The revenue mechanism
On 22 July 2024, Google published an update on the Privacy Sandbox timeline stating that, instead of removing third-party cookies from Chrome as it had told the market it would, it would 'introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing'. The change alters what publishers were planning around: rather than a fixed date after which cookie-based demand simply stopped working, ad buyers and sellers would face a browser-level control that individual users set, meaning the same inventory could carry cookie-based signals for some visitors and none for others, depending on a setting Google said it had not yet built or specified in detail. Google tied the change explicitly to regulatory dialogue, saying it was 'discussing this new path with regulators', naming the UK's Competition and Markets Authority and Information Commissioner's Office.
What the documents show
The CMA's own case page for its Privacy Sandbox investigation, opened in January 2021 and running under commitments Google gave in February 2022, records that the July 2024 announcement changed the regulator's assessment: because Google was no longer planning to deprecate cookies outright, the CMA said its existing commitments 'would need to be updated to reflect the evolution in Google's planned Privacy Sandbox browser changes'. The same page records that Google confirmed in April 2025 it would not deprecate third-party cookies, after which the CMA consulted on releasing its commitments and formally closed the case in October 2025. Together, the two documents show a private company's announcement leading a public regulator to reopen, and eventually retire, a multi-year enforcement arrangement built around the assumption the announcement reversed.
The assumptions exposed
The July 2024 post does not commit to a timeline, a specific interface, or a guarantee that third-party cookies persist indefinitely; it commits only to building a choice mechanism and continuing to make Privacy Sandbox APIs available. A publisher reading this as confirmation that cookie-based programmatic demand is now permanently safe would be over-reading a post that frames the change as ongoing and subject to further regulatory engagement. The CMA's record is a regulatory case history, not an audit of Google's advertising business; it establishes what Google told the regulator and when the case closed, not whether publisher revenue outcomes changed as a result.
What to check before you rely on it
A publisher that adjusted 2024 or 2025 revenue plans around a fixed cookie-deprecation date should revisit those plans now that the underlying premise has changed twice in five years. This is an editorial checklist, not guidance from Google or the CMA.
- Does the demand partner I depend on describe cookie availability as a browser-level control now, rather than a deprecation date?
- Has the regulatory case that shaped this policy actually closed, or does it remain open on different terms?
- Can I measure my own inventory's cookie-availability split once the choice mechanism actually exists?
The reversal is a documented fact; what any individual publisher's inventory looks like under the resulting choice mechanism is not something either source measures.
Sources & reading trail
Google's own announcement that it would not deprecate third-party cookies as planned and would build a new user-choice mechanism instead.
Source published: 22 July 2024 · Retrieved: 16 September 2026
The CMA's own case record of how the July 2024 reversal affected its commitments and how the case was eventually closed in October 2025.
Source published: Not established · Retrieved: 16 September 2026
Programme terms, standards and reports establish the entry; the assumptions reading is Publisher Revenue Guide editorial analysis. This retrospective draft does not imply the site published on the event date.