Rumors of third-party cookies’ demise appear to be greatly exaggerated, with Google delaying their deprecation in Chrome a third time.

Google has been working on a replacement mechanism for third-party cookies, but critics are understandably worried about any solution created by Google, a company that makes billions off of internet advertising. As expected, there have been multiple issues with all of Google’s proposed solutions, with experts saying user privacy would take a significant hit.

In view of the feedback it has received, especially from the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Google has once again pushed back plans to deprecate third-party cookies in Chrome. The company made the announcement on a blog post on The Privacy Sandbox.

We are providing an update on the plan for third-party cookie deprecation on Chrome.

We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers, and will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem. It’s also critical that the CMA has sufficient time to review all evidence including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June. Given both of these significant considerations, we will not complete third-party cookie deprecation during the second half of Q4.

We remain committed to engaging closely with the CMA and ICO and we hope to conclude that process this year. Assuming we can reach an agreement, we envision proceeding with third-party cookie deprecation starting early next year.

Hopefully, the CMA’s involvement will help result in a solution that doesn’t completely sell out user privacy.