This comes on top of the u-turn that Google made around third-party tracking cookies. Originally they were going to be depreciated; as of July, cookies look like they are here to stay.
The CMA has been probing Google’s Privacy Sandbox plan since January 2021, following a November 2020 complaint by a coalition of digital marketing companies — which is one reason the project has been so tortuously slow. But slow is starting to look like a flat out ‘no’ from the U.K. regulator.