Responding to backlash against its contingency plans, Google has delayed the death of third-party cookies in its Chrome browser by another year, sending ad tech stocks soaring. The industry reaction has largely been one of relief, but this setback just highlights how ill prepared Google was for its own roadmap. While third-party cookies were initially meant to have been phased-out by the end of 2022, Chrome will not start phasing out cookies until mid-2023 at the earliest, with the process expected to finish by the end of the year. But this is subject to approval from the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which will hold Google’s hand while it hones the likely replacement technology. Many publishers and vendors that…