By replaying an ad run last year, Apple warns iPhone users to stop using an app made by a rival
You might have recently seen Apple re-run an ad for Safari that was originally released last July. The ad featured mechanical "camera birds" that were flying around an unnamed city spying on users of Android handsets who presumably were using the mobile browser on their devices. As Apple made clear during the ad, the point of the commercial was to differentiate the security of its Safari mobile browser from what it hints is lax security on Android browsers.
In the ad, when iPhone users are threatened by the camera bids, they tap the Safari icon on their screens causing the camera birds to explode. The ad also includes statements from Apple that are not subtle such as, "Your browsing is being watched," and "Safari. A browser that's actually private."
While the ad has returned to the airwaves nearly 10 months after its original release, it has greater meaning now which is why Apple has put it back into its advertising rotation. Earlier this week, Google backed away from a promise it made to remove third-party tracking cookies from its mobile Chrome Browser. So while Apple isn't mentioning Chrome or even Google by name, the ad (which we called "brilliant" when it was first released, a characterization that I still agree with) is hinting to iPhone users that they should delete the Chrome browser on their handsets.
These cookies aren't full of chocolate chips and Google originally said that it would replace them with a new tracking system that would allow Chrome users to make one tap on the screen to disable any third-party tracking. However, Google decided to back off this promise after the online ad industry feared that this plan would help Google quash any competition in the business of placing and serving online ads.
Through the use of tracking cookies, users' personal data can be at risk of getting leaked or stolen. This includes sensitive financial data including the credentials to their banking and stock trading apps. Apple iPhone users running Chrome need to disable cookies or use the browser's Incognito Mode to avoid getting tracked by Google's cookie monsters.
To enable Incognito Mode on the iOS version of Chrome, open the Chrome app and tap the three-dot menu icon in the bottom right corner of the screen. Look for "New Incognito Tab" and press on it. This prevents Cookies and site data from being saved by the browser.
Apple's ad is titled "Flock" which, based on the commercial, could easily mean a flock of birds. But Apple was taking a shot at Google since the latter planned to call its cookie replacement FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts). Just three days ago, Anthony Chavez, the vice president for Google's Privacy Sandbox made the statement announcing that Google "made the decision to maintain our current approach to offering users third-party cookie choice in Chrome, and will not be rolling out a new standalone prompt for third-party cookies."
It's unlikely that most iPhone users will remove the Chrome Browser from their handsets or even stop using it even though Safari is just as capable and is touted by Apple as being more protective of users' personal data, If you do feel the need to use Chrome, opening Incognito Mode seems like a good compromise.
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