Google is putting the brakes on a change that would have made it more difficult to track users across different websites to serve them targeted ads. After years of testing, planning, and delays, Google has scrapped a plan to turn off third-party cookie tracking by default like Safari and Firefox already do. The change was supposed to reach Chrome users soon, despite concerns raised by competitors, regulators, and privacy advocates.

Now, Chrome will ask users to “make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing” instead of deprecating third-party cookies, writes Google Privacy Sandbox VP Anthony Chavez. That could work more like Apple’s app tracking opt-in, a setting that reportedly cost social media platforms nearly $10 billion when it rolled out in 2021. Putting a prompt in front of Chrome’s billions of users wouldn’t be as drastic as changing the default entirely, but it still might cut the number of users allowing third-party tracking significantly.

On Monday, the Google Ads team also released a whitepaper (pdf) showing the results of early tests with the Privacy Sandbox tech that’s positioned as a replacement or alternative to cookie tracking. Results showing returns on investment with Google Display Ads showed a 97 percent recovery, which Ad Age called strong, but effectiveness dropped in attempts to engage the same customers with follow-up ads, showing only a 55 percent recovery in spending for re-marketing audiences.

Criticism of Google’s plan to deprecate third-party cookies and roll out other ad-targeting tech in the Privacy Sandbox, like FLoC or Topics API, pointed to the possibility of new privacy risks or the potential of harming competition and unfairly benefiting the search giant’s own advertising business.

In response to the news, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority writes that Chrome “will be introducing a user-choice prompt, which will allow users to choose whether to retain third party cookies.” There aren’t details on exactly how that will work, as Google said it is “proposing” a new approach, and the CMA plans to accept comments on the change for a few weeks.

The Movement for an Open Web, an ad industry group that filed the CMA complaint to block the Privacy Sandbox tech rollout, issued a statement saying the change “is a clear admission by Google that their plan to enclose the Open Web has failed.”

Movement for an Open Web co-founder James Rosewell:

We’ve long called for Privacy Sandbox to be allowed to compete on its merits. If advertisers prefer its approach, and consumers value the alleged privacy benefits, then it will be universally adopted. What wasn’t acceptable was for a solution like this to be forced on the market whilst removing any alternative choices.

Google says it will continue to make Privacy Sandbox APIs available and add anti-IP tracking protection for people using Incognito Mode to add an additional layer of privacy.