Google postpones the death of cookies for the third time

[tasnimsanika00]

Third-party cookies are still reluctant to give up. And Google has decided to postpone its death ( announced several years ago ) for the third time.

The internet giant initially promised to remove third-party cookies from the Chrome browser in 2022. However, it later decided to postpone this to 2023, and then granted another grace period for cookies, which it promised not to kill off until 2024.

However, cookies will not finally die this year and will not be dying out until early 2025. This is what Google announced on its corporate blog . "We plan to begin phasing out third-party cookies early next year," Google says.

The decision to postpone the demise of cookies is not in any case solely in the hands of Google. The Mountain View company must necessarily work very closely with the CMA, the UK competition authority, to ensure that Google's tools to replace cookies (known as the "Privacy Sandbox" ) are not anti-competitive in nature.

The problem is that the tools included in the Privacy Sandbox have come under fierce criticism from adtech companies, publishers and advertising agencies alike. Critics of Google's Privacy Sandbox complain that the tools included in the program are overly complex to operate. Others argue that the Privacy Sandbox tools do not adequately replace the many functions of cookies and that they appear to give Google too much power.

Diverging industry views on the Privacy Sandbox and distrust of the CMA have led to a delay benin whatsapp list in the death of cookies
Google has justified the new delay in the disappearance of cookies by citing all these problems and also the need to guarantee the CMA a thorough analysis of the tools that form part of the “Privacy Sandbox”.

“We recognise that we undoubtedly face a number of challenges in addressing the divergent feedback from industry, regulators and developers on Privacy Sandbox , and we will continue to engage very closely with the entire digital ecosystem,” Google said. “It is also vital that the CMA has sufficient time to review all evidence, including the results of the tests undertaken within the digital industry, which the CMA has requested from all players in the digital marketplace by the end of June,” the Mountain View company emphasised.

Google had set out to phase out third-party cookies in its browser over the course of this year. In fact, in January it cut off access to 1% of cookies in Chrome. However, how and when Google planned to kill off a larger and more significant proportion of cookies was never really clear.

While many advertising industry players want Google to end the ambiguity and kill off cookies once and for all, regulatory bodies such as the CMA have declared themselves in favour of keeping them alive and kicking (due to the distrust that the "Privacy Sandbox" inspires).

It is also worth noting that another British regulatory body, the Information Commissioner's Office (CIO), is also targeting the Privacy Sandbox because the tools that are part of this