Google has decided to abandon a change that would have made it harder to track users across websites to deliver targeted ads. After years of testing, planning, and delays, the company has abandoned Chrome’s option to disable third-party cookie tracking, a move Apple’s Safari and Firefox had already implemented. The change was expected to come to the browser soon. Now, Chrome will ask users to “make an informed choice that applies to their web browsing,” rather than deleting third-party cookies altogether, Anthony Chavez, vice president of Google’s Privacy Sandbox, wrote in a statement. In other words, as we browse the web, pop-ups will appear on each new site, allowing us to choose whether or not to block cookies.
Google is currently on trial in the United States, facing charges from the government and eight states over its online advertising practices. On Monday, the Google Ads team released a fact sheet showing the results of early tests with its Privacy Sandbox technology, proposed as an alternative to cookie-based tracking. The results show a 97% recovery of return on investment with Google Display Ads, but with a significant drop in follow-up, showing only a 55% recovery of remarketing spend. Critics of Google’s plan to block third-party cookies and introduce other ad targeting technologies into the Privacy Sandbox, such as FLoC or the Topics API, have highlighted the possibility of new privacy risks or the potential harm to competition, unfairly favoring the search giant’s advertising business.
Industry group Movement for an Open Web, which filed the complaint with the CMA to block the rollout of the Privacy Sandbox technology, said in a statement, through co-founder James Rosewell: “We have long called for the Privacy Sandbox to be subjected to market scrutiny. If advertisers prefer its approach and consumers value the supposed privacy benefits, then it will be universally adopted. What was not acceptable was for a solution like this to be forced upon the market, eliminating all alternative choices.” Google said it would continue to make the Privacy Sandbox APIs available and would add IP anti-tracking protection for people using Incognito mode, to offer an additional layer of privacy.