Privacy Sandbox was Google's set of Chrome APIs built to replace third-party cookies with browser-level ad targeting and measurement, and Google removed most of them in 2025.
The plan ran for years. Topics would guess your interests inside the browser, Protected Audience would run retargeting auctions on the device, and Attribution Reporting would measure conversions without cookies. Advertisers were told to prepare for a cookieless Chrome.
In October 2025 Google reversed course. It announced it was removing Topics, Protected Audience, Attribution Reporting, and IP Protection, and it kept third-party cookies in Chrome rather than phasing them out. If you spent time building against those APIs, that work no longer has a home in the browser.
Do not read the shutdown as "cookies are safe forever." Third-party cookies stay in Chrome for now, but Safari and Firefox still block them, and Google has leaned into fingerprinting and IP-based signals instead, so the direction of travel has not really changed.
The sandbox is gone; the reason it existed is not.
Sources
- searchengineland.com · verified August 2026
- adexchanger.com · verified August 2026
Last checked 9th August 2026. Next check 15th August 2026.