After half a decade of promises, pilot programs, and privacy posturing, Google has officially scrapped its plan to eliminate third-party cookies from Chrome.

The company announced it will no longer proceed with a standalone prompt to phase out the tracking technology, instead maintaining the status quo and allowing users to manage cookies through existing privacy settings. ​ 

 It says it will continue with Privacy Sandbox, although the future of the initiative is now under a cloud. The Privacy Sandbox was introduced by Google in 2019 to develop technologies that both protect user privacy and support a healthy, ad-supported web. The initiative sought to replace third-party cookies with privacy-preserving alternatives. Critics were unimpressed.

Despite years of development and testing, the initiative faced growing criticism and regulatory scrutiny. Privacy advocates, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, warned that the program continued to track users, while legal challenges in the US and investigations by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority raised antitrust concerns. ​

In a statement, Anthony Chavez, Vice President of the Privacy Sandbox initiative, acknowledged the divergent perspectives within the advertising ecosystem and the challenges in making changes that could impact the availability of third-party cookies. He emphasised that users can continue to choose the best option for themselves in Chrome’s Privacy and Security Settings. ​

The decision comes as Google faces huge legal pressure, including this week’s ruling by a US judge that the company maintains illegal monopolies in online advertising technology, potentially leading to a court-ordered breakup of its ad tech business. ​

In his blog announcing the changes, Chavez wrote, “The goal of the Privacy Sandbox initiative is to develop new ways to strengthen online privacy while ensuring a sustainable, ad-supported internet. We’re encouraged that the industry is innovating with privacy-enhancing approaches and companies are embracing new solutions, including those built using the Privacy Sandbox APIs. We’ll continue to work with the ecosystem on determining how these technologies can best serve the industry and consumers.”

According to Chavez, “Another important element of Privacy Sandbox involves the way that third-party cookies are treated in Chrome, and last summer, we shared that we were exploring a new approach. As we’ve engaged with the ecosystem, including publishers, developers, regulators, and the ads industry, it remains clear that there are divergent perspectives on making changes that could impact the availability of third-party cookies.”

He attributed this latest update to the treatment of third-party cookies to a number of changes in the market, including the acceleration in the adoption of privacy-enhancing technologies, new AI-fueled opportunities to safeguard and secure people’s browsing experiences, and changes in the regulatory landscape around the world.

Why now

The company is facing existential threats from both sides of the Atlantic. In the U.S., District Judge Amit Mehta has ruled that Google’s dominance in digital advertising may constitute an illegal monopoly. (Last year it got pinged on its illegal search monopoly). That opens the door to the Department of Justice’s radical proposal: split the ad stack, unwind the vertical integration, and force Google to unbundle the tools it uses to control how ads are bought, sold, and served. And in the UK, the CMA has repeatedly warned that Google’s Sandbox plan — meant to replace third-party cookies with privacy-friendly alternatives — is too little, too vague, and risks entrenching its dominance further.

So Google is changing tack again, abandoning cookie abandonment, while suggesting it is still committed to Privacy Sandbox. And, it’s not like Google hasn’t altered its stance four times in four years. F To wit:

• Google first said it would deprecate third-party cookies in 2021, one year after Apple and Mozilla had already pulled the pin on third-party cookies in their browsers.
• In 2021, Google announced it was delaying cookie deprecation until 2023.
• In 2022, Google announced it was delaying cookie deprecation until 2024.
• In April last year, Google announced it was delaying cookie deprecation until 2025
• Then, in July last year, it abandoned plans to deprecate cookies and said it would instead move to a browser-based consent model.

The bottom line: Killing cookies without a viable alternative in a way that satisfies advertisers, protects publishers’ yield, keeps Chrome’s market share, and mollifies global regulators has proven to be an almost impossible task.

Despite protestations to the contrary, Google’s latest retreat suggests its proposed privacy solution simply wouldn’t land.

Just like its critics said.

Additional reporting by Andrew Birmingham