In the thread about Fortnight and App Store fees, I linked to a few articles about how iOS 14 would disable the Identifier For Advertisers that enables tracking by making it opt out by default. So now Apple just announced that cookies an other tracking methods will not be crumbled until sometime next year:
One of the articles I linked to was a post from Facebook warning it’s stockholders and ad network advertisers that loosing the IDFA in iOS would result in a 50% loss in its ad revenue. Apple’s statement claims it is giving developers more “time to prepare.” Here’s Apple’s statement, and for some time now I’ve been reading that Facebook, Google, etc. have been furiously working to develop alternatives to the IDFA.
I’ve read a few articles about this as well, but I haven’t yet seen a good explanation for the why. I guess Apple giving devs more “time to prepare” is an answer, but seems out of character, so I wonder what else is going on behind the scenes.
As a “privacy enthusiast”, I am looking forward to this new iOS feature, and if Facebook loses 50% of their revenue because of it, I’m ok with that too.
Apple has delayed or backpedaled changes on a number of occasions. Last year, they delayed notarization requirements, to give developers more time to make the change. They’ve also made changes not for developers but for enterprise managers, people using MDM products to manage hundreds or thousands of Apple products.
I’ve been thinking that they might have also caved in because this is the once every four years confluence of the holiday season and the US Presidential election. Chances are good that this quadrennial opportunity is likely to come close to doubling the ad and promotional spending of the last few years. Facebook’s second quarter 2020 revenue was $18,321,000 vs. $16,624,000. This is rather slow growth as compared to most of Facebook’s past, and it does not reflect any of the fallout from the #stop hate for profit boycott that began in in July by over 1,000 major advertisers, though the long term effect is projected by many to be minimal.
Facebook, etc., etc. must have done a good job singing the blues to Apple.
Now there’s more Antitrust aggro from the EU, and now it’s about the IDFA privacy features soon to be included in iOS. It has nothing to do with App Store or commission fees. What I don’t understand about this is that an iOS user can easily opt out of the IDFA at any time, and when people download an app from the App Store they will be notified that this particular app will be tracking them.
"While privacy matters and needs to be protected, privacy rhetoric cannot be used as a fig leaf to justify anti-competitive practices that will destroy the mobile ad ecosystem while benefiting Apple.
I’ll bet Epic Games, Spotify, Facebook, etc., etc. had a lot to do with this. And Apple certainly does have a lot of documention to prove they have been, for decades, taking privacy more seriously than other major services providers. And should corporate ad tracking, data accumulation and third party sales take presidence over consumer privacy? Personally, privacy is one of the big reasons I’m a devoted Apple customer.
So I’m still not going to hold my breath waiting for Apple to be able set the IDFA loose in the wild in the near future.
ROTFL. They say this as if anybody outside of the spamming industry cares. I think most of us would love the “mobile ad ecosystem” to crash and burn and never show its ugly face again.
Apple is simply demonstrating that they are showing more loyalty to its customers (those of us who buy their equipment) than to the spamming industry, who are more interested in lying and cheating in order to get access to people that have been telling them to get bent for decades.