Google, which has been asserting since 2020 that it would stop passing third-party cookies in the Chrome browser, is planning to abandon that course.

In a blog post published today, the tech giant said that given the amount of work it would take to move away from cookies, and the amount of impact it would have across the digital ad industry, it’s exploring another option that keeps third-party cookies, but gives consumers more options on how their data is used. 

“We’re discussing this new path with regulators, and will engage with the industry as we roll this out,” wrote Anthony Chavez, vp of Privacy Sandbox, in the blog. 

Privacy Sandbox is the collection of tools spearheaded by Google meant to help advertisers continue to target ads and measure their effectiveness after the cookie went away. Google said it will continue to make Privacy Sandbox available.

Cookies were originally supposed to go away in 2022, but Google would delay those plans three times, with the most recent postponement happening in April.

Google kept stalling as it struggled to appease both the digital ad community and government regulators.

The most recent tests of the Privacy Sandbox tools were met with a litany of gripes from the digital ad community. The Sandbox didn’t adequately cover video ads, some said. Other complaints were that it slowed down ad auctions and that the auctions run by Privacy Sandbox were opaque. 

Google’s cookie deprecation plans were also scrutinized by government regulatory bodies including the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), both based in the U.K.

These bodies were concerned that Google’s bid to end cookies in Chrome would be anti-competitive, and the CMA published a report in April stating that the tech giant needed to do more to address these concerns.

Google declined to comment beyond the blog post.