Apple says Safari's upcoming “Intelligent Tracking Prevention”, criticized by ad groups, will only block re-targeting, allow cookies from visited sites, more
Jim Dalrymple / The Loop :
Context & Ripple Effects
Three days after the IAB and other ad trade groups asked Apple to rethink Safari's cookie rules, Apple is pushing back with a narrower definition of what its upcoming Intelligent Tracking Prevention actually does: it blocks re-targeting but allows cookies from sites a user has visited directly. The clarification lands just before the feature's planned desktop rollout this month.
The framing matters because it sets the template for how Apple escalates from here — later tightening to limit fingerprinting and tracking via share and like buttons, then to a full third-party cookie block once Google commits Chrome to the same path.
First-order effects
- Ad networks lose re-targeting reach on Safari's desktop base immediately at rollout, while first-party cookies from visited sites survive — softening the IAB's worst-case reading of the rules.
Second-order effects
- Inventory on Safari becomes less desirable: within two years, the reported cost for advertisers to reach Safari users has dropped more than 60% as tracking-limited ads command lower prices (per the 9to5Mac report).
Third-order effects
- Apple keeps ratcheting — full third-party cookie blocking by default in 2020, with Google following in Chrome — shifting browser defaults industry-wide toward privacy-first, and Apple pairs enforcement with differential-privacy collection of Safari browsing data to flag problematic sites itself.
The trend: Browser makers are converting tracking prevention from an opt-in setting into an escalating default, with Apple setting the pace and Google forced to match.