Apple is taking a hard stance on online privacy with a new anti-tracking policy in Safari.
The iPhone maker has published a “WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy” that goes into specifics about the types of anti-tracking methods it has developed, the practices it believes are harmful to users, and the unintended consequences of those preventive countermeasures.
The open-source WebKit browser rendering engine is the basis for Safari, in addition to the browsers bundled with Amazon Kindle ebook reader and Samsung Tizen OS.
Blink — the rendering engine that powers Google Chrome — is also a fork of WebKit. But on iOS, Chrome and other third-party browsers rely on WebKit due to restrictions imposed by Apple’s App Store Review Guidelines (Section 2.5.6).
The policy enforcement comes as use of ad-blockers is at its peak, with privacy-focused web browser Brave registering a 1,200 percent increase in verified publishers using its Brave Rewards program since July last year.
Brave blocks ads by by default, but allows its users to earn BAT tokens if they choose to accept ads that are provided by the company.
Intelligent Tracking Protection
Publishers and companies rely heavily on online tracking — i.e. collecting (anonymized) data about a user’s activity on the web — to keep tabs on your every move as you hop from one site to the other.
While this is typically used for targeted advertising, the implications go beyond just serving relevant ads in that it allows marketers to create detailed dossiers about your interests — resulting in significant loss of privacy.
This involves the use of cookies, tracking pixels, browser and device fingerprinting, and other adtech-based navigational tracking methods intended to amass browsing activities and build elaborate profiles of web users. (editor’s note – learn more about browser fingerprinting )
Apple, for its part, began to crack down on web-tracking two years ago with Intelligent Tracking Protection (ITP). The technology aims to limit advertisers’ cross-site tracking on iOS and macOS Safari browsers, at the same time, measure the effectiveness of their ad campaigns on the web without compromising on your privacy.
The anti-tracking policy
Viewed in that light, the new policy is an extension of this privacy-by-design paradigm. It seeks to prevent all forms of covert tracking methods outlined above, failing which it will ask for user’s informed consent before allowing tracking.
Apple warns that parties trying to…
