In a surprising move, Google announced on Monday that it will no longer phase out third-party tracking cookies from its Chrome web browser. Instead, it will introduce a new prompt for users to choose how they want to be tracked across Google’s search products.
Google’s initial plan to eliminate cookies had the ad industry scrambling to find alternatives, raising anti-competitive concerns among regulators.
In February, U.K. policymakers requested that Google pause its planned phase-out of cookies due to antitrust concerns.
Following Google’s announcement, shares in rival ad tech firms saw an uptick.
Google initially announced in 2020 that it would end support for third-party tracking cookies in Chrome by 2022.
The company has since postponed the deadline three times, with the latest delay in April pushing the phase-out to 2025.
Google attempted to replace cookies through an initiative called Privacy Sandbox, which includes a set of proposals developed in collaboration with the broader ad industry to move away from tracking cookies.
Over the past few years, Google introduced several cookie-replacement experiments for the industry to test, but none received full support from industry partners and regulators.
FLoC, Google’s initial cookie replacement, was abandoned in 2022 after two years, partly due to concerns from privacy experts that it could inadvertently make it easier for advertisers to gather user information.
Google later tested a different product called “Topics,” which allowed marketers to place ads based on a limited number of topics determined by users’ browser activity. Last year, it began testing a new “Tracking Protection” feature that limited cross-site tracking on Chrome.
Despite numerous experiments, Google admitted on Monday that securing industry-wide support for a single solution would be challenging.
A shift away from cookies “requires significant work by many participants and will have an impact on publishers, advertisers, and everyone involved in online advertising,” Privacy Sandbox VP Anthony Chavez wrote in the blog post announcing the change.
“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,” Chavez added.
Google’s latest move is reminiscent of Apple’s 2021 app tracking changes, which Apple claimed benefited user privacy, while competitors argued it was anti-competitive.
Google stated that it is discussing its new approach with regulators and will engage with the industry as the rollout progresses.
Although Google’s threat to eliminate cookies didn’t materialize, it did succeed in pushing the industry to become less dependent on cookies and more focused on privacy-centric ad-tracking solutions.
Given that the majority of web browsing in the U.S. (66%) occurs on Chrome, most marketers, ad tech firms, agencies, and publishers felt compelled to find alternatives to cookies to sustain their businesses.
Some companies collaborated to develop a solution called Universal IDs, which relies on hashed email and phone number data.
Marketers also began focusing on collecting first-party data and using “clean rooms” to store and share data.
On a practical level, Joe Root, CEO of publisher tech firm Permutive, said last month, “what Google does makes almost no difference.”
“70% of the internet doesn’t have a third-party cookie. Google can make a change, but like 40% of [Chrome users] have already disabled cookies.”