware of it but I’d love to learn of one.
What about all the other hidden cookies it sets for the right price? ;)
deleted
Right. The sandbox. Silly me. Don’t touch the sand though, it’s full of shit.
So what exactly are 3rd party cookies?
I’m on a.com, that is what’s shown in the address bar.
The page includes a resource a.com/image.png. A request the server will include cookies from a.com. That’s a 1st party cookie. Correct?
The page includes a resource b.com/image.png. The request will not include cookies from a.com; this was always the case. b.com can however set their own cookies. Since we are on a.com, cookies from b.com are ‘third party’. Correct?
It gets interesting when we navigate to c.com and c.com includes b.com/image.png, a tracking pixel we have seen before on a.com.
Without 3rd party cookie protection, b.com sees the cookie they set previously while on a.com. This will now be blocked. Correct?
Now explain this in a Javascript world.
I am not sure, but I think browsers will block access to third party cookies from javascript. In your example, c.com/script.js will not be able to access b.com cookies. Now, when the browser sends the request to b.com/image.png, browsers will NOT send the cookies associated with b.com when visiting other domains than b.com. BUT, the request might contains a “referer” info set by the browser, hence b.com can still track you. This is something that some browsers block already, but as a web developer, I always see referers in the logs, so it’s either not working, or it is opt-in in the options, and normies don’t change it…
You’re correct about first-party cookies being from the domain in the address bar, like a.com in your example. When a page from a.com includes a resource from b.com, and b.com sets cookies, those are considered third-party cookies.
In a scenario where you navigate to c.com, which includes a resource (e.g., tracking pixel) from b.com, without third-party cookie protection, b.com would indeed have access to the cookies it set previously while you were on a.com. However, with 3rd party cookie protection measures, the browser restricts this access. This can impact user tracking and privacy.
In the JavaScript world, this is often managed through mechanisms like the SameSite attribute for cookies and technologies like ITP (Intelligent Tracking Prevention) in browsers. Developers need to adapt their code to these privacy measures to ensure compliance and user privacy.
- GPT3.5
