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Google has once more delayed the phase-out of third-party cookies in its Chrome web browser, this time moving it to sometime in 2025.
The internet giant attributed the delay to problems with addressing “divergent feedback” from developers, the industry, and regulators. It also claimed the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) needed enough time to study available evidence, which is due by the end of June.
The company had previously expected to finish deprecating Chrome cookies in the second half of the fourth quarter this year. The move now won’t begin until early 2025.
Google had originally announced the end of cookies at the start of 2020, and aimed to complete the process by the end of 2022. The CMA started its investigation in 2021. Google only began testing its strategy in public this January, when it limited cookies for 1% of Chrome users.
Cookies have long been used to target ads, save sign-ins and otherwise personalize the internet.They’re increasingly considered a privacy risk, though, and Google has instead proposed a set of Privacy Sandbox tools to replace the tracking function.
Some advertisers and publishers haven’t been thrilled. They’ve argued that the Sandbox isn’t as easy to use, doesn’t do enough to replace cookies in Chrome, and gives Google too much power. Others, however, have hoped this will modernize internet ads.
The setback nonetheless comes as Apple and Mozilla have followed suit first with their respective Safari and Firefox browsers. While Chrome is still the dominant web client, the cookie approach has given some privacy-oriented users a reason to switch.
