What Changed
When Google abandoned its plan to remove third-party cookies in July 2024, it proposed an informed choice that would let Chrome users decide how they're tracked across the web.
On April 22, 2025, Google said it had decided to maintain its current approach to third-party cookie choice in Chrome, and would not roll out a new standalone prompt.1,2 It said that in talking with publishers, developers, regulators and the ad industry, it was clear there were divergent perspectives on changes that could affect the availability of third-party cookies.1
People can still block third-party cookies using Chrome's existing privacy settings. Google said it would keep strengthening protections in Incognito mode, which already blocks third-party cookies by default, including IP Protection, which hides users' IP addresses from known trackers, planned for the third quarter of 2025.1 Six months later, IP Protection was among the technologies Google retired with most of the Privacy Sandbox.
The post also left the Privacy Sandbox's future open. Google said its technologies might have a different role to play now that cookies were staying, and that it would gather feedback and publish an updated roadmap in the coming months. It noted that circumstances had changed since it began formally working with the UK's competition and data protection regulators in 2022.1
Why It Mattered
A prominent prompt could have led many users to turn off cross-site tracking, with an effect closer to App Tracking Transparency on iOS. Dropping it meant that, for nearly all Chrome users, third-party cookies would stay on by default.
Chrome's default also doesn't describe all Chrome traffic. On iPhone, Chrome has to use Apple's WebKit engine, as every iPhone browser must outside the EU and Japan, so it gets Safari's tracking protections, including blocked third-party cookies.3,4 Incognito windows block third-party cookies too. In analytics, "Chrome" is a mix of browsers with and without them.
It effectively ended the effort that began in January 2020.
Notes
- Anthony Chavez, “Next Steps for Privacy Sandbox and Tracking Protections in Chrome,” Privacy Sandbox, Google, April 22, 2025, https://privacysandbox.google.com/blog/privacy-sandbox-next-steps. abcd
- Tim Cross-Kovoor, “Google Announces New Plan for Third-Party Cookies in Chrome: Don’t Change Anything,” VideoWeek, April 22, 2025, https://videoweek.com/2025/04/22/google-announces-new-plan-for-third-party-cookies-keep-chrome-as-it-is/. ↩
- “App Review Guidelines,” Apple Developer, accessed October 17, 2026, https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/. Guideline 2.5.6; browsers in the EU and Japan may apply to use another engine. ↩
- Kate Cheney, “App-Bound Domains,” WebKit, June 26, 2020, https://webkit.org/blog/10882/app-bound-domains/. ↩