Apple finally explains its Safari block, and identity companies are in its sights

A month after Apple started cutting off companies that follow people around the web in its Safari browser to target them with ads, the company has finally explained itself. 

The engineers behind the browser laid it out in a blog post on Monday (October 19). When someone types their email address into a website, to log in or sign up for a newsletter, a company working with that site can receive it and convert it into an ID. That ID lets advertisers recognize the same person across different sites without using cookies. Apple wants that stopped. LiveRamp, ID5 and The Trade Desk’s UID 2.0 all work this way so there’s little doubt now about who the block was meant for. 

All of them were among the first companies Safari cut off when Apple rolled out its latest software update in September, along with Permutive and Audigent. Apple’s blog post confirms the block reaches beyond iPhones and iPads to Macs and its Vision Pro headset. Once someone updates, Safari stops talking to those companies altogether and the tracking stops with it.

Continue reading this article on digiday.com. Sign up for Digiday newsletters to get the latest on media, marketing and the future of TV.

,Read More

Forbes looks to Google AI pilot for insights as publishers seek value beyond the click

Forbes has joined Google’s paid News AI pilot that gives Google expanded rights to its content to test new ways of providing readers with context about stories before they click through.

Speaking at Digiday’s Media Strategies London event last week, Forbes chief innovation officer Nina Gould said the partnership was paid but declined to discuss the terms.

The program pays participating publishers for Google’s use of “enhanced” content as it develops AI features. These include in-depth article overviews on Google News publisher pages, which give readers context before they open a story, and offers customizable audio briefings. The features include attribution and direct links to publishers’ original content. Forbes will receive citation data and other insights into how its content performs across different experiences on Google’s platform, which will help it understand how different categories of content work in different contexts and inform its own products.

Continue reading this article on digiday.com. Sign up for Digiday newsletters to get the latest on media, marketing and the future of TV.

,Read More