Sundar Pichai Opens Up On Why Google Is Holding On To Cookies: 'We Now Believe User Choice Is The Best Path Forward'

Alphabet Inc. GOOG GOOGL CEO Sundar Pichai has provided insights into the company’s decision to retain cookies in its Chrome browser.

What Happened: On Tuesday, during Alphabet’s second-quarter earnings call, Michael Nathanson, an analyst with Moffett, questioned Pichai about Google’s stance on cookies.

In response, Pichai mentioned the Privacy Sandbox initiative, assuring that the company remains dedicated to the journey.

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However, he noted, that “on third-party cookies, given the implications across the ecosystems and considerations and feedback across so many stakeholders, we now believe user choice is the best path forward there.”

Pichai stated that Google will improve privacy by giving users choices and continue to invest in privacy-enhancing technologies. “It’s obviously an area we will be taking feedback from the players in the ecosystem, and we are committed to being privacy first as well,” he stated.

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Why It Matters: Google’s decision to retain cookies in Chrome comes after a long-standing plan to eliminate them, which faced industry and regulatory pushback. Google had been working on phasing out cookies for four years, facing delays and conflicts with the advertising sector.

The company first announced its plan to eliminate cookies in 2020, aiming to enhance user privacy while browsing the internet. In 2021, U.K. regulators started investigating whether Google’s plan would harm competition in the digital advertising space.

The latest decision by Google has sparked gains in ad tech and publisher stocks, as cookies and small text snippets are used by advertisers and publishers to identify users and target ads.

On Tuesday, Alphabet announced second-quarter revenue of $84.742 billion, surpassing the consensus estimate of $84.202 billion. The tech giant also reported quarterly earnings of $1.89 per share, exceeding analyst expectations of $1.85 per share, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

Price Action: At the time of writing, Alphabet's Class A shares were down by 2.19% in the after-hours session at $177.80, while the company's Class C shares dropped 2.18% at $179.59.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.