Ad Companies Losing Millions to Apple's Safari Privacy Features

In June last year, Apple introduced a new advertisement-blocking feature in Safari which stops advertizement-trackers from tracking y'all beyond websites. The feature was introduced as an update to Safari with the macOS High Sierra update and was peradventure one of the biggest updates Safari had seen in a while. The feature which is known as Cyberspace Tracking Prevention or ITP uses auto learning to identify ad-trackers which rail a user's browsing across sites to deliver targeted ads and removes the cross-site data that they go out behind.

ITP is game-changing for consumers as now they don't take to worry about seeing ads for products that they searched or bought on every website that they visit. However, the new ITP characteristic is costing ad-companies millions of dollars in revenue. According to a study published in the Guardian, major advertisement companies are reporting an expected fall of upwards to 22% in their revenue for the year 2018.

"Advertizement applied science firm Criteo, one of the largest in the industry, says that the Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) feature for Safari, which holds xv% of the global browser market, is likely to cut its 2018 revenue by more than a fifth compared to projections made before ITP was announced."

Criteo's annual acquirement for 2016 stood at $730 one thousand thousand. The new ITP feature in Safari is going to cost it in upwards of $140 1000000. Remember that this is just 1 company we are talking about, the total impact of Safari'south ITP feature could actually exist more than than a billion dollars when bookkeeping for the industry.

Needless to say, the whole advertising industry is peeved at the what they run across as an unfriendly move on Apple tree'south part, and a consortium of six trade bodies even sent an open letter to Apple which asked Apple,

"to rethink its plan … [that risks] disrupting the valuable digital advertising ecosystem that funds much of today's digital content and services."

In response, Apple replied that,

"Advert tracking applied science has get so pervasive that it is possible for ad tracking companies to recreate the majority of a person's web browsing history. This data is nerveless without permission and is used for ad re-targeting, which is how ads follow people around the internet."

Although I can understand the anger ITP has generated amongst the digital advertising industry, I completely concur with Apple hither. Digital advertisements have crossed all privacy borders with reports of Facebook spying on its users, apps listening to your TV, and more. It's time companies like Apple tree fabricated a stand to protect users privacy from intrusive advertizing.