The death of third-party cookies has been looming for a while, ever since Google announced the Privacy Sandbox initiative in 2019. 

Well, this week, it’s official: they’re not dying just yet.

Google has scrapped its own 2024 deadline to phase out third-party cookies in chrome, due to selected feedback, testing and additional regulatory concerns, especially from the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). 

For those of us that live and breathe Google Ads and programmatic, or even just dabble in basic remarketing, this news comes as a big deal.

So What Actually Happened?

Google’s been developing the Privacy Sandbox, an alternative to cookie-based tracking, since 2019 but adoption has been sluggish, and regulators aren’t fully convinced it’s better for users. The deadline to kill cookies has now been delayed indefinitely, with no new timeline in place. This does signal that at least for now, third-party cookies are here to stay for a while, unless CMA and other watchdog groups become satisfied with new Privacy Sandbox developments. 

Third Party Cookies

So actually, Google Chrome is the last major browser that still fully supports third-party cookies. 

• Mozilla Firefox has blocked these by default since 2019 (via Enhanced Tracking Protection). 

• Apple’s Safari has them blocked by default since 2020 but also does limit some first-party cookies too. 

• Brave has third-party cookies blocked by default and blocks ads, scripts and trackers by default. 

• Microsoft-Edge has three levels of tracking prevention; Basic, Balanced and Strict, meaning third-party cookies can be blocked but this is not by default. 

It still comes as major news as Google Chrome holds 65% of the browser market share on Desktop, and around 40% on Mobile. This means that most of the world’s traffic, and ad revenue, still relies more on Chrome. 

What does this mean for us as advertisers?

Basically this gives us more time to prepare, however this isn’t a free pass to just ignore privacy-friendly solutions or first-party data. Whilst this initiative has been delayed indefinitely, it is still just a delay.

It’s still very good practice to be prepared, and this is something that we should all be doing right now: 

• Keep investing in first-party data strategies.

• Get familiar with tools like Enhanced Conversion and Consent Mode.

• Test Privacy Sandbox features now – don’t wait for the deadline to hit.

• Tidy up your tagging, tracking, and user experience.

My take?

I don’t necessarily think this is a bad move. The Privacy Sandbox delay feels less backpedally and more like a “we are not ready” situation - even if guided by the CMA and other watchdogs. Rushing half-baked solutions just to meet a deadline could do more harm than good; let’s just look at the Google Analytics 4 rollout.

We can’t get too comfortable with this news though and we still need to be advancing to a privacy-first approach regardless of this news. The advertisers who adapt early will be the ones miles ahead when changes do come, so it is best to get ahead whilst there is still time. 

I would love to hear how others are approaching this in their strategies. Are you already testing cookie-less solutions, or riding out the delay?

Luke Trevillion, Paid Search Manager