Google is planning to delay its blocking of tracking cookies in the Chrome browser until 2023, a year or so later than originally planned. Other browsers like Safari and Firefox have already implemented some blocking against third-party tracking cookies, but Chrome is the most-used desktop browser, and so its shift will be more consequential for the ad industry.

In the blog post announcing the delay, Google says that decision to phase out cookies over a “three month period” in mid-2023 is “subject to our engagement with the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).” In other words, it is pinning part of the delay on its need to work more closely with regulators to come up with new technologies to replace third-party cookies for use in advertising.

The more Google cuts off third-party tracking, the more it harms other advertising companies and potentially increases its own dominance in the ad space. The less Google cuts off tracking, the more likely it is to come under fire for not protecting user privacy. And no matter what it does, it will come under heavy fire from regulators, privacy advocates, advertisers, publishers, and anybody else with any kind of stake in the web.

Finding a way to balance those conflicting incentives has proven difficult to say the least. Google is attempting to develop its new privacy technologies out in the open via the usual process of creating web standards. It has bundled several efforts under the rubric of a “Privacy Sandbox,” a catch-all term for a bunch of different new proposals for Chrome and the web.

Google is pointing to a “rigorous, multi-phased public development process, including extensive discussion and testing periods” for FLoC and other proposals, a fairly obvious signal that it will end up changing or replacing FLoC. “We plan to conclude this origin trial in the coming weeks and incorporate input, before advancing to further ecosystem testing,” Google says.

The company is promising a “more detailed schedule” will be posted on its Privacy Sandbox website. But in the meantime, here’s its current schedule — complete with a note that this revised timeline will need to be approved by regulators.