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Google has officially scrapped its long-delayed Privacy Sandbox initiative, which aimed to remove third-party cookies from Chrome.
The company cited “evolving regulatory landscapes” and industry pushback as key reasons for this decision. This reversal means Chrome users will still face the same tracking that Safari and Firefox already block by default.
Anthony Chavez, who leads Google’s Privacy Sandbox project, announced the decision in a blog post on April 22, 2025. “We’ve made the decision to maintain our current approach to offering users third-party cookie choice in Chrome, and will not be rolling out a new standalone prompt for third-party cookies,” Chavez wrote.
This reversal comes after Google lost three major antitrust cases. Most recently, a US judge found Google “willfully engaged in anticompetitive acts” in the ad tech industry. In another case, the company’s search business was ruled a monopoly. These legal defeats have placed Google under intense regulatory scrutiny.
Google started the Privacy Sandbox project in 2019 to create more private advertising systems. The plan would have eliminated third-party cookies – small files that track users across the internet – by 2022. After several delays, Google has now abandoned the effort completely.
Privacy advocates criticized the reversal. “Google continues to backtrack on its privacy promises, leaving billions of Chrome users vulnerable to online surveillance,” said Lena Cohen, staff technologist at Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Meanwhile, Google’s competitors in the ad industry celebrated the news. James Rosewell, co-founder of Movement for an Open Web, said, “This is an admission by Google that the Privacy Sandbox project is all but over. They’ve recognized that the regulatory obstacles to their monopolistic project are insurmountable and have given up.”
The UK Competition and Markets Authority had previously investigated whether the Privacy Sandbox would harm competition. While that investigation ended in 2023 after Google made some changes, regulators reportedly raised new concerns last year.
Chrome users can still manually turn off third-party cookies through their browser settings. However, unlike Safari and Firefox, cookies will stay enabled by default in Chrome. Google plans to continue developing some privacy features, including IP Protection for Chrome’s Incognito mode, which is set for release later in 2025.
For now, online advertising practices will remain unchanged. The decision highlights the growing tensions between privacy initiatives, competition concerns, and government oversight in the digital advertising industry.
