Google delays the rollout of its third-party cookie replacement to mid-2023

Google is delaying its plan to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome to mid-2023 amid pushback from regulators and the wider ad industry. The web giant first announced its Privacy Sandbox initiative in 2019 and the following year it revealed a 2022 implementation date. As part of the sweeping changes, Google will effectively replace individual user tracking with group-based ad targeting. Others, including Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla, have already done so in their respective browsers. Though Google was keen to catch up -- even testing its Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) tech on some users around the world in March -- it's now slowing down the pace.