Third-party cookies in Chrome : why Google has definitively abandoned its Privacy Sandbox in 2026

For years, web marketing prepared for a “world without cookies.” It's officially over: in October 2025, Google announced the end of its Privacy Sandbox, the program supposed to replace third-party cookies on Chrome and Android. Result in 2026: third-party cookies remain very much alive in the browser, and it is up to users themselves to choose whether to block them.

A 180-degree reversal after six years of promises

Launched in 2019, Privacy Sandbox was meant to offer a “privacy-respecting” alternative to third-party cookies, without breaking the online advertising ecosystem. After several successive delays, Google eventually confirmed, through Anthony Chavez, the program's vice president, that the company would “maintain the current approach that allows users to manage third-party cookies themselves in Chrome”. Concretely, ten technologies from the program have been removed: Attribution Reporting API, Protected Audience, Topics, IP Protection and On-Device Personalization will no longer be offered.

Only three components survive, judged sufficiently adopted to be retained: CHIPS (site-by-site partitioned cookies), FedCM (a secure sign-in system without tracking) and Private State Tokens (an anti-fraud protection that does not rely on identifying the user).

Why did Google reverse course?

The project ran into a dual constraint, rarely brought together so head-on: on one hand, the UK competition authority (CMA) feared that removing third-party cookies would further strengthen Google's dominant position in online advertising; on the other, much of the adtech ecosystem judged the proposed alternatives too complex or insufficiently performant to replace existing targeting. Faced with this deadlock, Google preferred to abandon the technical architecture rather than maintain it against the wishes of both its partners and its regulators.

What this means in practice for advertisers and agencies

• Third-party cookies remain enabled by default in Chrome: targeting and measurement strategies based on them continue to function technically, with no announced end date.
• The GDPR and consent rules continue to apply independently of this decision: the end of Privacy Sandbox does not change the legal obligations of French websites regarding cookies.
• Investments already made in collecting first-party data (forms, customer accounts, newsletters) remain relevant: Chrome could still introduce new restrictions in the future, and this data is owned outright by the advertiser.
• Publishers and agencies that had anticipated a “cookieless” world with costly alternative solutions can postpone some investments, without abandoning them altogether.

For agencies that are members of the Webmarketing & SEO ecosystem, this reversal mainly illustrates the difficulty of building a strategy on a timetable set unilaterally by a single player in the tech sector. The best protection remains diversifying data sources and acquisition channels, including for e-commerce sites that heavily depend on advertising targeting for customer acquisition.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will third-party cookies disappear from Chrome in 2026?

No. In October 2025 Google abandoned its plan to remove them via Privacy Sandbox. They remain enabled by default, with a setting left to the user's discretion in the privacy settings.

What is Privacy Sandbox?

A program launched by Google in 2019 to replace third-party cookies with technologies considered more privacy-respecting, such as Topics or Protected Audience. The majority of these components were removed in 2025.

Should you still invest in first-party data?

Yes: beyond the uncertainty about Google's future decisions, collecting data directly from customers remains a strategic asset and is GDPR-compliant, independent of browsers' technical choices.

Sources

• La Réclame
• Sirdata News
• Privacy Sandbox (Google's official blog)

This article was written with the help of artificial intelligence. Editorial policy