For the third time, Google delays the deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome, pushing back its plans to early 2025, after the UK CMA expressed concerns
Google is delaying the end of third-party cookies in its Chrome browser — again. In other unsurprising developments, water remains wet.
Context & Ripple Effects
This was Google's third timetable reset after a 2021 postponement tied to publisher and privacy concerns and a later move to H2 2024 for more Privacy Sandbox testing. The repeated slippage made the transition less a browser-release decision than a market-wide change dependent on external scrutiny.
The CMA's intervention matters because Chrome's cookie policy shapes the operating assumptions of advertisers, publishers, and ad-tech firms. Google's planned 1% testing phase had already put those participants on notice that a broader change was approaching.
First-order effects
- Chrome will continue supporting third-party cookies beyond the prior schedule, preserving existing targeting, measurement, and attribution workflows for advertisers and publishers in the near term.
- Google gains additional time to address CMA concerns and test Privacy Sandbox before imposing a change that would alter the ad ecosystem built around Chrome.
Second-order effects
- Ad-tech vendors and publishers can defer some migration costs, but prolonged uncertainty makes it harder to time investments in cookie-free measurement and audience tools.
- The delay extends the competitive relevance of cookie-based intermediaries while Privacy Sandbox alternatives remain under review, rather than forcing an immediate shift in buyer and publisher workflows.
Third-order effects
- Chrome's role as a major access layer means privacy changes increasingly require competition-policy validation as well as technical readiness; browser governance can become a constraint on platform-led ad-market redesign.
- If delays continue, the market may move from a single hard cutoff toward a longer coexistence of cookies and privacy-preserving APIs, slowing standardization across advertising technology.
The trend: Browser privacy policy is becoming a regulated transition process, with dominant platforms unable to unilaterally set the pace of advertising-market infrastructure change.