The Privacy Sandbox Is Delayed (Again): why and what are the next steps?
In news that shocked very few, Google announced yesterday that they are delaying the phasing out of third party cookies in Google Chrome until Q1 in 2025.
The announcement was made on Tuesday ahead of quarterly reports from Google & the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) that is overseeing the deprecation of third party cookies in Chrome.
In the announcement Google said that they recognised that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry.
When announcing the delay Google also acknowledged that it was important that the CMA had sufficient time to review data from industry testing ahead of the deprecation as progress here has been slower than hoped.
Why Has This Happened
Picking beneath the headlines and public statements, what is driving this delay?
- Sellers worry that some of Google’s ads proposals will reduce their open marketplace yields and harm their ability to monetise their first party data via direct sales, reducing ARPU.
- Buyers are concerned that their current ways of working from targeting to measurement will undermine their ability to deliver digital campaigns and this will impact their billings.
- Ad Tech believes that some of these fine details of these proposals might entrench Google’s market dominance, for example by mandating that Google Ad Manager is the "Top Level Seller," controlling the Protected Audiences (PA) ad auction.
Additionally the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is believed to have concerns about the Sandbox initiatives. It has been reported that they feel the proposals do not do enough to protect privacy and this could be a factor that behind the scenes has forced the delay.
What is next?
Despite the gloating from some, this proposed delay isn’t a significant one Google is proposing pushing the rollout to Q1 & Q2 2025:
