Introduced by Apple at WWDC 2021, iCloud’s new Private Relay feature, designed to hide user browsing behavior from ISPs and advertisers, will not be available in China. According to the company, it cannot be activated due to legal restrictions.
This isn’t the first time Apple has made privacy compromises in a country that accounts for nearly 15% of its revenues. Also, the Private Relay function will not be used by the company in Belarus, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda, and the Philippines.
Private Relay encrypts all outgoing traffic in Safari, so it cannot be decrypted even on the Apple or carrier side. All user requests are then routed through two stand-alone servers. The first assigns the user an anonymous IP address corresponding to the user’s region without disclosing their exact location. The second server decrypts the required Internet address and redirects the user to the site. Two third-party companies own these servers, so no one, including Apple, will identify the user and determine the sites they visit.