If companies try to hash the direct and referral link into a single link (or use a redirect link). Apple could visit the site internally, return the actual, tracking-free webpage, and forward that to the user. This would mean the referral link is actually just tracking how many times Apple decodes it and would devalue the use of a referral link since it would just be reporting "how many times this link was forwarded" and not "how many times this link was clicked"