Apple's tightening grip on the open web

Guest author Alan Chapell wrote in Marketecture that privacy gives Apple cover to decide who gets to do business on Safari, pointing to AdExchanger's September report that identity vendors including Audigent, ID5, Permutive and The Trade Desk's UID2.0 had domains blocked on iOS 27 and macOS 27, and that The Trade Desk's primary ad request domain adsrvr.org was also briefly blocked. Separately, MediaPost reported Apple and Meta announced an open AI model, Meta Muse Spark Open, built to run on Macs, with Meta demonstrating it editing video footage on-device inside DaVinci Resolve, signalling that Apple is willing to partner with the largest ad platform on AI even as it shuts the open web's identity vendors out of Safari.

The crux

Apple is using privacy as a gate it opens for partners and closes for everyone else, which concentrates the open web's ability to monetise Safari inventory in Apple's own hands.

Sell-side read

Every identity and measurement vendor that depends on Safari inventory is now negotiating with one company that has both the platform and, increasingly, its own advertising ambitions, so the sell side's addressability in the browser that matters most is being decided by a rival, not a regulator.

Watch

Whether the adsrvr.org block stays lifted, and whether Apple extends the same Safari restrictions to its Meta collaboration or carves out an exception for its own allies.