Third-party cookie deprecation trial for top-level sites now available

On Jan 16, 2024, Chrome began accepting applications for a deprecation trial for top-level sites, further referred to as first-party deprecation trial, which allows sites to request additional time to migrate away from third-party cookie dependencies. This deprecation trial will temporarily provide cross-site cookie access for non-advertising use cases.

If your first-party site relies on third-party embedded services and third-party cookie deprecation has caused functionality on your website to break, you may be eligible for the first-party deprecation trial.

This measure is introduced to supplement the existing third-party deprecation trial, which gives embedded third-party services additional time to transition away from third-party cookies.

The newly launched first-party deprecation trial aims to address cases where it is impossible, impractical or unnecessary to get all affected third-party providers to sign up for the third-party deprecation trial.

Trial Offered to
First-party deprecation trial Top-level sites relying on embedded third-party sites and services.
Third-party deprecation trial Embedded sites and services.

To be eligible for either of the available trials, sites must demonstrate functional breakage in user journeys that are not related to advertising use-cases.

Timeline

To minimize user friction during the time it takes for sites to apply for the deprecation trial and deploy trial tokens, Chrome will provide sites with a grace period, giving temporary access to specific third-party cookies when breakage to core user-facing functionality is reported to us.

Important dates Details
January 4th, 2024 Third-party cookies restricted for 1% of Chrome users.
January 16th, 2024 First-party deprecation trial applications open to request additional time until December 27, 2024. Sites with reported user-facing breakage are eligible for a grace period. This provides temporary access to third-party cookies on their site until June 30, 2024.
June 30, 2024 Grace period expires. Sites must be enrolled in a deprecation trial and have trial tokens deployed to continue to access third-party cookies.
December 27th, 2024 Deprecation trial ends.

To minimize user-facing breakage as Chrome works to deprecate third-party cookies, follow these steps:

  1. If you discover breakage on your site, first audit your site to identify the specific third-party cookies causing the issue.
  2. Report any discovered breakage including steps to reproduce and any third-party embedded domains that need access to cookies.
  3. If relevant, notify third-party services causing breakage and ask if they are preparing for third-party cookie deprecation in Chrome or applying to the third-party deprecation trial for third-party providers.
  4. Register for the first-party deprecation trial and implement the trial tokens on impacted sites before the grace period ends on June 30, 2024.
  5. Prepare for the full phaseout of third party cookies by removing your site's dependency on third-party cookies. Privacy Sandbox purpose-built web APIs are available to solve many use cases that previously relied on the use of third-party cookies.

Take action now

The third-party cookie phaseout is under way and the time to prepare for it is now!