Google is finally set to phase out third-party cookies from the first quarter of 2024 after twice delaying the move over the past couple of years.
The US tech giant has confirmed that third-party cookies will be phased out for 1% of Chrome users in that first quarter, effectively kicking off a new era for online privacy.
A new Privacy Sandbox initiative will be replacing third-party cookies with what Google refers to as a “more privacy-conscious approach”, using technologies that protect people’s online privacy and allow users to manage their own interests.
The Privacy Sandbox technologies also aim to give companies, publishers and developers the tools they need to build “thriving digital businesses”, including serving relevant content and ads.
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Google’s plans have been developed with regulatory oversight from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), in order to ensure that move doesn’t give the company an unfair advantage.
Privacy Sandbox relevance and measurement APIs will be available to Google’s adtech developers from this July, allowing them to start testing their cookie-free solutions at scale in advance of a further roll out towards the end of the year.
“This will support developers in conducting real world experiments that assess the readiness and effectiveness of their products without third-party cookies,” Google Privacy Sandbox vice-president Anthony Chavez said.
Google currently remains on track with its plans to completely deprecate third-party cookies by late 2024. This phasing out of third-party cookies is expected to cause some concern among advertisers, despite the industry having had several years to prepare for this moment.
