Apple Speaks Out on New Safari Privacy Rules, Putting Pressure on Online Advertising Industry
nashnova research
Apple blocked domains from multiple ad-tech firms through Safari and, for the first time, publicly explained the move as targeting cross-device 'identity resolution' tracking. This means → the foundation of precision targeting on the open web is being dismantled, raising advertiser costs and likely accelerating budget shifts toward walled-garden platforms.
What exactly did Apple block?
Apple used the WebKit engine to block domains belonging to The Trade Desk, LiveRamp, ID5, Permutive, and Audigent, among others.
The Trade Desk's ad-serving domain was initially caught in the sweep, preventing it from delivering ads on Safari entirely. Apple issued a fix days later, separating the serving domain from the block on its Unified ID 2.0 identifier.
In plain terms = Apple didn't disable a single feature — it shut the front door. These ad-tech firms lost access to Safari altogether.
Why does Apple say "blocking cookies is no longer enough"?
Apple's target is "identity resolution" — a technique that stitches together your email, phone number, IP address, browsing history, and device data to track you across devices.
Apple wrote in its blog post: "Blocking cross-site cookies alone is no longer enough to prevent today's cross-site tracking. The tracking industry has never stopped trying."
This reflects a broader shift: after cookies were restricted, ad-tech firms moved en masse to alternative identifiers. An academic study found that by May 2025, 83.76% of websites were already using alternative identifiers. Apple's block strikes directly at that replacement system.
Will the block list keep growing?
According to AdExchanger, Apple has built a dynamic block list that may cover hundreds of ad-tech, marketing-tech, and data companies.
Firms on the list may not realize they've been blocked until their services break — there is no advance-notification mechanism.
Apple acknowledged the blocks may cause unintended effects — disrupting ad-funded site revenue, measurement, and fraud prevention — but stated clearly: "When faced with a trade-off, we will typically prioritize the interests of users over preserving existing website practices."
What does this mean for advertisers and the industry?
The restrictions take effect gradually as users upgrade to iOS 27. Industry sources expect: smaller addressable audiences, higher costs to reach precise segments, and greater difficulty in frequency capping and measurement.
This means → open-web ad efficiency will decline structurally. Ad budgets are likely to accelerate toward Meta, Google, and other "walled gardens" — platforms that rely on their own logged-in user data rather than third-party identifiers.
Notably, Apple's own advertising business — across the App Store, News, and Maps — continues to expand. The relationship between Apple's privacy policies and its own commercial interests will remain a key point of market scrutiny.
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