For years, Google touted its plan to phase out third-party cookies as a win for user privacy. The message was clear: the tech giant would lead the charge into a post-cookie world, one where user data wasn’t harvested and sold with reckless abandon.

But now, with the company announcing it has scrapped its plan to remove cookies, it’s painfully obvious: this was never about protecting users. It was about protecting Google.

In case you missed the news, Google has officially abandoned its plan to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome, citing differing perspectives from industry stakeholders and ongoing regulatory scrutiny. This decision follows years of delays and criticism of its Privacy Sandbox initiative, which faced challenges from privacy advocates and legal authorities concerned about user tracking and antitrust issues

In the years that this has been going on, the promise to kill cookies was framed as a noble move in the name of privacy. Yet, at every turn, Google’s strategy revealed a more cynical motive – one designed not to end invasive tracking, but to........

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