Google is abandoning plans to eliminate cookies from its Chrome web browser, reversing a four-year effort to phase out a technology that helps companies track users online.
The company had been working to remove third-party cookies, which are snippets of code that record user information, as part of an effort to overhaul user privacy options on Chrome. But the proposal, also known as the Privacy Sandbox, had raised concerns within the online advertising industry that any replacement technology would leave even less room for online advertising competitors.
In a blog post Monday, Google said it decided to abandon the project after reviewing the impact of the changes on publishers, advertisers and “everyone involved in online advertising.”
The choice of whether or not to block the Cookies
The UK’s top competition regulator, which helped oversee the Privacy Sandbox project, said Google would instead offer users the option to block or allow third-party cookies on the browser.
Google “will introduce a new experience in Chrome that allows users to make an informed choice that will apply to their web browsing, and they can adjust that choice at any time,” Anthony Chavez, vice president of Privacy Sandbox, said in the post. “We are discussing this new path with regulators and will work with industry as we implement it.”
Advertisers use cookies to target their ads to Internet users, but privacy advocates say they can be used to track users across the Internet.
Google first proposed removing cookies in 2020, but the deadline for completing the work was repeatedly postponed.
Chrome is the world’s dominant web browser, and many others, like Microsoft’s Edge, are based on the company’s open-source Chromium technology.