The last piece of Google’s Privacy Sandbox is gone from Chrome
Chrome’s Ad Privacy settings have quietly disappeared in Chrome 150.
There’s been no announcement from Google, no mention in the release notes, and most users probably won’t even notice. But if you try to open chrome://settings/adPrivacy now, you’ll simply be redirected back to the main Settings page.
The change was first spotted by a Reddit user after updating to Chrome 150.0.7871.47. We checked it ourselves and can confirm the page is gone.
If you’ve never used the feature, the Ad Privacy page let users manage Google’s Privacy Sandbox settings. It included controls for things like Ad Topics, Site-suggested ads, and Ad measurement, all of which were introduced as part of Google’s plan to reduce reliance on third-party cookies.
That plan never really worked out.
Google first introduced Privacy Sandbox several years ago as a replacement for third-party cookies. The idea was to let advertisers show relevant ads without tracking users across the web in the traditional way.
The proposal faced criticism almost from the beginning. Regulators questioned whether it would give Google even more control over online advertising, while many companies in the ad industry were slow to adopt the new APIs. After multiple delays, Google confirmed last year that it would no longer remove third-party cookies from Chrome. A few months later, it also announced that most of the Privacy Sandbox project would be retired.
With the underlying features being phased out, the Ad Privacy page no longer served much of a purpose. Chrome 150 appears to be the release where Google finally removed the leftover settings.
We, however, noticed that Google’s own support documentation hasn’t caught up yet. The help page still tells users to open Settings > Privacy and security > Ad privacy to manage those controls, even though that menu no longer exists in Chrome 150. The documentation will likely be updated at some point.
