French media and advertising groups are calling on Apple to turn off a new “distraction control” feature, Business Insider exclusively reports. They claim the new iPhone tools could disrupt websites and advertising. The group said in the letter that it is “actively considering all available features.” Legal resources. ”
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A group of French industry associations representing around 800 companies in the advertising and media sector has written an open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, demanding that the tech giant implement a new iPhone feature called “distraction control.” I asked them to stop the deployment.
Distraction controls, available in iOS 18 this fall, allow users of the iPhone’s Safari browser to hide elements on web pages, such as images, pop-ups, and ads. It then remembers those requests when the user revisits that page. However, Apple says it won’t permanently hide website elements that change frequently (such as ads).
In a letter sent Thursday, a copy of which was seen by Business Insider, the French industry group cited three main concerns about the feature after beta and public testing. .
Apple did not respond to a request for comment.
The group said in the letter that users could potentially hide a website’s consent management platform (the technology that drives the cookie consent pop-up), which could cause site owners to not comply with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation. They have raised concerns that they may be at risk.
This could also hinder publishers’ profits, they said in the letter. European media companies are increasingly asking users to agree to serve personalized ads (which are generally more profitable than non-targeted ads) or to pay a fee to access their content. .
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In a letter, the French industry group said tests showed that in some cases, all ads on a particular website were hidden when users suppressed ads on one page on a site. states.
The letter says this poses “an existential threat to the online advertising model that underpins a critical part of the Internet economy.”
Finally, the letter states that by allowing users to hide any content on a web page, especially editorial content produced by news organizations, distracting controls will increase the risk of “information manipulation” and the spread of information on the Internet. states that it has the potential to promote
While it’s possible to manipulate web pages using image editing tools, distraction controls make it much easier to remove, screenshot, and share specific content with a tap. said Pierre Devoize, deputy managing director of digital marketing organization Alliance Digitale. One of the industry groups that co-signed this letter.
The letter includes Alliance Digitale, press organization Alliance de la Presse d’Information Générale, online publishing association Geste, advertising agency association Syndicat des Régies Internet, advertising association Union des Marques, and media buying and planning union UDECAM. Co-signed. Agency.
The letter asks Apple to pause the rollout of Distraction Control and provide technical documentation about its features and planned updates.
“We are actively considering all available legal resources” related to data protection, press freedom, intellectual property rights, copyright and trademark law, and competition regulation, the group said in the letter. states.
The letter was also copied to several French ministers, the French Competition Authority and the European Commission.
Publishers and advertising companies have been affected by Apple’s software updates in the past.
Earlier this year, the same French group raised concerns with Apple over reports of a promising feature called “Web Eraser,” worrying it could hurt advertising revenue.
The letter is in response to a report from AppleInsider that cited people familiar with the matter as saying the planned feature would allow Safari users to delete content and make the browser aware of their choices. And this description is very similar to Distraction Control. The News Media Association, a British publishing group, also sent a letter to Apple warning that such tools threaten the financial sustainability of journalism.
AppleInsider later reported that Apple changed the feature’s name from Web Eraser to Distraction Control and updated it to include a pop-up explaining that it “does not permanently remove ads.”
Publishers and advertising companies have been hit hard by Apple’s software updates in the past. The 2021 App Tracking Transparency update required app owners to get explicit permission from users before tracking their apps across other apps and websites. Most users opted out of tracking, making it difficult for developers such as media publishers to monetize their apps.
This follows another sweeping privacy change in 2017, Intelligent Tracking Prevention, which disabled the use of third-party tracking cookies in the Safari browser by default. Almost immediately after the rollout, publishers and ad tech companies reported reductions in CPM, the cost of targeting 1,000 impressions.
