From pretty much the very beginning, the web has been fueled by ads. And those ads have been finding their way to relevant users via cookies — those are little bits of code that websites can place on your computer so advertisers can basically follow you around online.

And from pretty much the very beginning, privacy advocates have complained that cookies are a privacy nightmare.  

This week, Google started its project to phase out third-party cookies on its Chrome browser, the world’s most popular browser. But the change isn’t about all cookies.

“Websites still allow for first-party cookies, which is very useful for the website to be able to remember, for instance, that you’ve found a product that you want to purchase, and it will stay in your checkout,” said Garrett Johnson, a professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.

The change is about third-party cookies, the ones that track you across sites.

That is changing the way everybody does business online — and not just businesses.

“The deprecation of the third-party cookie in 2024, is really poised to shake things up. Because, you know, we’re essentially going to have to recalibrate how we effectively find voters and target to them online,” said Kate Holliday, vice president of politics and public affairs at advertising firm Powers Interactive Digital.

With this phaseout, Google is introducing what it calls its “privacy sandbox”: a set of new tools that still track your behavior online.

“We’re aiming to make it possible to show relevant ads without showing who the user is. And so the user themselves hopefully will see relevant ads still after we make this change fully,” said Victor Wong, Google’s senior director of product management for the effort.

Other companies are also trying to come up with cookie replacements of their own. And while the transition away from cookies has begun, nobody is getting away from targeted online ads anytime soon.