Google Reverses Decision to Ditch Third-Party Cookies

Google has changed its stance on third-party cookies and decided that it’s going to allow them, moving the decision on whether to use them into the hands of the individual users.

Third-party cookies have been around for a long time, and they have their uses. They also allow advertisers and other companies to track users as they move around, making it easier to tailor ads. Every time you look for an item on a website and ads begin to show up for that item on other sites, third-party cookies are to blame.

Ditching third-party cookies was part of Google’s Privacy Sandbox initiative, but it turns out they have some needed functionalities. More importantly, advertisers would be severely impacted.

“Early testing from ad tech companies, including Google, has indicated that the Privacy Sandbox APIs have the potential to achieve these outcomes,” saidGoogle’s Privacy Sandbox VP, Anthony Chavez.

“And we expect that overall performance using Privacy Sandbox APIs will improve over time as industry adoption increases. At the same time, we recognize this transition requires significant work by many participants and will have an impact on publishers, advertisers, and everyone involved in online advertising,” he added.

The original plan was to make the necessary changes for only 1% of the users in 2024, but that plan is no longer in play.

“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.

Basically, users will have to choose if they want to keep those cookies, but how that feature will be implemented remains to be seen.