Google Delays Privacy Sandbox Initiatives, Continues Support for 3rd Party Cookies

Google Delays Privacy Sandbox Initiatives, Continues Support for 3rd Party Cookies.

Google announced that support for third-party cookies would be extended until late 2023, giving marketers more than a year extension from the previous plan to block third-party cookies by 2022. The Privacy Sandbox initiatives will be delayed while more testing takes place.

Google said Thursday it’s pushing back its plan to kill off third-party tracking cookies in Chrome.
It now expects to phase out cookies and replace them with tech from its Privacy Sandbox by 2023.
The delay comes after Google pledged to give oversight of the cookie changes to the UK’s antitrust watchdog.

“While there’s considerable progress with this initiative, it’s become clear that more time is needed across the ecosystem to get this right,” Chrome’s Privacy Engineering Director, Vinay Goel, said Thursday.

Google first announced its intentions to kill off the tracking cookies, which advertisers use to track users around the web and target them with ads, in January last year. The company said the plan, which originally had a “two-year” deadline, was to replace third-party cookies with more privacy conscious technologies.

Google plans to follow a two-stage rollout process for new sandbox feature.

Stage 1: Stage one will begin in late 2022 once testing is complete and APIs are launched in Chrome. At this time, publishers and advertisers will have time to migrate. Google plans to give 9 months for adoption and will monitor adoption and feedback during this time before proceeding.
Stage 2: Stage two will begin in mid-2023. At this point, Chrome will phase out support for third-party cookies over a three month period with the plan to fully remove support by the end of 2023.

The Goal of the Privacy Sandbox

Google’s privacy sandbox initiatives are meant to help protect people’s privacy, while still giving publishers and advertisers the ability to monetize data, which in turn keeps the web open and accessible. The goal is to create a solution that circumvents and discourages more alternative tracking solutions such as fingerprinting.

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