by Dan Moren
Safari 14 doesn’t block Google Analytics
Developer Simo Ahava breaks down exactly what the effect of the new Safari’s Privacy Report on technologies like Google Analytics is:
Not really. The fact that google-analytics.com has its ability to leverage third-party storage neutered means nothing to how the tool is actually used.
Google Analytics is a first-party analytics platform. [emphasis original]
It’s downloaded from Google’s servers as a JavaScript library, any identifiers are stored in first-party cookies, and any HTTP requests to the GA endpoint use these identifiers and these identifiers alone to specify the source of the tracker. No third-party storage access is being used with the requests to google-analytics.com.
It’s a bit technical, but the main thrust of it is that Privacy Report specifically aims at cross-site tracking prevention, so analytics platforms may have their capabilities limited, but they’ll continue to operate.
Ahava makes a good point, though, that the way Apple presents this information is either misleading or just not as clear as it could be. Hopefully, further refinements during the beta process will help improve that.