Is Google cookie a first-party cookie?

Question

Recently, after blocking third-party cookies, I thought that all non-domain cookies will be blocked.
But as a surprise Google (google.com) cookies are not removed even if there is no link between the visited domain and google.com, and still, that cookie is present.

Does anyone have an idea why Google cookies are treated differently?

Browser: Microsoft Edge (Chromium)

Answer 1

No, it's not (assuming you aren't on google.com, as indeed you aren't in that screenshot). However, depending on the way the browser works, there are a few things that could be going on here:

• The browser might not actually block all third-party cookies, just ones you haven't visited. This is the default behavior in some browsers, like Safari. Since you've presumably visited google.com, it would be trusted.
• The browser might only be blocking new/updated third-party cookies, and not prevented from sending existing ones (that haven't expired) from before that setting was applied.
• The browser might be reporting all the cookies it has for all pages with content on the page, but not actually sending the third-party cookies. That's weird, but hardly the weirdest thing I've seen browsers do.
• The browser might automatically trust certain domains. Chromium is made by Google, after all, even if Microsoft then wraps it up in their own little-c chrome.
• The browser might have been explicitly configured to trust google. It's widely used and trusted, including for single sign-on, and potentially you or somebody else acknowledged the value to allow it on third-party sites.

There are probably more options; those are just the ones that seem most likely to me.