By Martin Coulter
LONDON (Reuters) -Google’s online advertising practices face renewed scrutiny in Britain, after the competition watchdog said on Tuesday that “concerns remain” over the company’s plans to retain third-party cookies as part of its Chrome browser.
In July, the tech giant scrapped longstanding plans to remove cookies, the tiny packets of code that track users across the internet, from Chrome. Advertisers, the company’s biggest source of revenue, complained the move would limit their ability to personalise ads, leaving them dependent on Google’s own user databases.
In an attempt to appease critics, Alphabet-owned Google said users would be given the choice to allow cookies to track them when browsing with Chrome.
Following the reversal, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) invited stakeholders to share their views on the decision.
“Based on careful consideration of the responses we received, the CMA’s view is that competition concerns remain under Google’s revised approach,” the CMA said in a statement posted on online on Tuesday.
It added: “If the CMA is not able to agree changes to the commitments with Google which address the competition concerns, then the CMA will consider what further action may be necessary.”
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Martin Coulter in London and Prerna Bedi in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel and Susan Fenton)
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