TLC Blog

Apple's annual user conference took place in June (for the first time, an entirely virtual event), and among all the exciting announcements about new hardware and apps, was the slightly less exciting, but equally headline-worthy change of direction regarding usage of the IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers - Apple's user-resettable marketing ID). The change essentially means that while it's still technically possible for marketers to access the IDFA, they can only do so with the user's explicit consent, which comes in the form of a mandated (and quite intimidating-looking) "permission to track" modal dialog when the app launches for the first time.

In my previous blog post, I covered how businesses use third-party cookies to identify users as they move across web sites. This practice is now being challenged by ITP 2.1 in Safari and by similar approaches in other browsers. I discussed two different workarounds that some vendors are using to combat the problem. But each workaround still has limitations, and this post is an overview of some other solutions we have seen our customers implement to maintain visitor identification for their website users.

This blog series explores the impact of data privacy regulation and third-party cookie blocking on data tracking techniques for anonymous and authenticated visitors on websites.  The online advertising and marketing industry, that was built on a foundation of data collection, is now being challenged by new restrictions imposed by browsers to limit who and what data can be tracked.