Jonasz Pamuła

As Chrome plans the deprecation of third-party cookies for early 2025, and the deadline is fast approaching, the AdTech ecosystem is in pressing need of a detailed plan of how the phase-out of third-party cookies will look. A clear schedule will help ensure efficient planning and coordination, allowing for a smooth transition to a stable, vibrant ad ecosystem based on Privacy Sandbox. To help achieve this clarity—and to initiate a wider discussion—in this blog post, we will propose what we believe is a viable next step after the 1% deprecation.

The Privacy Sandbox timeline states that in Q3 2024, “Chrome will phase out support for third-party cookies over a two-month period.” Whether or not Q3 2024 is the right time is an important question, but in this blog post, we’d like to focus on the second aspect of the deprecation—the duration of the time over which it reaches 100% of users. We will argue that a two-month timeframe (a “cliff”) is too quick and therefore, dangerous. To maximize the chances of AdTech successfully transitioning to a cookieless world, the deprecation ramp-up should be more prolonged, gradual, and known in advance.