Social Items



Apple's browser engine, WebKit has announced a new tracking prevention policy which is aimed at bolstering privacy on the Safari browser and thus help to protect users on Apple's ecosystem.

While the open source project, WebKit announcement is following on the heels of Mozilla's push for privacy with its own anti-tracking policy, that is solely targeted at quashing all the web tracking technologies that follow users on Firefox browser.

The WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy, among other things spelt out the types of tracking it will target and how it will effectively deal with the issues, with implementation of mechanisms in WebKit to prevent such web tracking procedures. And the ever evolving policy will also profile additional tracking techniques as they arise, in a bid to include the new techniques in the policy and implement measures to prevent them.

Before now, Mozilla had been the single advocate of the browser-side protection that block websites from following web users online, which tracking has been proven to benefit advertisers who target specific users, even though it invades their privacy. With Firefox 67 which was released in May, the company debuted Letterboxing feature to protect against the so-called window-size related fingerprinting, which is employed in the profiling and tracking of Web users, whereby their personal information are collected from their various devices for identification.

Apple WebKit will bar any cross-site tracking and fingerprinting, with Safari browser already blocking some of the cross-site tracking techniques under its Intelligent Tracking Protection (ITP), which debuted with macOS Mojave and iOS 12; albeit it's still lacking in full blockade - as such information that can be used to identify some trackers are non-existence.

That's what the new policy will seek to address, through the discovery of additional tracking techniques, including the types of tracking created and how to deal with their effects.

Ironically, both Mozilla's Firefox and Apple's Safari browsers have been on the losing side in the browser wars, with huge declines in user share in the recent months; and despite Google's Chrome stealthy position, it has continued to climb in user share worldwide.

And perhaps, there will be a likely reversal in usage as more users begin to see the implementation of effective privacy policies from the competitors, that is, if privacy means anything for the average web users.

Apple to turn full throttle on Privacy with Safari Anti-tracking mechanism



Apple's browser engine, WebKit has announced a new tracking prevention policy which is aimed at bolstering privacy on the Safari browser and thus help to protect users on Apple's ecosystem.

While the open source project, WebKit announcement is following on the heels of Mozilla's push for privacy with its own anti-tracking policy, that is solely targeted at quashing all the web tracking technologies that follow users on Firefox browser.

The WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy, among other things spelt out the types of tracking it will target and how it will effectively deal with the issues, with implementation of mechanisms in WebKit to prevent such web tracking procedures. And the ever evolving policy will also profile additional tracking techniques as they arise, in a bid to include the new techniques in the policy and implement measures to prevent them.

Before now, Mozilla had been the single advocate of the browser-side protection that block websites from following web users online, which tracking has been proven to benefit advertisers who target specific users, even though it invades their privacy. With Firefox 67 which was released in May, the company debuted Letterboxing feature to protect against the so-called window-size related fingerprinting, which is employed in the profiling and tracking of Web users, whereby their personal information are collected from their various devices for identification.

Apple WebKit will bar any cross-site tracking and fingerprinting, with Safari browser already blocking some of the cross-site tracking techniques under its Intelligent Tracking Protection (ITP), which debuted with macOS Mojave and iOS 12; albeit it's still lacking in full blockade - as such information that can be used to identify some trackers are non-existence.

That's what the new policy will seek to address, through the discovery of additional tracking techniques, including the types of tracking created and how to deal with their effects.

Ironically, both Mozilla's Firefox and Apple's Safari browsers have been on the losing side in the browser wars, with huge declines in user share in the recent months; and despite Google's Chrome stealthy position, it has continued to climb in user share worldwide.

And perhaps, there will be a likely reversal in usage as more users begin to see the implementation of effective privacy policies from the competitors, that is, if privacy means anything for the average web users.
Privacy

No comments

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)