Apple Responds To Advertisers Over Safari Cookie Blocking Criticism

One of the new features of Safari that users can expect in iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra is called “Intelligent Tracking Prevention”, with the main idea being that if you use Safari to browse the web, it will block cookies from tracking you across multiple websites, thus preventing those very targeted and personal ads that you see from time to time.

Clearly this is great news for users, but advertisers weren’t too happy about it and various advertising groups penned an open letter to Apple about the feature. Apple has since responded to those criticisms in a statement provided to The Loop, in which the company doesn’t seem to appear to be too concerned about it.

The statement reads in part, “Apple believes that people have a right to privacy – Safari was the first browser to block third party cookies by default and Intelligent Tracking Prevention is a more advanced method for protecting user privacy.” Apple goes on to add, “The feature does not block ads or interfere with legitimate tracking on the sites that people actually click on and visit. Cookies for sites that you interact with function as designed, and ads placed by web publishers will appear normally.”

So if privacy is something that you really value when you browse the web, then perhaps you might want to consider using Safari for your browsing needs (if you are using an iOS device or a Mac computer), although we wouldn’t be surprised if other browsers were to offer up similar features in the future as well.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, General
Tags: Apps, iOS, macOS, Privacy, safari