> Apple/Cloudflare don't sell/support iCloud Relay as a service that is guaranteed to get you treated nicely by the parties on the other end, so they're not being deceptive with that part either.
They really do, actually. The fine print on their page only states:
iCloud Private Relay is not available in all countries or regions. Without access to your IP address, some websites may require extra steps to sign in or access content.
And they have documentation linked on that same page for website owners: https://developer.apple.com/icloud/prepare-your-network-for-... which even goes a step further and encourages website operators to use Privacy Pass to allow iCloud Private Relay users skip CAPTCHA challenges.
And really, this checks out, because iCloud Private Relay has a unique combination of circumstances compared to other commercial VPN users and Tor because:
* It isn't explicitly designed as a bypass tool of any form like commercial VPN's, your options for IP location are "same general location" or "same country and time zone" - content providers have no reason to block it for allowing out of region access
* Private relay is backed by iCloud authentication of both the device and the user, you can be beyond reasonably sure that traffic coming from an iCloud Private Relay endpoint is a paying iCloud+ user, browsing with safari, using their iPhone/iPad/Mac.
* It is backed by one of the most recognizable brands in the world, with a user base who is more likely to send you nasty messages for blocking this service.
On particular note of the last one, there's no "exception list" or anything available for end-users in Safari to bypass Private Relay for specific sites. My work one day decided to add the entire "Anonymizers" category to the blocklist in Okta, and I was suddenly unable to access any work applications on my iPhone which is enrolled in our enterprise MDM solution because I have Private Relay enabled. Enough people complained that the change was rolled back the same day it was implemented, because the solution was "turn it off" and that was unacceptable to many of our users.