The tech giant said Thursday that its deadline to remove so-called third-party cookies will be pushed back to late 2023, nearly two years later than the initial timing of January 2022. Third-party cookies are snippets of code that log user info and are used by advertisers to more effectively target their campaigns, thereby helping fund free online content such as newspapers and blogs. However, they’ve also been a longstanding source of privacy concerns because they can be employed to track users across the internet. Google is retiring third-party cookies as it overhauls Chrome to tighten privacy, but the proposals have shaken up the online advertising industry, raising fears that replacement technology will leave even less room for online ad rivals. To resolve the U.K. probe, the company has offered the country's competition watchdog a role overseeing the cookie phaseout.

Source: ABC News June 24, 2021 14:32 UTC