UK watchdog says ‘concerns remain’ over Google’s ad-privacy plan

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.