One more nail in the tracking cookie coffin. | Illustration: The Verge
Google’s Chrome browser is now one important step closer to its goal of phasing out third-party cookies by the end of 2024. In a press release today, the search giant announced that its relevance and measurement APIs for Privacy Sandbox — its privacy-preserving alternative to cross-site tracking cookies — are now generally available. That means that the APIs are available by default in Chrome, without setting any browser flags and without participating in a trial.
Google says that 3 percent of Chrome users will remain unaffected for now to allow the company to run A/B tests, expanding general availability of the APIs to 100 percent of users “over the coming months.”
Chrome also released new ad privacy controls that allow users to manage…