Google phases out cookies in Chrome web browser later than planned | Tweakers

Google says it needs more time to gather feedback from the industry, regulators and developers. For example, the British watchdog Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) still needs time to complete its investigation into the phasing out of cookies.

The regulator wants to ensure that Google does not use blocking tracking cookies to gain an unfair advantage in the advertising market, the tech giant writes. This means that advertisers can no longer track users in the browser, but Google itself can. This makes the latter the only one that directly collects data from users while surfing. The CMA needs more time to assess advertisers’ test results and determine whether Google is unfairly receiving a lot of advertising revenue from this initiative.

The CMA asked Google last January to stop the rollout for the time being. Google has now responded to this. The company is pausing the rollout until the CMA’s concerns are addressed. The company expects this to be the case before the end of the year. This means the phase-out can resume early next year.

Google announced in 2019 that it planned to disable so-called third-party tracking cookies in its Chrome browser. These cookies are used by advertisers to track users’ surfing behavior and use them for personalized advertising.

However, the disappearance of these cookies does not mean that personalized advertisements will also disappear. Google wants to replace tracking cookies with its own system: the Privacy Sandbox. Google is the only one that can collect users’ surfing data. Advertisers can then go to Google and say, for example, that they want to show advertisements to 18 to 25-year-olds who are interested in Samsung smartphones. Google then wants to ensure that these advertisements are shown to the right group of users.

As a result, advertisers no longer have access to user data, but Google still does. The tech company does promise that its alternative is more privacy-friendly because less data is collected. For example, Google does not collect all users who visit each website, but only the broad groups in which they are categorized, such as ‘users who want to buy a Samsung’, ‘car enthusiasts’ and ‘women between the ages of thirty and forty’.

Google initially planned to start replacing tracking cookies with its own alternative in early 2022. Later this was postponed several more times; first to the third quarter of 2023, later to 2024 and now to sometime next year. Google started the rollout at the beginning of this year by blocking tracking cookies for one percent of global Chrome users.