Apple's Safari Increases Commitment to Privacy with New Measures

Apple has always held privacy in high regard, and Safari, the company’s own Web browser, is no exception. At the recently held WWDC 2023, Apple announced some major improvements to Safari’s privacy protection.

Safari was designed from the beginning to protect users’ privacy and was the first browser to introduce private browsing. A mode in which the browser does not save browsing history, searches or cookies from the websites you visit.

Step up in privacy measures

But this year, Apple is going one step further. Safari’s private browsing mode will now also lock private browsing windows when not in use. It completely blocks known trackers from loading on pages and even removes tracking information from URLs while browsing in private mode.

UTM parameters

A special addition is that Apple’s new measures include blocking UTM parameters. UTM parameters are pieces of code added to the end of a URL and are often used for marketing purposes to measure the success of campaigns.

By blocking UTM parameters, Apple is effectively hindering marketers’ ability to track Safari users’ behavior. For example, this poses problems for google ads attribution models , as they can no longer properly measure where the conversion occurred. This is a clear indication of Apple’s stance on the importance of user privacy.

Implications for tracking

Client-side Effect: With Apple’s announced strengthening of privacy security, much more client-side information will be blocked. These blockages may limit the functionality of some websites, or reduce the efficiency of certain tools and services that rely on client-side tracking. Many methods previously used to work around tracking prevention can now be blocked. This can have a major impact on how companies and marketers track and measure online interactions.

Server-side effect: Because Server-side Tracking is performed on the server side, beyond the reach of the user and their browser, Apple cannot block it. This means that server-side tracking methods can still work.

So Apple’s new privacy measures won’t affect TAGGRS

Apple’s update will go live in September. Are you ready? Want to make sure your data tracking continues to run smoothly and meet the new requirements? Then this is the perfect time to switch to server side tagging from TAGGRS.