Google Delays Third-Party Cookie Removal to Early 2025

Google and the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) have published a quarterly report regarding the current status of their Privacy Sandbox for the web.

The first-quarter report includes the latest information related to the removal of third-party cookies on Chrome, where they will postpone its implementation until 2025.

This delay marks the third postponement after Google planned to stop the use of third-party cookies in the third quarter of 2023, before eventually delaying it to the end of 2024.

What Is the Discontinuation of Third-Party Cookies?

To test the discontinuation of third-party cookies, Chrome has limited its application to 1% of Chrome Stable clients and 20% of Canary, Dev, and Beta clients.

This testing is intended to allow sites and services to prepare for the restrictions on the use of third-party cookies, including moving to more private alternatives.

So, why does the use of third-party cookies need to be stopped? Google states that this discontinuation aims to reduce cross-site tracking while still enabling functions that make content and online services freely accessible to everyone.

Additionally, third-party cookies also enable essential functions across logins, fraud protection, advertising, and the ability to display third-party content in general.

However, third-party cookies can also trigger cross-site tracking that can eliminate online privacy, targeted advertising, and the sale of personal data to third parties.

Besides announcing plans to eliminate third-party cookies, Google also provides guidance for sites to prepare for this policy.

Actions that site owners can take include the following:

• Auditing the use of third-party cookies.
• Testing for any damages.
• Migrating to privacy solutions, such as partitioning with CHIPS (Cookies Having Independent Partitioned State), asking users for storage access permission with the Storage Access API, or using Related Website Sets (RWS).

Furthermore, Google also directs site or service owners to report damages experienced due to the deactivation of third-party cookies here. 

What are Google and CMA's Plans for Third-Party Cookies?

In the report, Google and the CMA explain that they face challenges related to implementing the plan to remove third-party cookies, where Google must reconcile with many industries, regulators, and developers.

Additionally, the CMA also needs to review related evidence, such as industry test results. Therefore, Google will not complete the discontinuation of third-party cookies during the second half of Q4.

Google is committed to completing the process this year, and if Google, the CMA, and the ICO reach an agreement, Google will stop using third-party cookies starting in early 2025.