>> ...snooping on customer activity outside the company's own web site or app. This is what is meant by tracking and Apple doesn't do this in their ad service.

I'm sure Apple is going to offer exactly that, as the conversion-rate data of an Ad into an actual purchase elsewhere is where the big Ad-money is. Apple will just do all that without handing off any data to another party, providing only the persona of an end-user to the Ad-customer.

Their dilemma is that doing this today at an "Apple-price" has limited competitive value to Advertisers. But if Apple cripples the competition to become the ONLY company able to provide such data, they suddenly become a mandatory supplier for every Ad-campaign in the world, as only Apple will be able to provide effective Ad-analytics on iOS.

>> It seems like what Apple is doing is trying to cripple tracking for other ad services to make their own service more competitive.

Exactly. Which should be a strong sign that regulation is urgently required, but somehow people still are stuck on the wrong narrative.