UK's competition watchdog says it is investigating Google's proposals to remove third-party cookies from Chrome over concerns it could curb rival advertising
Context & Ripple Effects
When Google proposed killing third-party cookies in Chrome, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority opened a formal investigation over concerns the change would hand Google's ad business an even bigger advantage over rivals who depend on that data. The move put Google's Privacy Sandbox replacement proposals directly under regulatory supervision rather than leaving the company to self-police its own browser.
The probe matters because Chrome is the choke point for how much of the open web's advertising data flows — whoever controls cookie removal controls which ad tech survives. The concern was echoed across the Atlantic when DOJ investigators began asking ad executives whether the ban would hobble Google's smaller competitors.
First-order effects
- Rival ad tech firms face an immediate threat: if Chrome drops third-party cookies on Google's terms, competitors lose the behavioral data their targeting depends on while Google retains first-party signals across Search, YouTube, and Android.
- Google must now justify its proposals to the CMA before shipping them, converting a unilateral product decision into a supervised negotiation.
Second-order effects
- Regulators extract a seat at the table: Google commits to involving UK competition and privacy authorities throughout Privacy Sandbox's development, slowing the rollout but legitimizing it.
- The DOJ's parallel interest signals US enforcers may reach similar conclusions, raising the prospect of Google negotiating cookie removal separately with multiple watchdogs whose demands may not align.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, browser-level changes to advertising data access become de facto regulated conduct — the CMA ultimately accepted Google's plan subject to close monitoring of the product's development, establishing ongoing oversight as the template for platform gatekeepers reshaping markets through privacy-driven design choices.
The trend: Competition regulators are moving from policing mergers and pricing to supervising how dominant platforms redesign core data-access infrastructure like browsers.