• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, August 7, 2024

Publishers working to control the experience on a web page may want to urge Apple to give them a reporting tool for a feature it launched in beta this week.

Distraction Control for Safari focuses on hiding auto-play videos, newsletter sign-up banners, cookie preference pop-ups and other intrusions -- even ads.

It’s not clear whether iOS and macOS Sequoia beta 5 updates provide any type of reporting, but it would help publishers and advertisers gain insight into user preferences and why.

Vegard Johnsen, chief product officer at eyeo, which develops open-source ad-blocking tools, believes many of these updates suggest Apple “is only getting started with this feature, and I suspect they will look at how, why and when people use it. If they use it and like it, they will continue to invest in it.”

Distraction Control will temporarily block ads, but is not an ad blocker and will not permanently block ads. The settings also will not transfer to other devices. The feature will temporarily block ads, but the tool is not an ad blocker and will not permanently block ads. It does synchronize across devices.

“This is an opportunity for users to manage their online experience and take action when they see something annoying,” Johnsen said.

He said the tool introduces an incentive that did not previously exist. Users had to accept whatever they saw on the page, and now they can take a more active view in Safari. This could encourage publishers to make changes.

“If people remove the same element on a page, a crowdsourced option could appear that would allow people to not only determine on their own what to remove across their devices, but also similar things that other people have removed,” Johnsen said. “It introduces an element of feedback and makes the person a good custodian when it comes to the experience.”

Reporting, under privacy guidelines, would provide publishers and advertisers with insight into what users want to see.

The update began rolling out this week to registered developer beta testers, and others will possibly gain access later this month.

Apple also updated privacy controls in Safari with the Public Beta 3. Users now have more granular control of websites that can track their activity.

The update provides detailed insights into the tracking attempts made by various websites, helping users make informed decisions about which sites to trust.