Safari Browser Blocks Adobe Tracking Pixels in iOS 17 Update

Adobe has more than tools that have likely also been affected in some way and internet users in Private Browsing will not benefit from their full functionality until Adobe comes up with a solution. Nor will the businesses that rely on Adobe’s software suite; their customers will have disappeared from view for those that use Adobe Analytics, for instance, though many other analytics platforms will have been similarly affected if they have a blocked tracker status.

The issue was recently discovered by Andrew Gerhardt at Loop Horizon, a London-based marketing consultation and technology firm. His business was asked to look into why Adobe Target was not working for Safari users who activated Private Browsing, and he found that the necessary Identity Cookie was not visible - something that hadn’t happened in earlier versions of Apple software. This led him to investigate further, and he published a LinkedIn post with technical details on the three testing scenarios he used to verify his findings.

Apple decides which tracking codes to block using its own streamlined version of the DuckDuckGo tracker radar list. The Silicon Valley giant also blocks Google Analytics as well as Google Tag Manager, meaning that any pixels included in this popular tracking code management dependency will also be impacted by Apple’s anti-tracking technology.

TWIPLA is not included on the blocked list. The platform uses non-invasive, cookieless tracking technology that complies with GDPR, ePrivacy, and all global privacy legislation. It also avoids the third party tracking techniques that Apple is looking to stamp out, and aligns neatly with Safari’s privacy-focused policies.

Safari blocks tracking pixels by detecting and verifying the associated JavaScript code. When a page tries to load a tracking pixel, Safari first checks whether the script comes from a blocked domain. If this is the case, it prevents the script from loading. 

These tracking tags are relatively harmless. But they enable businesses to serve personalized advertisements, or to track the capacity of different digital sources to pull in website traffic. Still, they facilitate the kind of cross-site tracking that Apple is looking to curb for reasons of user privacy - even if critics argue that this does little of substance with regard to online protection. 

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