Our friends at SearchEngineJournal covered Google's delay in the phasing out of cookies in this original piece. In order for you to keep informed about Google's transition away from cookies, we're going to put it into our own words and attempt to provide some additional useful information. You may read the fundamentals of what's going on in this article written by us, here, if you're not sure what this all means. Let's begin!
With plans to gradually phase them out starting in 2024, Google is delaying the deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome by another year. The second extension of Chrome's continued acceptance of third-party cookies, which Google had intended to stop doing this year. Once again, plans were altered when Google pushed out the deadline to 2023 in 2017. The extension is now receiving another extension. In order to deliver targeted advertising in a less intrusive manner, Google's Privacy Sandbox program needs more testing time.
Anthony Chavez, Vice President of Google’s Privacy Sandbox initiative, states in a blog post:
“The most consistent feedback we’ve received is the need for more time to evaluate and test the new Privacy Sandbox technologies before deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome…This deliberate approach to transitioning from third-party cookies ensures that the web can continue to thrive, without relying on cross-site tracking identifiers or covert techniques like fingerprinting.”
Over the past few months, Google has been putting the Privacy Sandbox to the test. It requires a longer testing window, marketers, publishers, and developers all agree. Instead of replacing third-party cookies with the Privacy Sandbox all at once, Google now aims to switch over to it gradually. Developers have access to a Privacy Sandbox API trial version. The trial will be opened to millions of people worldwide in August.
The exam will be made available to more people by Google throughout the year and into 2023. Chavez goes on to say:
“By Q3 2023, we expect the Privacy Sandbox APIs to be launched and generally available in Chrome. As developers adopt
these APIs, we now intend to begin phasing out third-party cookies in Chrome in the second half of 2024. As always, you can find up-to-date timelines and milestones on the Privacy Sandbox website.”
This gives marketers and advertisers more time to fine-tune their advertising campaigns to specifically target Chrome users. It's unclear how marketers will be affected by Chrome's deprecation of third-party cookies or how well the Privacy Sandbox will target certain customers.
As the test extends throughout 2022 and 2023, we'll probably learn more.