Google cookies – news and events

Posted on: Feb 25 2025

Fresh data protection issues were raised by a Trinity College Dublin study on storage of cookies, identifiers and other data on Android phones by Google Play Services, Google Store and other pre-installed Google applications.

A recent measurement study By Prof. Doug Leith, a teacher of computer systems at the Trinity computer school and statistics, shows that advertising and tracking of cookies and other devices and user identifiers are sent by Google and stored on a phone, even then when there have been ever -opened User applications.

Professor Doug Leith He said: “We all know that our consent is necessary before a website stores the advertising and tracking of cookies when we visit it. The same EU’s “Cookies Law”, the E-Privacy Directive, also applies to applications that run on mobile phones. Cookies stored by applications have received much less attention than web cookies, partly because they are harder to detect, and a closer look at them is delayed. “

“Google Play and Google Play Store services are pre -installed on almost every Android phone. This study shows that it is silent advertising and other tracking cookies and data about people’s phones. Google is not sought for any consent for this and there is no way to block these cookies. “

“This study is a awakening call to Irish Commissioner for Data Protection, to apply the Data Protection Rules in the EU and to start the correct protection of Irish and EU android phones.”

The main findings of the study are the following:

1) Cookies of advertising analysis, links to follow the clicks/views of the advertisements and the identifiers of the device associated with advertising are downloaded and stored on the receiver.

2) The tracking cookies are downloaded and stored by the Google Play Store app and then transmitted to Google Server, along with the interactions of users reporting the analysis data with the Play Store app (searches, page views, etc.).

3) Google Android ID is sent by Google Server and stored at Google Play Services. Previous studies have shown that this identifier is sent to many transmissions by Google Play Services and Google Play Store to Google Server. It acts as a persistent device and a user identifier, which can only be changed by factory reset.

4) Analytics cookies used for A/B tests of changes to Google applications are downloaded and stored on the receiver by Google Play Services and then transmitted along with the telemetry data data to Google.

5) Several other cookies and identifiers who can act to uniquely identify the receiver and/or the user are also downloaded and stored on the receiver.

purposes