Hundreds of German advertisers and publishers, including Axel Springer, say Google is breaking EU law by phasing out third-party cookies from Chrome by 2023
and all the Very Serious People™ writing about this are yet to explain how small businesses are supposed to grow; or what happens when hundreds of businesses around the world can't any longer. Jonathan Tien / @ricefield : Ad marketplaces make distribution equally available to businesses of all sizes at a market-defined rate. The efficiency with which ad marketplaces match supply with demand is a fundamental cost of business the same way shipping, warehousing, or manufacturing are. https://twitter.com/... Eric Seufert / @eric_seufert : @swodinsky The divergence in treatment predates Cambridge Analytica, but that certainly didn't help. Sideshow false-panics like CA aside, Facebook brought much of this treatment on itself by going to war with the press. Thomas Baekdal / @baekdal : Remember this the next time you see newspapers write about how Google is violating people's privacy and is doing evil tracking: https://twitter.com/... @googleeurope : Unlike others, we're designing the Privacy Sandbox in the open, and in consultation with the industry. That includes offering regulatory commitments to ensure the changes we make in Chrome apply in the same way to Google's ad tech products as to others. https://blog.google/... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : So yes, I agree with the concern around 3rd party cookie ban by Google who dominates on all sides of the ad stack and has allegations in US of active collusion and auction rigging that erode trust in its ability to act as an agent for the users, publishers *and* advertisers. /3 Eric Seufert / @eric_seufert : It's difficult to have a sensible & productive discussion about the privacy / utility tradeoff in digital advertising because Facebook (fairly or unfairly) is seen as the epitome of targeted advertising. And therefore ‘ads personalization’ is interpreted as ‘stuff that FB does’ @googleeurope : Our plans will not interfere with how publishers can use information from their readers or customers on their own sites. What people don't want is to be tracked across sites by a third party they don't know or can't see. @seyitaylor : But next time one of these Very Serious People™ appears speaking about the dangers of online tracking, I would ask you to ask them how an SMB is supposed to advertise their Eren Yeager leash to “dog lovers who are into Attack on Titan” Aditya Agarwal / @adityaag : This is heresy in the Church of Web3 but I think there is a real opportunity to rethink ad-tech when everyone is scrambling to focus on subscriptions, tokens, payments etc. Particularly if you focus on emerging markets. Still believe wagmi. https://twitter.com/... @seyitaylor : If you laugh at the last example, I would point out to you that this is what the internet made possible — the aggregation of tiny groups into viable markets for intrepid entrepreneurs; and the tooling to serve them. It created wealth, and that wealth is being attacked. Jason Kint / @jason_kint : We need smarter laws. Users are rightly not happy with third party cookies by companies they don't even know exist or intend to interact that track them across the web. They're also very uncomfortable with Google and Facebook doing the same thing. We need to evolve. /5 @seyitaylor : I have a borderline conspiracy theory as to why this is happening. It's very sad though. (no, I'm not going to tweet it — I'm pretty sure I've told a few people in the DMs) Jason Kint / @jason_kint : But nuance is important here in terms of what needs to happen. Until regulators actually integrate antitrust and data protection enforcement to limit the surveillance capitalism of Google (and Facebook) then the duopoly will continue to thrive with or without 3p cookies. /4 Aaron Levie / @levie : Efficiently connecting buyers and sellers on the web has been an incredible boon for economic opportunity. It's important to understand how and why it works👇 https://twitter.com/... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : Let's look at this study. 1) G (opaquely) authored it using only its stack 2) “personalized ads” is much wider category than 3rd party cookies and don't require them 3) most importantly, 70% drop for pubs “unable to sell personalized ads *but competed with others who could*” /2 https://twitter.com/... Eric Seufert / @eric_seufert : ["A report by the UK's competition watchdog found that online publishers risked suffering potentially huge revenue losses of up to 70 per cent."] An estimate of up to 70% loss of revenue from the infamously pro-big business and anti-privacy...UK Competition and Markets Authority Jason Kint / @jason_kint : Here is the full FT report by @JavierespFT who is a great reporter and FT is a must-read for me so I called this out to make certain everyone knows nuance matters here. Google's comms and lobby shop are everywhere... shaping the conversations. /9 https://www.ft.com/... Garrett Johnson / @garjoh_canuck : “A report by the UK's competition watchdog found that online publishers risked suffering potentially huge revenue losses of up to 70 per cent.” https://twitter.com/... Martin Sfp Bryant / @martinsfp : “'Google must respect the relationship between publishers and users without interfering,' said the document, which was also sent to the EU's powerful competition unit.” https://twitter.com/... Lukasz Olejnik / @lukolejnik : Axel Springer wants to force Brussels to force Google to stop the phasing out of third-party cookies. Privacy vs Competition clashing again. Stay tuned. https://www.ft.com/... https://twitter.com/... Wolfgang Blau / @wblau : Alternative headline: publishers defending their right to track and profile readers. „German publishers oppose Google plan to phase out third-party cookies" https://giftarticle.ft.com/... Michael Veale / @mikarv : Keeping manifestly illegal cookie tracking is an affront to the rule of law EP voted last wk that browser settings override even a right to ask consent. But letting Google take sole control over targeting w Chrome: not an option. Luckily the privacy-competition dichotomy is a lie https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
This complaint is the latest front in a decade-long German publishing campaign against Google: the same industry filed suit back in 2016 over unpaid traffic (filed a lawsuit over traffic without payment), took on Apple's iPhone privacy changes in 2021 (antitrust complaint against Apple), and prompted Germany's regulator to probe Google News Showcase terms (regulator probe of News Showcase terms) months before this.
What changed here is the target: rather than objecting to how Google distributes their content, Axel Springer and hundreds of German advertisers and publishers argue that unilaterally removing third-party cookies from Chrome — the mechanism funding much of the open web — is itself an abuse of dominance, and they are asking Brussels to stop it. A UK Competition and Markets Authority analysis cited in the coverage puts potential publisher revenue losses at up to 70%, which is why the stakes read as existential rather than tactical.
First-order effects
- Axel Springer and the signatory publishers are directly exposed: if the Chrome phase-out proceeds on schedule, the CMA-linked estimate implies open-web display revenue could fall by as much as 70% before any replacement standard matures.
- Google must now defend the Privacy Sandbox timeline not just to regulators but through an active EU-law complaint, while its stated offer — designing Sandbox openly and committing to apply Chrome changes equally across its own ad tech — becomes the test of its defense.
Second-order effects
- The complaint template spreads immediately: within weeks the European Publishers Council, including News UK, files its own EU antitrust complaint over Google's ad practices (European Publishers Council complaint), turning a national grievance into a coordinated European front.
- Google's rivals and customers gain leverage: every unilateral product change that doubles as a market-structure change now invites legal challenge, raising the cost of Chrome-as-policy and pushing Google toward negotiated commitments with competition authorities instead of shipped defaults.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, browser-level identity decisions become regulated market access: the escalation path visible here — complaint, regulator probe, then Axel Springer's $2.3B damages suit with 31 other media groups — points toward courts and Brussels, not product teams, deciding how advertising identifiers may be retired.
- Structurally, publishers are converging on litigation as their business strategy against platforms, after the Apple complaint showed the same coalition will attack any gatekeeper whose privacy move reprices their inventory — entrenching a regime where platform privacy changes require antitrust clearance.
The trend: Platform gatekeeper leverage is migrating from product decisions into contested regulatory territory, with publishers using antitrust law to force consent over changes like cookie deprecation that once shipped unilaterally.