· Luca Moretti
DMA fines and the cookie that stayed: what changed in ads and tracking
Google was fined twice under the Digital Markets Act in July 2026. Third-party cookies, meanwhile, are not leaving Chrome after all.
The EU’s Digital Markets Act produced its first fines in April 2025: €500 million for Apple and €200 million for Meta. In July 2026 Google was fined €460 million for favouring its own services in search and €430 million for anti-steering rules in the Play Store.
Cookies: the plan was dropped
Google discontinued its Privacy Sandbox in April 2025 and will not remove third-party cookies from Chrome. The cookie banner is not going away, and neither is the consent you need before tracking.
What it means for a small advertiser
- Your consent banner still has to work, and it has to match what the site really does.
- First-party data (your newsletter, your customer list) is the part nobody can switch off.
- Search results keep changing under regulatory pressure, so measure monthly, not yearly.