Google is dropping plans to eliminate cookies from its Chrome web browser, making a sudden U-turn on four years of work to phase out the technology that tracks users for ad purposes. The company had been working on retiring so-called third-party cookies, which are snippets of code that log user info, as part of on overhaul to tighten up privacy on Chrome. But its proposal, known as Privacy Sandbox, had shaken up the online advertising industry over fears that any replacement would leave even less room for online ad rivals. In a blog post on Monday, Google said it decided to abandon the plan after taking into account the impact on publishers, advertisers and “everyone involved in online advertising.”
