Google Chrome has begun phasing out third-party cookie to one percent of its users, as Google moves to transform the way organisations can track online users.

Cookies refer to the small files websites store on your device to track and collect data for analytics, personalised advertisements, and browsing practices.

The new “test”, named Tracking Protection, began on 4 January for 1% of Chrome users, and will involve a new feature that limits cross-site tracking by restricting website access to third-party cookies by default.

Cookies have been in the web for nearly thirty years, and enabled websites to track user activities, as well as supporting a variety of online experiences such as account log ins and showing relevant advertisements.

But as part of Google’s Privacy Sandbox policy, Google plans to fully phase out the use of third-party cookies in Chrome throughout 2024 in an attempt to improve privacy while still enabling advertisers to provide personalised, targeted ads to users.

This objective appears somewhat conflicted, however. Third-party cookies enables websites to track where users are based, what users do on a site, and importantly, what sites they visit after.

The latter point is where advertisers make the most money – if companies can see that users are looking to buy a product, go on a holiday, or select a vendor, then they can begin in advertise their own products directly to a user across different platforms by tracking users via cookies and sharing this data with third parties.

The reliance on cookies have made advertisers wary of Google’s Chrome plans, as Chrome is the most popular internet browser in the world.

Previously, users across many websites could accept or deny the use of third-party cookies on various sites. Now, selected users will have third-party cookies disabled as a default.

If a website is unable to function without third-party cookies, or if Chrome notices that certain important features are disabled without third-party cookies, users will be provided the option to enable third-party cookies temporarily for that specific site.

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Advertisers are yet to see the full benefits in Chrome’s Privacy Sandbox proposals, which would include new methods to move further away from cookie-reliance, including the use of password keys.

The Privacy Sandbox does offer advertisers Google-specific APIs, allowing advertisers to directly ask Chrome what a user is interested in based on their web searches and practices, instead of using third-party cookies to track users across multiple webpages and sites.

With Sandbox, Google will provide advertisers with designated topics and browsing information to provide targeted advertising without the use of third-party cookies tracking specific website activity.

The full plans for Sandbox however will need to be approved by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority prior to coming into effect to see if it will give Chrome an unfair advantage or hurt market competition. Currently, the APIs for Sandbox are free, but the default disabling of third-party cookies is likely to face major backlash from advertisers.

“As we work to make the web more private, we’ll provide businesses with tools to succeed online so that high quality content remains freely accessible — whether that’s news articles, videos, educational information, community sites or other forms of web content,” Anthony Chavex, VP of Privacy Sandbox at Google Chrome said in a blog post when the move was first announced in December.

However, back in 2021 as Google initially proposed its Privacy Sandbox sparking a CMA investigation, CMA Chief Executive, Andrea Coscelli, found that the new protocol could add to Google’s search and publishing monopoly.

“As the CMA found in its recent market study, Google’s Privacy Sandbox proposals will potentially have a very significant impact on publishers like newspapers, and the digital advertising market,” she said.

Critics have said that, while third-party cookies enable more advertisers access to personal information, Google’s sandbox would potentially provide the tech behemoth with a monopoly on personalised data, making it more able to provide targeted and personalised advertising than other vendors and sites on the Chrome browser.