Google Delays Phasing out Cookies to 2023

Google said it needed to move at a ‘responsible pace’ to allow sufficient time for public discussion on the right solutions, engagement with regulators and allow advertisers and publishers to migrate their services appropriately.

“It’s become clear that more time is needed across the ecosystem to get this right,” said Google in a blog post. “This is important to avoid jeopardising the business models of many web publishers which support freely available content. By providing privacy-preserving technology, we as an industry can help ensure that cookies are not replaced with alternative forms of individual tracking, and discourage the rise of covert approaches like fingerprinting.”

Google plans to work with the web community to create ‘more private approaches to key areas’. This includes ad measurement, delivering relevant ads and content and fraud detection.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

“Today, Chrome and others have offered more than 30 proposals, and four of those proposals are available in origin trials. For Chrome, specifically, our goal is to have the key technologies deployed by late 2022 for the developer community to start adopting them,” said the company.

“Subject to our engagement with the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and in line with the commitments we have offered, Chrome could then phase out third-party cookies over a three month period, starting in mid-2023 and ending in late 2023.”

“By ensuring that the ecosystem can support their businesses without tracking individuals across the web, we can all ensure that free access to content continues. And because of the importance of this mission, we must take time to evaluate the new technologies, gather feedback and iterate to ensure they meet our goals for both privacy and performance, and give all developers time to follow the best path for privacy,” the company explained in its statement.

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