Did you know Google U-Turns on Cookie Policy, Adopts Status Quo for Chrome User Tracking

 

Tech giant Google just confirmed that it will not be making any major changes to cookie tracking in Chrome after all.

The tech giant is, in other words, abandoning the final aspects of its much-coveted Privacy Sandbox program. While the latter would still exist, it will no longer be seen as a requirement, the company shared.

Privacy Sandbox will remain available, though largely irrelevant for advertisers seeking effective data sources to optimize performance. As per the Search Giant they hope to work more with regulators, advertising partners, and publishers. Google acknowledged ongoing disagreement over changes that could disrupt third-party cookie availability across the ecosystem.

When you consider all of these elements, Google says it made the decision to continue offering third-party cookie choices for Chrome. Google won’t introduce standalone cookie prompts, letting users decide via Chrome’s existing privacy settings.

The news is certainly sounding like a major relief for advertisers who were dreading the huge impact on the tracking endeavor. Privacy advocates will undoubtedly be less happy with that decision.

The initiative was first rolled out in the year 2020 when the Android maker shared plans to phase out that cookie tracking process by 2022. The goal was to be more aligned with the bigger industry shifts, as people were more worried about data privacy and control for online users.

The phase-out plans entailed the development of the latest Federated Learning of Cohorts model. That would give rise to more tracking of users, while no personal identifiers would be linked to a certain user. At the time, this was challenged by advertising partners, but Google reassured users that it would cause a delay in the FLoC plan. It wanted a single solution to address all the issues.

Then, soon after that, we saw the arrival of the Privacy Sandbox project that would give rise to more data tracking, along with safeguards for privacy. It was used in 2023, and a few months later, there was a new plan. This new project would be replacing cookies, and the new system would categorize web users into the best categories as compared to facilitating individual tracking.

Advertisers can continue tracking user data as they have, without disruption to existing targeting workflows. It hopes to provide relief on a larger scale to advertisers and advertising tech partners that were scrambling for alternative answers to ensure advertising relevance and the best performance.

No further changes are planned, meaning cookie tracking continues with no alternative systems in place for now. The company also isn’t offering an alternative option for realigning the systems. So it might be less costly for all those online advertisers.