This week, Apple’s WebKit team set out its reasons for blocking what it calls “identity resolution infrastructure” in Safari, across iOS 27 and Apple’s other new operating systems. The update has caused real concern across the industry. For ID5, it’s a storm we’ve weathered before.
Since 2017, Safari’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention has steadily restricted how publishers and advertisers recognize their audiences, starting with shortening the life of third-party cookies. In 2021, App Tracking Transparency did the same for apps. Each time, ID5 found a way to keep supporting addressable advertising while upholding privacy regulations and principles, and each time we built stronger solutions for our partners. iOS 27 is the latest chapter, not the last word.
Once again, Apple is inserting itself into the relationship between publishers and their users. When someone reads a news site, signs up for a newsletter, or logs in, they choose to build a relationship with that publisher. That relationship funds the quality content and services people enjoy for free.
Apple’s block doesn’t differentiate based on the privacy choices users have made. A user can say yes to a publisher, and Apple can still say no on their behalf.
As IAB Tech Lab has noted, publishers already operate in a difficult monetization environment. Subscriptions, memberships and events help, but they don’t replace advertising for every publication, and restrictions like Apple’s make valuable audiences harder to monetize. The consequence is that publishers lose the ability to fund their content and services through advertising. Users lose access to what that advertising pays for. Neither asked Apple to decide for them.
No one disputes that people’s privacy should be protected. But privacy shouldn’t be a cover for controlling how publishers fund their content and services. Digiday also pointed out Apple’s past restrictions have coincided with growth in its own ads business. It’s not hard to see why: Apple can still recognize its users across its own devices and services, while the independent providers publishers rely on can’t. If advertisers can no longer reach Safari audiences as effectively on the open web, more of their budget moves to Apple’s own platforms, where that reach is still available.
Apple can change its browser, but it doesn’t get the final say on how publishers and their partners work together. Our team has been working on a solution that would let partners continue to use ID5’s universal identifiers on Apple devices running iOS 27 when user consent is present. We’re evaluating first-party approaches with our publisher partners, built around the publisher’s own relationship with their users. These approaches already work successfully in CTV and mobile apps, and we’re assessing how best to bring them to the web.
Publishers work hard to earn the trust of their users. That relationship is theirs, and the choices within it belong to them and their users. Privacy rules are set by lawmakers, not by the companies that develop browsers and operating systems. It doesn’t matter how big the company making these decisions is; we’ll keep standing up for publishers and everyone’s right to access free, quality content by building the solutions that make this possible.