'But I wonder if merchants will have concerns that they aren’t getting information about the user that they would with other identity systems.' 'When a merchant wants to contact a user they send a message to this opaque email address that Apple then forwards,' says Fenton. That’s precisely why companies like Google and Facebook-both of whose revenue is primarily ad-driven-may not add similar protections anytime soon. But as part of its broader, years-long privacy push, Apple has added some extra protections that distinguish its version.Īnd not that you'll shed a tear, but Apple's intermediary email option may also undermine popular digital advertising and marketing strategies that use people's email addresses to track online movements and preferences.

Sign In with Apple looks similar enough to those alternatives at a glance, giving the option to use your Apple ID as a unified login wherever developers integrate it. They centralize a group of accounts around a more secure login that you're more likely to actively monitor and maintain, rather than a one-off account that you set with a weak password, save a credit card into, and then never think about again. It's the technology that lets you use your Google or Facebook login to access other third-party services, instead of needing to set a unique username and password for each one. You've seen single-sign-on before, even if you don't use it. Apple now has its own single-sign-on scheme-and it's a major reimagining of how such a mechanism can work.

But one new feature, mentioned in passing, could have an outsized impact on user security and privacy for years to come. At Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, the company debuted a slew of products and services, including a new Mac Pro that's part raw computing power, part cheese grater.

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