Google announced on July 16 that it is shortening the lives of software "cookies" used to track users' online preferences. In coming months Google will begin issuing cookies that automatically expire two years after a person visits the website provided they don't return, according to the US firm's global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer.
Online privacy advocates expect Google's new "cookie policy" to change little since the two-year lifespan of tracking software renews with each visit so people must stop using Google for the entire period for the cookies to self-destruct.
Cookies previously installed on computers by Google are made to expire in 2038. Google and other Internet firms put bits of code called "cookies" on users' computers to tailor services, for example determine whether a search for "WWF" should get World Wildlife Fund or World-wide Wrestling Federation as a result.