How Apple's Newly Updated Safari Browser is Exposing the Fragmented, Unstable and Unsafe Nature of many leading websites

Some of the worst offenders out there utilise as many as 20, 30 even 40 different trackers on just the one page. For example the DailyMail.com Home Page - per the top visual. Even more amusing is how supposedly seamless services from the same organisation turn out to be not that seamless at all - as is the case with the Messenger.com website - where its parent organisations Facebook.com and Facebook.net appear on that site's list of blocked trackers.

In fact, just browsing the Daily Mail site on Safari is likely to result in you being shown a screen notifying you that you're using an Ad Blocker and to switch it off. Something that will simply not be done by most people as they're unlikely to want to switch to Chrome or even Firefox on their iPhones and iPads.

For years we've been hearing defensive arguments in support of 'supervised' 3rd party cookies - where even now the Internet Advertising Bureau is trying to push its own system of 3rd party cookies to replace those which are now increasingly being blocked. Yet the IAB has already being called out in court for abetting highly questionable and non GDPR compliant practices via Ad Platforms' RTB systems, which has led to the largest data breach of all time in Ireland.

It's time to go Native and Ditch the Dysfunctional 3rd Party Plugin Ecosystem

By contrast Affino has always advocated on-site native advertising and analytics. It means full delivery of the service, seamless and faster customer experiences, 100% data capture, and no blocking.

Website owners are often unwittingly handing over backdoor keys to 3rd party organisations - which then results in the data harvesting and selling all their audience details and trackers to the highest bidder. There is very little scrutiny going on - and with the increased automation of advertising systems - also known as programmatic advertising - there is less scrutiny and oversight, and more fraud, than ever before.

The 3rd party cookie system has just become entirely unreliable and too frequently and too easily abused. Websites and brands which persist in using such technologies are increasingly putting their audience at risk on some browsers, and simply not delivering the full experience to others.

The Daily Mail site now flags Safari as an Ad Blocker and Blocks much of the Apple Audience

When I apply an ad-blocker it's not out of a sense of wanting to deny the web property further revenue, but rather a complete lack of trust in that web property's partners. We at Affino are enormously heartened that Apple and Mozilla are doing the right thing - with Microsoft Edge likely falling into alignment any time now too. We are hopeful that Google recognises that privacy is an imperative now for most users and goes down the same path.

Google and Facebook are being Squeezed by Apple

Both Facebook and Google are being sued by the EU for serial breaches of privacy law - while those fines don't seem to be large enough to encourage those businesses to change tack - as both continue to exploit and misuse customer privacy data, Apple's approach is likely to have a much bigger commercial impact on both organisations. Depriving them of swathes of personal data that is their lifeblood.