Google delays third-party cookie demise yet again

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Google’s latest delay in phasing out third-party cookies in Chrome is sparking frustration among developers and renewed scrutiny of its dual role as dominant browser vendor and ad company. Commenters weigh whether regulators like the UK’s CMA are rightly slowing Google’s “Privacy Sandbox” over competition and privacy concerns, or effectively forcing the web to keep relying on invasive tracking. Alongside worries about Google’s market power and Manifest V3’s impact on extensions such as ad blockers, some note real technical and legacy-app breakage risks if third-party cookies disappear without robust alternatives like partitioned cookies and the Storage Access API.

Overall reaction to yet another delay

  • Many see the repeated postponements (third since 2020) as farcical and disruptive, especially for developers who rushed major refactors to be “ready in time.”
  • Others argue the real blocker is regulation, not Google dragging its feet.

Role of regulators (especially UK CMA)

  • Several comments say the UK CMA is effectively forcing Google to maintain third‑party cookies until competition concerns around Privacy Sandbox are resolved.
  • Concern: if Google removes 3P cookies without a fair replacement, its massive first‑party footprint (Search, YouTube, etc.) would give it an even bigger ad advantage over pure ad-tech firms.
  • Some argue Google could just drop 3P cookies without a replacement; others counter CMA has explicitly warned that could be anti‑competitive. This remains contested in the thread.

Google’s incentives and conflict of interest

  • Strong sentiment that an ad company owning the dominant browser is an inherent conflict.
  • Two interpretations:
    • Google wants to kill 3P cookies but is constrained by regulators.
    • Google is designing “privacy” replacements (Privacy Sandbox, Topics, etc.) that preserve or shift tracking power in its favor, and delays serve its interests.
  • Some say Privacy Sandbox is at least as private as 3P cookies with room to improve; others call it misleadingly named, non‑private tracking tech.

Technical and compatibility concerns

  • Third‑party cookies are used for more than ads: embedded enterprise apps, iframes, SSO flows, and things like Teams or Salesforce‑style integrations.
  • Commenters mention problems with current alternatives: Storage Access API called immature; Chrome’s partitioned cookies (CHIPS) reported as buggy vs Firefox; some enterprise and embedded use cases still break.
  • Enterprises can whitelist 3P cookies via browser policy, but that adds management complexity.

Browser ecosystem & user behavior

  • Defaults matter: most users never change them; Chrome’s popularity gives Google de facto control even where it’s not OS‑default.
  • Several advocate moving to other browsers that already block 3P cookies and implement stronger tracking protections.

Related frustration: Chrome extensions MV2 → MV3

  • Developers complain that Manifest V3 migration is coerced and harms powerful extensions (e.g., ad blockers), forcing unpaid work to align with Google’s ad‑aligned platform changes.