v153 · privacy-sandbox · cookies · deprecation
Deprecate and Remove: Related Website Sets (RWS)
Chrome 153 begins the stepped removal of Related Website Sets (formerly First Party Sets), a Privacy Sandbox framework that allowed limited cross-site cookie access within declared site groups. Following Chrome's decision to maintain third-party cookies, RWS no longer serves its intended purpose and is being removed.
at a glance
| Shipped in | Chrome 153 (Stepped rollout — deprecation begins) |
|---|---|
| Status | Deprecation / removal in progress |
| Standards position (Firefox) | No signal |
| Standards position (Safari) | No signal |
| ChromeStatus | 5194473869017088 — Deprecate and Remove: Related Website Sets (RWS) |
background
Related Website Sets (RWS), formerly First Party Sets, let site operators declare formal relationships between domains they control (e.g. example.com, example.co.uk, static.example.com). Chrome used these declarations to grant limited cross-site cookie access via the Storage Access API (SAA) and document.requestStorageAccessFor().
RWS was designed as a transitional mechanism for a web without third-party cookies. Following Google's announcement that Chrome will maintain third-party cookies, RWS is no longer needed for its intended use case and is being removed.
Source: chromestatus feature summarywhat is removed
| Component | Status |
|---|---|
| Related Website Sets declarations / membership | Removed |
| SAA cross-site access granted via RWS membership | Falls back to standard SAA behaviour (requires user permission prompt) |
document.requestStorageAccessFor() (rSAFor) | Removed via separate intent |
| RWS-related Chrome Enterprise policies | Deprecated |
chrome.privacy.relatedWebsiteSetsEnabled extension API | Deprecated |
The Storage Access API itself continues to work; only the RWS-specific exemption path is removed. Without RWS, SAA requests from cross-site embeds go through the standard browser permission prompt flow.
Source: chromestatus feature summarymigration
Sites that used RWS to enable cross-site storage access should evaluate whether they still need cross-site access. If they do, the standard Storage Access API (without RWS) continues to work but requires explicit user permission. See the Storage Access API documentation for the standard flow.
Source: chromestatus feature summary