The developments have been reason for concern specifically for ad ops teams at publishers. The attitude has started shifting, with many now predicting a potentially positive outcome for publishers in the long term. Although the Apple ITP 2.2 update, which diminishes companies' abilities to monitor people's browsing behavior when they visit external sites, is most likely to directly affect attribution marketing, some publishers fear they will be indirectly affected. If agencies know less about which sites are driving conversions, they're more likely to either reduce budgets with specific publishers or cut them from the media plan. Publishers were hit hard at the start, but since then, they've found other ways to offset the losses such as finding new ways to more effectively monetize their first-party data. Publishers like magazine group Immediate Media, have introduced next-gen DMPs to help drive up the scale of targetable audience inventory, while reducing reliance on third-party cookies. "It's an arms race. Apple ITP 2.2 has been released; 2.3 will be soon to follow," said an exec at a major publisher. Read more