Google Blocking Third-Party cookies by default
The impact of the warning “Third-party cookies will be blocked” in your console.
Have you noticed a huge warning in your console stating “ Third-party cookies will be blocked. Learn more in the issues tab.”?
You are facing the deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome, and this is your warning to take action before it’s too late.
In an earlier article, we explained the impact of deprecating Third-party cookies on analytics. We can clearly see that this change is about to come into effect, and the above mentioned warning is one of the first signs.
What does it mean and what can you do to mitigate the impact? This article will help you understand the impact and the solutions to protect your website data.
What is a third-party cookie?
Cookies can be considered as small pieces of information that let websites remember you, your behaviour, logins, preferences, and more. Cookies help to give you a more personal website visit experience. Due to privacy issues, Third-party cookies are gradually fading out.
Third-party cookies are like secret notes websites leave on your browser, but they can be read by other websites too, and not just by your own site. This lets them track you across the internet, which some folks don’t like.
Third-party cookies are also responsible for enabling critical functionality across sign-in, fraud protection, advertising, and generally the ability to embed rich, third-party content in your sites—but at the same time they’re also the key enablers of cross-site tracking.
What is happening with third-party cookies?
Chrome is blocking Third-party cookies by default from the start of 2025. Originally, this was planned by the end of 2024, but due to concerns from UK’s Competition and Markets authority (CMA), the phaseout has been postponed. The CMA wanted more time to investigate if Google’s proposed replacements for cookies, through its Privacy Sandbox initiative, would create an unfair advantage for Google Ads.
Besides that, many players, including advertisers, regulators, and even Google itself, raised concerns about the switch. Google needed more time to address these and refine its plans.
However, that the phase-out is planned to happen regardless, is unquestionable. As the process has already started and some users are testing, the roll-out will be gradual and starts to come more into effect by the end of this year.
Therefore, it’s important to take action now.
Why do I see the warning?
This warning is a heads-up that some websites might be trying to use these cookies in a way that won’t work soon.
The most common reason for this is because your SameSite settings are set incorrectly.
Having these set to “None” means that your cookie settings are considered as third-party cookies.
When diving deeper into this warning, we see the following:
This basically means that using SameSite=None isn’t suitable for authenticating cookies.
Browsers are making things more private, so they’re blocking these third-party cookies.
What can I do to solve it?
If your site uses third-party cookies it’s time to take action as Google approaches the deprecation.
Understand the third-party cookie phase-out
This article is a good start to understand third-party cookie phase out.
But the learning doesn’t stop here. Reading into Privacy Sandbox is a good start to deepen your understanding about the future of measurement after the phase-out of third-party cookies.
The Privacy Sandbox is an initiative led by Google to develop new technologies that balance online privacy for users with the needs of businesses. It aims to create a future web where:
- User privacy is enhanced: Reduced cross-site and cross-app tracking limits how your browsing habits are collected.
- Businesses can still function: Businesses can still target advertising and measure ad performance, but with anonymized data and on-device processing techniques.
Read more about Privacy Sandbox here.
2. Audit your third-party cookie usage
You can deeper understand the usage of third-party cookies versus first-party cookies in your own site by using Google’s newest Chrome Extension, which you can download here. It shows you exactly how your site is using cookies.
Once the extension is enabled, you can see the following when opening it on your site:
(CDP stands for Chrome DevTools Protocol. By enabling CDP, this tool gains the ability to analyse your browsing session in more depth, specifically focusing on how cookies are used. For more information about how to use this extension, we recommend reading this article.
To fully understand the usage of third-party cookies on your site, you can get started with this article.
3. Improve your first-party cookies and migrate to improved solutions
To resolve the specific warning “Setting Cookie in cross-site context will be blocked in future Chrome extensions” as displayed above, you can do the following:
If your cookie is never used on a third-party site, for example if you set a cookie to manage the session on your site and it’s never used in a cross-site iframe, then you should explicitly mark the cookie as SameSite=Lax or SameSite=Strict (instead of SameSite=None).
For more details, check out Recipes for first-party cookies.
Conclusion
It is recommended to prepare for the third-party cookie deprecation sooner rather than later. The warning in your console browser is one of the many clear signs that it’s time to dive further into this topic today.
We recommend to:
- Stay Informed: Keep up-to-date on Privacy Sandbox developments. Google’s official website is a valuable resource (Privacy Sandbox).
- Embrace First-Party Data: Invest in collecting and utilizing first-party data directly from your customers. This data will be crucial for targeted advertising in the cookieless future.
- Test and Adapt: Actively test and adapt your advertising strategies within the Privacy Sandbox environment. Tools like the PSAT Chrome extension can be helpful for analysis.
By following these recommendations, you can be better prepared to navigate the cookieless future and maintain effectiveness in reaching users that are looking for your service or product.
Remember, the landscape is evolving, so staying informed and adaptable will be key to success.
If you find this information overwhelming, consider signing up for a GA4 UP subscription. With this subscription, we audit your setup, implement new feature releases and update you on new privacy releases (stay updated with GDPR / CCPA) for a small monthly fee. This subscription allows you to focus on your priorities while the experts handle the rest. Learn more about how we can support you here.
You Might Also Enjoy
