On July 14, Apple notified advertisers about an update to its Terms of Service. The old text defined ad properties as covering “Apple software applications or Apple devices.” The new text adds “web applications, or other platforms or properties” and drops the word “Apple.”
Aside from the obvious rumors of an iAd 2.0 network, this changes Apple’s two-tier attribution regime since ATT. Until now, Apple used its own Ads Attribution API for its own inventory (read: ASA) and SKAdNetwork/AAK for everyone else. That asymmetry held while Apple Ads remained on Apple-owned surfaces—App Store, Apple News, Stocks, and Apple TV— with Maps ads arriving this summer.
It collapses the moment Apple Ads appear on a surface Apple doesn’t own. Apple would measure its own ads on your app better than you can measure your own.