Apple is working on "Private Web Ads" feature to make web ads truly private

Apple's John Wilander announced that they are working on a new technology called Privacy Preserving Ad Click Attribution.

It is designed to help marketers track the success of ads without further individual users activity.

The usual ad click attribution works through cookies and tracking pixels.

For instance, we search online for a product on a search engine click on an ad, get referred to a seller's website, and then buy the product.

The seller's website then sends tracking pixels back to the search engine, giving it the info about your activity on the site.

Another website's using the related tracking pixels will also send data to the search engine about your activity on the online store, whether you clicked on the ad or not.

That's how websites create detailed automatic databases about individual buyers.

Apple is trying to stop this amount of data being shared between sites.


Host sites would store generic ad clicks while advertisers' sites would then be able to match conversions (the number of people who went on to complete a transaction) with an unsystematic 24- to 48- hour delay.

Your Internet browser will then forward ad click attribution data for those matches but only in an optional separate browser using a session that restricts cross-site tracking.

Apple will release this feature in 2019 as a default mode in Safari although it is available now in preview release.

Advertisers may not be happy with this new technology even though it still lets them see how ads translate to more commercial enterprise.

They might have a harder time deciding just when and where to run ads, as it would restrict them from tracking habits in real time.


Photo: arriens-itunesto170509_npyzn

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