Tech giant Google has said that it will now delay its plan to block third-party tracking cookies in the Chrome browser to the second half of 2024. The company had announced in early 2020 that it planned to phase out support for the tracking called Privacy Sandbox API testing initiative within two years. 

"By Q3 2023, we expect the Privacy Sandbox APIs to be launched and generally available in Chrome," Anthony Chavez, VP, Privacy Sandbox, said in a statement late on Wednesday. As developers adopt these APIs, "we now intend to begin phasing out third-party cookies in Chrome in the second half of 2024", he added.

The Privacy Sandbox initiative is to collaborate with the ecosystem on developing privacy-preserving alternatives to third-party cookies and other forms of cross-site tracking. Over the past several months, Google has released trial versions of a number of new Privacy Sandbox APIs in Chrome for developers to test.