Chrome’s 3rd-party cookie deprecation is called ‘Tracking Protection,’ testing starts January

Abner Li | Dec 14 2023 - 6:00 am PT

Google is in the final stages of phasing out support for third-party cookies in Chrome. Ahead of a wide rollout in the second half of 2024, Chrome in January will start testing “Tracking Protection.”

Tracking Protection is how Chrome will be branding the upcoming deprecation of third-party cookies to end users. On January 4, Google will start to limit “cross-site tracking by restricting website access to third-party cookies by default” for 1% of Chrome users globally.

This will let Google, websites, and other invested parties monitor the progress and see how alternate Privacy Sandbox solutions are working.

Users on desktop Chrome or Android that are part of the test group will be prompted with a “Browse with more privacy” banner: “You’re one of the first to experience Tracking Protection, which limits sites from using third-party cookies to track you as you browse.”

You’ll also see an eye icon with a slash to the right of the address bar. If a site doesn’t work, tap it to re-enable third-party cookies.

Chrome will also proactively prompt users about that if they refresh the page multiple times or run into other issues. This will last 90 days before “Chrome limits cookies again”: “You temporarily allowed this site to use third-party cookies, which means less browsing protection but site features are more likely to work as expected.”

Google will start the 2024 phase out of third-party cookies for all Chrome users “subject to addressing any remaining competition concerns from the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority.”