Mumbai: Google has revealed that its ambitious aim to disable third-party tracking cookies in the Chrome browser will be postponed until the second half of 2024.

In early 2020, Google made its first announcement about its plan to phase out support for third-party tracking cookies in Chrome, called the Privacy Sandbox API testing initiative.

Speaking on the initiative, Privacy Sandbox vice president Anthony Chavez said, "By Q3 2023, we expect the Privacy Sandbox APIs to be launched and generally available in Chrome." He added, "We now intend to begin phasing out third-party cookies in Chrome in the second half of 2024."

The Privacy Sandbox initiative is aimed at working with the ecosystem to provide privacy-preserving alternatives to third-party cookies and other cross-site tracking.

Google has released trial versions of a number of new Privacy Sandbox APIs in Chrome for developers to explore over the last few months.

Google and the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), earlier this year, stated how they seek to develop and release the Privacy Sandbox in Chrome worldwide.

The company said in a statement, “The most consistent feedback we've received is the need for more time to evaluate and test the new Privacy Sandbox technologies before deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome." For these reasons, "we are expanding the testing windows for the Privacy Sandbox APIs before we disable third-party cookies in Chrome,” it added.

The APIs are now ready for testing. Later, in early August, the Privacy Sandbox trials will expand to millions of users globally. Throughout the rest of the year and into 2023, Google will steadily expand the trial population.