We all know about the privacy features that Apple plans to bring in the iOS 14 and the future updates. However, not many companies are currently supporting it because they think that it will impact the advertising companies by a big margin. One of the popular social networking companies Facebook has always been vocal in showing their disappointment in the company policies and has taken out two full-page advertisements in US newspapers such as Washington Post, The New York Times, and Wall Street Journal saying the policy will harm ‘small businesses’ everywhere.
Facebook has already blamed Apple in the past as well, calling them stranglehold as a gatekeeper on what gets on phones, and “stifling innovation”. As per them, the new features will make the advertisers unable to work as they will not be getting adequate data as per the usage of the smartphone and show the users relevant ads. The new iOS update gives full control on tracking to the users and they can easily decide when to stop tracking. Apple’s new “AppTrackingTransparency” framework means a user has to grant explicit permission before an app can track them or access their “device’s advertising identifier.”
Since each device has a separate identifier, it is easy to locate the unique smartphone and target ads as per the device. With the new policy, advertisers will not be able to track and send relevant ads, which will cause a big issue as well. With the new features, Facebook might see a loss of over 60% in revenue which seems to be a very big number. As a response to that, Tim Cook said, “We believe users should have the choice over the data that is being collected about them and how it’s used. Facebook can continue to track users across apps and websites as before, App Tracking Transparency in iOS 14 will just require that they ask for your permission first..””