Cybersecurity Policy Report, U.K. Releases Google From ‘Privacy Sandbox’ Commitments, (Oct 17, 2025)

By Jeff Williams

Citing statements by Google LLC that it no longer plans to eliminate third-party cookies from its Chrome browser, the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) today said it had decided to finalize its plan to release the company from commitments it made to ensure that its “Privacy Sandbox” initiative did not hinder competition in online advertising markets.

Google told the CMA in an April progress report about its Privacy Sandbox initiative that users could “continue to choose the best option for themselves” in Chrome’s privacy and security settings (CPR, May 1). In light of that report, the CMA launched a consultation in June seeking comment on the agency’s intention to grant Google’s request to be released from the commitments.

Noting that all 15 comments it received opposed releasing the commitments, the CMA said it remained “of the view that it has reasonable grounds for believing that its competition concerns no longer arise. The CMA considers that Google no longer intends to pursue the conduct which gave rise to the CMA’s competition concerns in the February 2022 Decision. In particular, the CMA’s competition concerns were predicated on Google’s plan to remove TPCs [third-party cookies] in Chrome, which is not going ahead.”

Among other things, the CMA said that “[s]ince Google no longer plans to restrict the functionality associated with user tracking for third parties by deprecating TPCs, there is no longer a concern that Google would be able to distort competition by restricting this functionality for third parties while retaining it for Google.”

News: InternationalLegislation DataPrivacy