A blog post from Anthony Chavez, vice-president, privacy sandbox at Google, said that the firm was encouraged that the industry is innovating with privacy-enhancing approaches and companies are embracing new solutions, including those built using the Privacy Sandbox APIs.

Chavez said that Google would “continue to work with the ecosystem on determining how these technologies can best serve the industry and consumers”.

The abolition of third-party cookies was initially announced in January 2020 and was supposed to be completed before the end of 2021, before delays saw their phasing out pushed back.

Third-party cookies are widely used by many advertisers to target their advertising effectively, with Privacy Sandbox being Google’s project to find an alternative that had better data privacy standards.

Last summer, Google said that it was exploring a new approach that eschewed removing third-party cookies from its platform, with the company engaging with publishers, developers, regulator, and the advertising industry on the issue.

But Chavez said that “it remains clear that there are divergent perspectives on making changes that could impact the availability of third-party cookies”.

He added: “We’ve made the decision to maintain our current approach to offering users third-party cookie choice in Chrome, and will not be rolling out a new standalone prompt for third-party cookies.

“Users can continue to choose the best option for themselves in Chrome’s privacy and security settings.”

Chavez said the changes could include giving Privacy Sandbox APIs a different role to play in supporting the ecosystem.

“We’ll engage with the industry to gather feedback and share an updated roadmap for these technologies, including our future areas of investment, in the coming months,” Chavez explained.

“We’re grateful for the continued partnership from companies across the world in advancing privacy-preserving solutions that can support a healthy, thriving web ecosystem.”