ldstephens

No tracking, no revenue: Apple’s privacy feature costs ad companies millions

This is a testament to the effectiveness of Safari’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) announced in June of 2017.

For Safari version 11 users, ITP prevents tracking as we move around the internet through the management of cookies, small pieces of code that allow advertising technology companies to continually identify us as we browse.

Apple takes user privacy seriously. That’s one of the reasons why I use their products.

Alex Hern, writing for theguardian

Internet advertising firms are losing hundreds of millions of dollars following the introduction of a new privacy feature from Apple that prevents users from being tracked around the web.

Advertising technology firm Criteo, one of the largest in the industry, says that the Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) feature for Safari, which holds 15% 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.

With annual revenue in 2016 topping $730m, the overall cost of the privacy feature on just one company is likely to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.