Apple strengthens privacy protection, iOS 17 can automatically block tracking parameters in the website

CTOnews.com, June 8: with iOS 17 and macOS Sonoma, Apple has brought more in-depth privacy protection to users.

In the new version of the system, Apple has introduced a link tracking protection feature that protects you from other companies' data tracking in private browsing mode and supports email, messages and Safari. To put it simply, when it detects that the link URL you clicked contains user data tracking parameters, it will automatically delete them.

For advertisers and data analysis companies, adding tracking parameters to some sites is an effective way to track user activity across sites.

Compared to the normal parameters, such sites with tracking codes add a special tracking identifier at the end of the link. This approach bypasses Safari's intelligent trace prevention feature (CTOnews.com Note: this feature mainly blocks cross-site cookie and other session storage).

That is, when a website URL allows the analysis or advertising service of the destination to read the URL, it can extract those same unique parameters and associate them with the back-end user profile in the database to mark specific users and provide personalized advertising.

Apple is trying to crack down on this behavior in its new operating system this year. Safari automatically detects specific identifiers in the URL and removes those parts of the code, allowing users to avoid the risk of being tracked by advertisers while visiting the page normally.

As compensation, Apple offers advertisers another way to measure advertising activity, known as Private Click Measurement, where advertisers can still measure ad attribution in Safari private browsing mode without exposing user activity.