Apple’s iOS 27 identity block accelerates a server-side ad shift

By Tom Whitfield

Apple’s iOS 27 blocks domains used by LiveRamp, Permutive, Audigent and ID5, along with Unified ID 2.0, in Safari, according to AdExchanger’s first report.

ID5 is moving more of its identity infrastructure server-side, while other companies are rallying around the IAB Tech Lab’s Trusted Server Framework. The framework runs advertising functions outside web browsers on infrastructure controlled by publishers. ID5 CEO Mathieu Roche told Digiday: “There’s nothing the device can do to block you.” Large publishers could reroute identity calls from third-party browser domains to their own servers within days, Roche said.

What does the server-side shift change for publishers?

For large publishers, the shift creates a route to keep identity calls and advertising functions outside the device. For audience segmentation and campaign reach tied to those calls, that rerouting can maintain continuity; Roche says large publishers can complete it within days.

Budget effects are less even. Smaller publishers that outsource ad operations may struggle with the migration, while sites without in-house engineers face added infrastructure costs.

Permutive quickly opened replacement domains absent from Apple’s blocklist, but that move offers only a temporary workaround. Server-side operation provides a more durable route.

Some skeptics interpret the server-side shift as a privacy solution; others view it as a dodge. Their expectation of another cycle of blocking and replacement remains speculation, not an announced Apple policy.

The web’s content mix is changing

In a Wired essay, Miles Klee says evidence increasingly supports the death of the web and calls for the internet to be put out of its misery. He describes generative AI as a turbocharged slop engine for the web.

Klee cites massive privacy penalties against Google and Meta this month, government bans on children’s social-media use around the world over fears of harm, and Oxford University Press naming “rage bait” its word of the year last December.

He also argues that dead-internet theory, which predicts bots and bot-generated content taking over the web, hardly remains theoretical. Technology companies are building AI agents that communicate with one another and personalized, endless content feeds.

Advertising also factors into Klee’s account of the web’s decline. A comparison between the internet as a store and its former role as a library went viral last month.

The story’s example is journalist John West, who promotes a book titled “The Internet Will Die, and So Will You.” West wrote an anime blog on an AOL-hosted site as a child. He wants to delete it, but cannot access the AOL account, leaving a zombie page unupdated for decades that still runs ads.

The FTC targets individualized pricing

The Federal Trade Commission launched an inquiry on Wednesday into nine companies over how they use consumer data to set prices and compensation. The order requires detailed information and a response within 45 days of receipt.

The order names:

• Airlines: Delta, United and JetBlue.
• Rideshare and delivery platforms: Lyft, Uber, DoorDash and Instacart.
• Other companies: Target and Walmart.

The FTC says rideshare and delivery apps may use opaque formulas to set driver pay. Those formulas may consider phone usage and whether a driver declined an earlier ride or delivery request.

Consumers also face different prices for the same product or service when companies infer their preferences. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said: “Consumers deserve to know whether companies use their web surfing habits or other personal data to estimate the highest price they can charge each consumer.”

For practitioners, the immediate signal is federal scrutiny of personal-data pricing across travel, mobility, delivery and retail. The order seeks disclosure; it does not announce new ad-serving, reach or pricing rules.

Policy, politics and AI appointments

Companies in the UK and EU can opt out of Meta’s new terms of use, which otherwise allow Meta to train its AI on their content, according to 404 Media. The option provides a route to withhold content from that training.

Meta apologized for suspending the “No Kings” Instagram account while the group organized a protest. A week after that apology, according to Newsweek, the company faced criticism for banning a Democratic candidate’s page before a key get-out-the-vote rally.

Ars Technica asked why Google’s AI would not directly identify the winner of the 2020 US presidential election. The article raises a question rather than announcing a confirmed Google policy or system behavior.

Strategy Group created a controversial advertisement for Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy featuring his opponent’s estranged mother. The Ohio-based agency also faced scrutiny last year over a no-bid, $220 million Department of Homeland Security advertising contract, according to The New Republic.

NewGen, a social-first creator agency, appointed Jordan Carroll as chief AI officer in a company release. The next phase will show whether server-side infrastructure replaces browser-based identity calls or prompts another round of blocking.