While Google has been signalling for at least some months that it was planning to remain flexible on the use of third party cookies in Chrome, an April 22 blog post seems to indicate the central purpose of the “Privacy Sandbox” project has now been scuttled.
When Google first announced the Privacy Sandbox initiative in 2019, the stated goal was the eventual elimination of third party cookies from its ecosystem and ideally the creation of an internet-wide alternative with more consideration for user privacy. While the company says that certain initiatives from the project will continue to move forward, the recent announcement appears to be a surrender in the face of ad industry pushback and ongoing technical and regulatory challenges.
Privacy Sandbox VP Announces third party cookies will stay
The surprise announcement came from Privacy Sandbox VP Anthony Chavez by way of a blog post to the project’s public website. Chavez cited the development of unspecified new “privacy-enhancing technologies” and AI since the project was announced in 2019, advising users to explore Chrome’s new Privacy and Security Settings to find their “best options.”
Chavez said that certain initiatives, such as the “IP Protection” feature slated to be added to Chrome’s incognito mode, would continue moving forward. But the central “cookie replacement” thrust of the project appears to at least be on indefinite pause as Google gathers more industry feedback and updates its project roadmap.
Since the start of the Privacy Sandbox project, Google has been strongly pushing to eliminate third party cookies entirely beginning with its Chrome browser. That initiative had seemed to be well underway, after a rocky start during the first couple of years in which the company ultimately discarded an initial standard, FLoC, that received too much industry and privacy pushback.
Google removed third party cookies from Chrome entirely for 1% of its users in early 2024 in what was supposed to be a trial run before removing them entirely by the end of that year. But a flurry of industry pushback caused the company to announce a change to that timeline in July 2024, though at the time it still appeared to be set to eventually deprecate tracking cookies in favor of its new localized browser-based system.
All of that appears to be out the window at this point, with no clear indication if or when the cookie deprecation project will ever be back on track. For the moment at least, developers are still free to use third party cookies in Chrome. The Privacy Sandbox APIs do remain available as an option, but have not proven popular with adtech firms that say they face technical interfacing problems with their existing setups for tracking across numerous device and browser types.
Privacy Sandbox components continue development, but tracking cookie timeline now unknown
Google’s Privacy Sandbox project at least appeared to be well-intentioned on the surface, addressing a central complaint of all internet users since personalized adtech became omnipresent: the use of third party cookies across most or all of a user’s lifetime browsing experience to compile frighteningly detailed profiles on their demographics and behavior. But the project has faced assault from all sides since it was announced, with privacy advocates finding it wanting and the adtech industry complaining of added costs, technical limitations and potential monopoly behavior by Google.
Privacy Sandbox has thus far focused on placing users in “topics” or “cohorts” based on their interests expressed via browsing, the processing of which is done locally in their browser rather than by a third party system. Marketing companies can then serve ads to members of these generalized groups rather than individuals, in theory preventing a person from being tracked and profiled while still being selectively shown ads that have an increased chance of being relevant to them in the moment.
While negative feedback from the adtech industry undoubtedly contributed to the ongoing “course correction” of the project, some believe Google’s seeming surrender is more rooted in the belief that it will not clear regulatory hurdles in the EU and possibly also the US. It has already faced substantial legal trouble over alleged monopoly positions in both territories. While Google’s near-term plans were for the project to replace third party cookies in Chrome and eventually in Android, the company has stated that it hopes Privacy Sandbox will ultimately be voluntarily adopted by other browsers. Chrome is also often estimated as the world’s most-used web browser by far, with the only close competition being the Apple-exclusive Safari.
In addition to web browsing dominance, Google is the biggest single player in ad exchanges and publisher ad servers. That has landed it in trouble in US courts, and a judge recently ruled that it had willfully engaged in monopoly practices in those markets. A future trial will determine whether that means Google must break its adtech empire into pieces and sell off some of it.
Lena Cohen, Electronic Frontier Foundation Staff Technologist, sees this as a sign that Google has totally given up and that one will have to seek other alternatives to avoid third party cookies: “Google continues to backtrack on its privacy promises, leaving billions of Chrome users vulnerable to online surveillance. Last July, Google abandoned its long-delayed plan to deprecate third-party cookies in Chrome, opting instead to prompt users to choose whether or not to be tracked by third-party cookies. Today, Google backtracked even further on its privacy promises by scrapping the rollout of this plan to help users ‘make an informed choice.’ Even if implemented, a user-choice prompt would’ve fallen short of the default privacy protections offered by other leading browsers. Safari and Firefox have blocked third-party cookies by default since 2020, recognizing the widespread and well-documented privacy harms they cause. “By refusing to implement even the bare minimum protections they once promised, Google is making clear that user privacy comes second to their surveillance-based business model. To protect themselves from third-party cookies, users should consider switching to browsers like Firefox and installing a tracker-blocking extension like Privacy Badger.”
