Google said that it recognises the potential misuse of IP addresses for covert tracking and will strike a balance between ensuring users' privacy and the essential functionalities of the web.

While IP addresses are potential vectors for tracking, they are indispensable for critical web functionalities like routing traffic, fraud prevention, and other vital network tasks.

The "IP Protection" solution addresses this dual role by routing third-party traffic from specific domains through proxies, making users' IP addresses invisible to those domains.

As the ecosystem evolves, so will IP Protection, adapting to continue safeguarding users from cross-site tracking and adding additional domains to the proxied traffic.

Google said Chrome is reintroducing a proposal to protect users against cross-site tracking via IP addresses. This proposal is a privacy proxy anonymising IP addresses for qualifying traffic described above," reads a description of the IP Protection feature.

 Initially, IP Protection will be an opt-in feature, ensuring users have control over their privacy and letting Google monitor behaviour trends.

It is worth noting that other browsers already have this feature and it would appear that Google is a little behind on allowing it in Chrome.