Security News > 2022 > July > Google Delays Blocking 3rd-Party Cookies in Chrome Browser Until 2024

Google on Wednesday said it's once again delaying its plans to turn off third-party cookies in the Chrome web browser from late 2023 to the second half of 2024.

"The most consistent feedback we've received is the need for more time to evaluate and test the new Privacy Sandbox technologies before deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome," Anthony Chavez, vice president of Privacy Sandbox, said.

Privacy Sandbox is Google's umbrella term for a set of technologies that aim to improve users' privacy across the web and Android by limiting cross-site and cross-app tracking and offering improved, safer alternatives to serve interest-based ads.

While Google had originally planned to roll out the feature in early 2022, it revised the timeline in June 2021, pushing its proposal to transition from third-party cookies over a three-month period, starting in mid-2023 and ending in late 2023.

The second extension comes as Google announced Topics API as a replacement for FLoC in January 2022, following it up with a developer preview of Privacy Sandbox for Android in May. In February 2022, the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority formally accepted commitments from Google over how it develops the technology, pointing out the need to develop Privacy Sandbox such that it promotes competition and supports publishers to raise revenue from ads while also safeguarding consumer privacy.

Google also emphasized that users will be shown a prompt to manage their participation, adding it intends to make the APIs generally available by Q3 2023, with third-party cookie support tentatively dropped in H2 2024.

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https://thehackernews.com/2022/07/google-delays-blocking-3rd-party.html