Google Cookies Now Expire In 2009, Not 2038

Google has changed the expiration dates on its browser cookies, setting them to expire after a two-year period instead of the previous thirty-one years. Google is doing this to quiet some privacy concerns that Google plans on identifying users forever, though the idea that a cookie wouldn’t get flushed out within a few years by operating system reinstalls and new computer purchases makes the point rather moot. Still, this should mildy please major Google critics who have pointed at the cookie for years as a sign of Google’s “evil”.
Speaking of which, I wonder what Daniel Brandt thinks of the change?
Oh, that’s right, he’s updated his Google Watch site to address it. He says that Google’s change is unimportant, because the two-year expiration gets renewed every time you access any Google service. As a result, the cookie only expires two years after you stop using Google, making […]

Original post by Nathan Weinberg