Google drops plan to remove third party cookies in Chrome, notifies UK regulator of policy shift

Google said Wednesday it will no longer pursue the full deprecation of third party cookies in Chrome, informing the UK Competition and Markets Authority in a formal submission that the browser will retain cookie support while emphasizing new privacy controls and Sandbox APIs. The decision ends a multi year effort that began in 2020 and was subject to binding CMA oversight since 2021, and it follows multiple delays and limited rollout tests.

The move matters because Chrome controls roughly 63 percent of global browser market share, according to StatCounter, so any shift in cookie policy affects adtech measurement, targeting, and competition dynamics at scale. The CMA required Google to demonstrate that Privacy Sandbox changes would not harm rivals, a standard the regulator described as ensuring the proposals do not distort competition.

What changed today

Google said it will continue to offer Topics, Protected Audience, and Attribution Reporting APIs, and it will expand user level settings that let people block or clear third party cookies on a site by site basis. The company began restricting cookies for about one percent of Chrome users in January 2024, then paused broader deprecation later that year while it worked with the CMA and the UK Information Commissioner’s Office on tests and safeguards.

In a blog post attributed to Anthony Chavez, who leads Privacy Sandbox, Google framed the decision as a balance between privacy and preserving a healthy ad supported web. The company said developers can keep integrating Sandbox APIs and that Chrome will invest in anti tracking protections such as fingerprinting mitigations, but it will not set a calendar to remove third party cookies.

Industry and regulatory context

Rivals Apple and Mozilla have blocked third party cookies by default in Safari and Firefox for years, which pushed advertisers and publishers to adopt alternative identifiers and first party data. The Trade Desk, Amazon, and independent adtech firms built systems to operate without cookies, while publishers leaned on logins and contextual tools.

The CMA accepted commitments from Google in 2021 and updated them in 2022 and 2024, requiring live tests and independent monitoring. The regulator had raised concerns that a full cookie phase out, combined with Google’s large first party properties such as Search and YouTube, could tilt the market further toward the company if alternatives were not effective for open web rivals.

For the broader technology landscape, the shift reinforces that large platform privacy changes now move through formal regulatory channels and incremental product updates, not unilateral cutovers. It also underscores that competition authorities in the UK and EU are shaping browser and advertising design choices alongside US state privacy laws and platform level policies.