Understanding Apple Private Relay blocking

May 25, 2025 · 2 min read

From a web resource owner's perspective, Apple Private Relay is often a source of potentially suspicious traffic. Private Relay mixes legitimate traffic with that of spammers or fraudsters, introducing uncertainty into fraud prevention strategies.

Private Relay uses exit IP addresses from the Akamai and Cloudflare networks that are shared among multiple users. In practice, dozens or even hundreds of iCloud+ users may appear to originate from the same exit IP address. From an online fraud prevention perspective, if one IP is involved in spam or abusive activity, it can expose other users behind the same IP. This often leads web resources to block that IP address, which results in restricted access for all users sharing it.

Blocking based solely on IP reputation is becoming increasingly unreliable. In the context of Private Relay, it may lead to overblocking and frustrate legitimate users. At tirreno, access via Private Relay could be treated as both a positive and a negative signal, depending on settings. Some environments may choose to restrict access due to high abuse volumes, but such decisions should be always based on multiple risk indicators — not IP address alone.