Tech giant Google has announced a major U-turn on its decision to block third-party cookies on Chrome. After years of publicly promising to do so, it has abandoned plans to kill third-party cookies, citing industry feedback and technical challenges. 

Instead, Google will introduce a new experience in Chrome, giving users greater control over their web browsing privacy. 

 What does this mean for users and advertisers? And how will this impact the future of digital advertising and privacy?  

Let’s take a look. 

 Background 

In January 2020, Google announced its plans to eliminate third-party cookies on Chrome, marking a major shift in online advertising and privacy, and sending marketers and advertisers into a panic. 

Initially announced as part of their Privacy Sandbox initiative, the move aimed to phase out support for third-party cookies by 2024. These cookies, which had been essential for tracking user behaviour across different websites, had increasingly been seen as a privacy concern.  

 Different browsers have different cookies strategies. Some browsers block third-party cookies by default, while others have less strict policies. 

Because Chrome is the most popular browser in the world (with a market share of 65%; Safari is a distant second on 18%) it means any changes to Chrome will likely have the strongest impact on the user experience as well as the ad industry more broadly. 

 Since its announcement 4 years ago, Google has been experimenting with ways to replace cookies through its Privacy Sandbox initiative. This included working closely with the ad industry to create a set of proposals to move away from tracking cookies. 

Google introduced a number of experiments since 2020 but none of them won broad support from regulators and industry partners. 

That brings us to now, with Google making the U-turn. Speaking on the decision, the Privacy Sandbox VP, Anthony Chavez, said: “Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we would introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing, and they'd be able to adjust that choice at any time.” 

Impact on users 

For users, the continued use of third-party cookies means that their browsing habits and data can still be tracked by advertisers and other third parties. 

In an effort to address privacy concerns, Chrome will introduce a user-choice prompt, which will allow users to choose whether to retain third-party cookies or not.  

 This new feature is designed to give users more control over their data, allowing them to manage how their information is shared and used. This move aims to strike a balance between maintaining the benefits of targeted advertising and enhancing user privacy. 

Impact on advertisers 

Google’s decision to keep these cookies in play ensures that advertisers can continue to track user behaviour across different websites, allowing for precise targeting and personalised advertising. 

However, relying heavily on third-party cookies may still be inefficient. Over the years, privacy regulation has increased along with consumer expectations around their data and how it’s used. Plus putting a prompt in front of Chrome users is likely to cut the number of users that allow third-party tracking. 

 Also, despite the U-turn, Google’s initial proposal to eliminate third-party cookies pushed the industry to become less reliant on cookies and more focused on capturing zero-party and first-party data. 

 Ultimately, advertisers will need to navigate these challenges, ensuring they comply with evolving privacy regulations while developing ways to track users beyond the use of third-party cookies. 

The state of the Privacy Sandbox 

The Privacy Sandbox initiative aims to develop new standards for web privacy, enabling personalised advertising without compromising user privacy.  

Recent updates include proposals like Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), which shows relevant ads without tracking individual users by grouping them into cohorts based on similar browsing activity. Yet FLoC was scrapped in 2022 as privacy experts had concerns it could make it easier for advertisers to gather information. 

 Then there is Topics API, in which the browser identifies a few interest-based categories from a user’s browsing history to help show relevant ads. 

 At the start of 2024, it began testing Tracking Protection, a feature that limits cross-site tracking by restricting website access to third-party cookies by default. 

Google has said it will continue to make Privacy Sandbox APIs available. 

Industry reaction 

Google’s announcement brings relief to advertisers, who believed it would hurt the online ad market, as well as privacy advocates, who criticised the proposal, pointing towards the possibility of new privacy risks and unfairly benefiting Google’s own advertising business. 

 For Forrester, the announcement was hardly surprising, pointing towards the repeated delays and struggles involved in blocking third-party cookies. It also highlights the issues raised by antitrust and data privacy regulators around Privacy Sandbox. 

Future outlook 

While this move may seem to slow the urgency for change, data strategies have already been evolving without reliance on third-party cookies. 

The digital advertising landscape is already adapting to a cookieless future. Marketers are prioritising the collection of zero-party and first-party data, which offer more direct and consensual forms of user information. This shift is also driven by new data privacy regulations such as the GDPR in Europe and CCPA in California. 

Advertisers are exploring alternative strategies like contextual targeting, which focuses on the content being consumed rather than tracking individual users. These new methods are helping to ensure that ad relevance and personalisation can still be achieved without the use of third-party cookies. 

If you’re looking to update or enhance your data strategy, then get in touch with us!