Google’s deadline for the end of third-party cookies changed so many times that it’s become a meme of sorts.
But third-party cookies on Chrome really are on the road to Kaputsville.
In other words, it’s happening, folks. Google is pushing the Chrome Privacy Sandbox live with users, and developers are able to start testing it at scale.
With the release of Chrome 115 in July, Google began shipping the APIs to make them available by default in Chrome, including Topics and Attribution Reporting.
Still, given the multiple delays, one would be forgiven for skepticism that Google will truly deprecate third-party cookies as planned by the end of next year, despite any progress it’s making with replacement solutions.
This is “a fair criticism,” says Victor Wong, senior director of product for the Privacy Sandbox on Chrome and Android, speaking on this week’s episode of AdExchanger Talks.
Slippery deadlines have “made it difficult for the industry to make strategic investments to plan around,” Wong says.
Which is why, barring action by the UK’s anticompetition authority, which has oversight of the Chrome Privacy Sandbox, Google’s timeframe is set in stone.
“We believe that moving the timeline again would be unfair for those who are ready now and [would] actually set the industry back in terms of preparedness,” Wong says. “We’re feeling very confident about it.”
Also in this episode: Wong’s publisher past, the privacy challenges facing email-based alternative IDs, fighting fingerprinting, drama at the W3C, striking a balance between being specific but not too specific with categories for the Topics API and moving on from bird names in the sandbox. (Farewell, FLEDGE.)
For more articles featuring Victor Wong, click here.
