Apple pressed that “big red button” once again.

According to AdExchanger, this interception was achieved through WebKit. WebKit is the technology that supports Safari as well as all other browsers running on iPhone.

Apple has long held an anti-tracing stance and has repeatedly emphasized its principle that privacy is a "fundamental human right."

What particularly displeases the advertising technology industry is that this time, Apple is not only restricting cookie or identifiers, but also directly blocking calls to certain advertising technology domain names; in some cases, if companies cannot find a way around this, the affected browsers are even unable to display advertisements at all.

Co-CEO of advertising technology company Ad-Shield, Dustin Cha, stated that Apple informed The Trade Desk on Monday that the company had made modifications in the new iOS beta version. These changes seem to have separated the advertising placement domain names of The Trade Desk from their interception status with the advertising identifiers of Unified ID 2.0.

However, Cha mentioned that this update is currently only available in the test version. This means that until iOS 27.2 is officially released, the domain names used for advertising on The Trade Desk will continue to be blocked in actual use.

"It's likely to come in the second half of the fourth quarter, around the holiday season," said Cha.

Apple has also not addressed the more widespread dissatisfaction in the industry: these identifiers are still on the "blacklist," and it seems that Apple is prepared to add the company to this list without prior notice.

Companies most significantly impacted

In this update, the companies that are most likely to be affected are those that rely heavily on alternative identifiers and other technologies following cookie. The domain names that were intercepted include those operated by The Trade Desk, ID5, LiveRamp, Permutive, and Audigent.

For the Chief Marketing Officer ( CMO ), this means that the reach may be reduced, the cost of reaching still identifiable audiences is higher, and the effectiveness of web-based advertising campaigns is worse. It also makes it more difficult for advertisers to control the frequency at which users see ads and to determine whether these ads are truly effective.

In 2017, Apple introduced a feature (identified by Intelligent Tracking Prevention) that restricted advertising technology companies from tracking users on the internet through a certain method (identified by cookie), which sparked a sort of "cat-and-mouse game." Subsequently, some in the industry turned to developing alternative identifiers in an attempt to identify users without using cookie. Apple's latest move, however, directly targets these bypass strategies.

Apple's crackdown on privacy has also extended to applications. In 2022, it was stated that Apple's changes could impact its advertising business, resulting in a loss of $10 billion in revenue. Meta

Ad technology professionals stated that what is particularly concerning about this new move is that Apple lacks the usual transparency regarding which companies are being blocked, why they were chosen, and how quickly this situation may change.

ID5 The Chief Executive Officer Mathieu Roche said to me, "It's getting more and more radical."

On Friday, reports indicated that Apple has established a broader list that allows for the dynamic blocking of hundreds of advertising technology, marketing technology, and data companies. According to this media source, the way this list is constructed means it can be updated remotely without Apple needing to release a new version. Affected companies may not even be aware that they have been blocked until certain functions stop working.

The CEO of Tech Lab, IAB, stated that regulating the internet should be the responsibility of the government, rather than individual companies.

"When the government enacts laws and regulations for the protection of consumer privacy, they apply to everyone uniformly," said Katsur. "But when companies like Apple push for similar measures, the balance is disrupted."