Re: Request to delay 3P Cookies Phase Out

Hi Marshall,

Thank you for your response. Perhaps you could comment on the current state of ecosystem engagement?

The W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG) are being asked to review engineering proposals from Google. Engineers recognise the difficulty in engagement. Here is an extract from a recent technical explainer for a detailed cookie change.

"The assumption I'm making here is that developers will not react to public announcements, mailing list threads, blog posts, Lighthouse scores, devtool warnings, or etc. That's been our experience with many deprecations over the years; it is simply difficult to get a message out to a zillion developers."

[https://github.com/mikewest/scheming-cookies]

There are many aspects of the web browser that Google are seeking to change including cookies, JavaScript and HTTP. TAG are requesting greater stakeholder input. In the public comments at least it is not sufficiently diverse or comprehensive.

According to the Chromium developers group there is an aspiration to start deprecating within the next five months.

Ecosystem engagement must be fit for purpose and robust governance established before practical timeframes can be established.

Thank you,

James

From: Marshall Vale <mjv@google.com>
Sent: Thu, 26 Mar 2020 14:00:19 -0400
To: public-web-adv@w3.org
Subject: Re: Request to delay 3P Cookies Phase Out

Hi all--

We appreciate you raising this issue. We're closely monitoring developments
around COVID-19 and the impact it's having on our partners in the web
ecosystem. These are uncertain and challenging times for everyone, and
we're committed to supporting the larger web community throughout this.

We believe that at this point, a discussion around adjusting timelines is
premature. We are confident that with continued iteration and feedback,
privacy-preserving and open-standard mechanisms like the Privacy Sandbox
can sustain a healthy, ad-supported web in a way that will render
third-party cookies obsolete. As you know, we've committed to only phasing
out support for third party cookies once the needs of users and sites
(including publishers and advertisers) are addressed. We've said that we
can't reach this point alone, and need the entire ecosystem to engage on
these proposals, and that plan hasn't changed.

At this time, we can't know in what ways or for how long COVID-19 will
impact the web ecosystem's ability to experiment with these new mechanisms,
test whether they work well in various situations, and develop supporting
implementations. We will of course continue to revisit this topic as the
situation evolves.

Regards,
Marshall
--
Marshall Vale
mjv@google.com
Product Manager, Chrome Browser
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