Apple’s Private Relay: The End Of Fingerprinting

At the start of 2021, the privacy discussion was focused on Google phasing out the 3rd party cookie from its Chrome browser. But as we moved through the year and Google’s timelines changed, Apple has taken several steps to enforce user privacy, with the latest update being rolled out within iOS 15.1 across all iOS devices.

With this release, Apple is looking to put a definite end to any tracking technical workarounds and put themselves at the forefront of safeguarding the privacy of their users.

This step should be another clear sign that the cookieless world isn’t something that happens with Chrome’s 2023 timeline, but is a reality today.

What is the iOS 15.1 update?

In essence, Apple will group thousands of users into the same IP address (hence the term ‘relay’) in order to ensure the individual IP is kept hidden.

The individual IP address has been used for tracking users by combining this information with device characteristics in a probabilistic approach called ‘fingerprinting’. In short, this has been used to track individuals in cookieless environments, and this practice will come to an end with this update.

Apple Relay traffic will progressively increase as users migrate to the new iOS 15.1 version over the next few weeks, and we’re expecting it to be live across all devices using iOS by the end of 2021.

What are the impacts for the industry?

IP addresses and fingerprinting have been used to power three main use-cases in cookieless environments:

• Targeting audiences (similar to cookie-based audience targeting)
• Frequency capping at user level
• Measurement & attribution

Beyond users’ identification, IPs can also be used to infer information and provide services such as geo-location and fraud detection. The accuracy and granularity of geo-location is going to decrease with this update.

All of us across the media ecosystem should be embracing change and being prepared to leverage sustainable cookieless, non-intrusive, personalization solutions. Going forward, no one can hide behind fingerprinting techniques and claim to be cookieless ready.

How has Teads been preparing for this change?

Overall, the updates within iOS 15.1 are not surprising and should be welcomed by the media industry. At Teads, we have comprehensive cookieless solutions that are not reliant on IP addresses, and therefore the updates bring no disruption to our platform.

There are several key assets Teads has to navigate today’s cookieless world:

• Direct technical integration with premium editorial publishers gives us an edge compared to buy-side platforms both for technical access to 1st-party cookies, browser-APIs and deep experience around content consumption.
• Historical data analysis and predictive models around content consumption allows precise audience profiling without identity resolution mechanisms.
• Successful and consistent track record over several years of building, measuring and optimizing various targeting cookieless approaches.
• Direct relationship and integration with advertisers’ websites allows Teads to deploy sustainable tracking and optimization techniques.

The Teads platform is now fully ready with cookieless and IP-less solutions across the board:

• Teads’ Cookieless Targeting Suite allows brands to immediately target specific audiences or contexts in cookieless environments.
• Frequency capping is handled sustainably by relying on 1st-party cookies for single domain capping and unique IDs for cross-domain capping.
• Measurement, Optimization & Attribution is delivered through a combination of Teads click ID and first party-cookies, as well as by leveraging browser-based solutions such as ‘Chrome conversion API’ or ‘Safari Private Clicks’.

What should I do as an advertiser or as a publisher?

As an Advertiser, make sure to:

• Review your key partners and the dependencies they have on IP address and fingerprinting techniques, starting by audience targeting and performance management in cookieless environments.
• Start testing proper cookieless solutions now! Join Teads’ Cookieless Readiness Program where we show you a comprehensive path in this new world.

As a Publisher, make sure to:

• Review how your cookieless inventory monetization is managed by your partners. This concerns over half of the web traffic in many markets and includes traffic from Safari, Firefox, Edge, and all browsers using iOS devices.
• Join our Teads For Publishers suite, as we offer you an immediate opportunity to monetize cookieless and IP-less inventory in a sustainable and responsible manner.

We have been encouraging advertisers and publishers not to delay in implementing their cookieless strategies for a long time now, because over half of internet users in large markets such as the US and UK currently cannot be reached in cookie-based environments.

To discover our cookieless solutions visit our cookieless hub. If you would like to speak to us directly, please contact our data team who will be able to discuss the next steps for your business.

Remi Cackel, Chief Data Officer, Teads