The folks over at Apple and Cloudflare are looking to further help protect your privacy. The duo is releasing a new internet protocol, dubbed Oblivious DNS-over-HTTPS, or ODoH for short. The goal is to make it harder for your internet service provider (ISP) to track which websites you’re visiting.
In simple terms: when you go on your phone or computer and go to a site, your web browser uses a DNS (domain name system) resolver to convert the website into an IP address, which is then used to figure out where the site is on the internet. Think of it like traditional snail mail. You can’t just send a letter or package with just a name. You know who it’s going to, but the post office won’t. You have to put in a mailing address. A site’s URL is an easy way for you to know where to go, while the IP address is what gets you there.
Currently, this process isn’t encrypted, meaning your DNS resolver—which typically defaults to going to your ISP unless you’ve manually changed it—can log what sites you visit if they choose to. And they typically do, as most ISPs already sell your browsing history to third-party advertisers.
