‘We are proposing an updated approach that elevates user choice’: Google backflips on crushing cookies

Google has scrapped its controversial plan to eliminate third-party cookies on Chrome after years of delays and false starts.

Google first announced its plans to phase out third-party cookies — files that track users’ web browsing activity in order to better target advertising — in January 2020, saying it would happen “within two years”. After pushback from the advertising industry, the deadline was extended three separate times.

Now Google is proposing a one-time opt-in cookies prompt, that will allow the user to decide how they are tracked while using Chrome.