Big Tech's Fight For Our Data

By now, you've probably heard that Apple is updating Safari’s anti-tracking tech with full third-party cookie blocking. I am writing this to help people understand why they are doing so, and what it means for you.

Apple claims it's because they care about privacy, but this is a facade. In reality, Apple doesn’t want to allow cookies because that is a tool that Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Google Analytics, and Google Adsense use to track information. They want to disallow cookies so that they can take the tracking power away from platforms like Google and Facebook. This has big implications and could crush ads platforms and the businesses that depend on them if something isn’t done about it.

Here’s the crazy part: Apple is framing this as a way to ensure user privacy…but Apple still plans to store all that data. They just want to store it at the device level instead of the cookie level. So instead of a Facebook Pixel or Google Tag controlling and storing the data, Apple wants iPhones and other hardware to take care of storing the data themselves, and not allow cookies to track or store much. Then you will “own your data” because it’s on your device…

But that’s not really true. Because Apple will still have it. They control the operating system, and therefore control the data on their devices. That’s their real goal here. 

So what has Google done in response? They created FLoC. 

FLoC is a method for browsers to control the data and enable interest-based advertising. Guess what the most popular browser is? Yep. Google Chrome.

Apple’s on-device tracking, Chrome FLoC on-device tracking, and old-fashioned programatic all showed you the same ad. Why is one more evil than another? If ‘no-one should know’, why is it better for your phone or browser to know than an ad server?

It’s not better. Everyone just wants more control.

Hope this helps explain things a bit! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.