Rumours have been circling that Apple plans to add a ‘web eraser’ tool to its Safari browser later this year.
The AI-based tool could filter out adverts and other content for users, based on their preferences.
At the weekend, The Financial Times reported that British newspaper groups have raised serious concerns over Apple’s ‘web eraser’, worried it could affect their digital ad revenue.
The News Media Association (NMA), represents the interests of newspaper publishers in the UK.
It has called for a meeting between publishers and Apple to look into the potential ramifications of the new feature.
Online reports predict the ‘Web Eraser’ has the potential to permanently remove content like advertising, videos, comments, suggested reading and maybe popups.
Once a user erases a block of content from a webpage, that block stays erased for the site visitor on subsequent visits.
The new feature could appear in Safari in the new iOS18 version.
AI disruption
The introduction of AI and Intelligent Search is expected to cause disruption to the advertising industry and create competition for traditional search engines.
Other reports claim that Apple is expected to introduce article summarization through a new Intelligent Search feature — giving users the option to generate a brief summary of any webpage currently on screen.
Built-in AI software would analyse the keywords and phrases within a webpage or document and generate a short summary containing only the most important information.
