Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP)
Apple Safari’s privacy feature that limits cookie lifespan and blocks cross-site tracking. ITP reduces first-party cookie life to 7 days (or 24 hours when set via JavaScript with tracking query parameters) and blocks all third-party cookies.
Impact on analytics
Safari holds approximately 20% of European browser market share (higher on mobile). ITP means that any visitor who returns after 7 days appears as a “new” visitor in cookie-based analytics — inflating new user counts and fragmenting user journeys.
For analytics that rely on cookies for session stitching and attribution, ITP makes accurate multi-visit tracking effectively impossible on Safari. Combined with Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP), more than 35% of browser traffic is subject to aggressive cookie restrictions.
Why cookieless analytics is unaffected
Cookieless analytics does not store cookies on the visitor’s device, so ITP and ETP have no effect on data collection. The server-side tracking approach captures sessions regardless of browser privacy features.