Safari Takes The Battle For User Privacy To The Next Level. Web Developers Are In Panic Mode

There’s much to say about Safari — Apple’s flagship browser. And many web developers have been more than vocal about it. But the company doesn’t care, and now the browser has managed to anger the industry even more.

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Safari takes the battle for user privacy to the next level

Safari always had issues. While for the end user, it’s more than adequate, for web developers, it’s been a constant source of headache. Today we learned that Apple has finally closed a loophole that allowed websites to imitate first-party cookies, thus learning more about the users. First-party cookies are what make user’s journeys more pleasant: for example, they don’t have to log in every time they visit a website.

The whole story with cookies began in 2017 when Safari refused to accept third-party cookies. That forced websites to adapt, passing third-party cookies as first-party. This has been going on for years — until now.

The change, which wasn’t announced in any way, is already live and creating problems.

If you thought Apple couldn't eliminate more data / cookies along comes Safari 16.4.

Server set FIRST PARTY cookies now max 7 days (conditions described in original PR below).

This aimed squarely at Google Tag Manager but affects every server-side proxy.

It's War on the web. pic.twitter.com/buTSgpcyyi

— Jonathan Mendez (@jonathanmendez) April 5, 2023

The new change is drastic and will affect many websites. While the intention is good, web developers aren’t happy about the total lack of transparency. In fact, Apple said nothing about the update. Websites that mainly get traffic from Apple users are about to lose a lot of functionality. This is just the beginning. Some workarounds still exist, and Apple will keep fighting them in the future.