There’s an option to allow tracking like normal, but there’s also an option to deny the request. While this is a huge step forward for user privacy, it hasn’t been taken very well by certain companies. With a growing suite of e-commerce products, Facebook may actually gain more share of business from small online retailers and those that don’t yet have much of an online presence.
The change will apply to all iPhone and iPad apps, and it will take full effect in iOS 14.5, which is due out sometime in the next few weeks. Personal devices have become advanced enough to make everything from watching your favorite movie to ordering your favorite meal as easy as pushing a button. It’s also no secret that surfing, viewing, and shopping habits can be not so secret to developers who use your activity to feed you ads. But with its latest software update across most of its devices, Apple is making a major change with its apps that will increase your control over your own privacy more than ever before, USA Today reports.
Zuckerberg had said that Apple was becoming one of his company’s biggest competitors. While speaking at a conference call with investors, Zuckerberg said that Apple has every incentive to use their dominant platform position to interfere with how other apps work, which they regularly do to the preference of their own. He added that Apple may say that they’re doing this to help people but the moves clearly track their competitive interests. Once this feature rolls out, developers will have to seek permission before tracking any device advertising identifier, that is, the Identifier for Advertiser tag.
For now, the participants were audio-only and represented by a profile icon, but settings suggest that Hotline will test video for users in the future. In fact, Zuckerberg went as far as to say that the company could even be in a better position than before if more businesses decided to start 3501 s. atlantic ave. using Facebook and Instagram to sell their products. After launching an attack ad campaign against Apple for the privacy improvements it was making to iOS 14, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg now says that the social media company will “be in a good position” once the changes are implemented.
The employees also shared that the upcoming ATT update is likely to affect Facebook more than small businesses, claiming that small businesses will not even notice the changes. Maybe, the unwavering public support for better privacy made Facebook accept the new Apple App Store changes and maybe, that is why Zuckerberg is changing his narrative as well. IOS 14 will soon give users more control over how apps can track their activity. Apple will make its first product announcement of 2023 through a press release on its website tomorrow, Tuesday, January 17, according to Apple leaker Jon Prosser.
“This is a significant decision proactively made by Facebook to honor users’ privacy consent, but it has widespread impact on data access and reporting across all of Facebook’s advertising products, and markedly to attribution and targeting.” Zuckerberg has been a strong critic of Apple’s latest privacy feature that provides app tracking transparency and is slated to debut with iOS 14.5 soon. The social media giant has claimed that this privacy feature could deal a huge blow to ad tech companies and hamper the growth of small businesses. The company told investors during its fourth-quarter earnings in January that the impact of Apple’s changes could start to affect Facebook’s business late in the first quarter. Zuckerberg’s statement is a surprise after his company’s very strong opposition to the upcoming App Tracking Transparency update.
However, there now seems to be a change in tune from the social media platform. This is the first time that Zuckerberg has had something positive to say about iOS 14’s anti-tracking changes. Apple will roll out App Tracking Transparency to the public with the release of iOS 14.5. The privacy changes will require that apps ask for the user’s explicit permission before accessing their advertising identifier .
Facebook’s Audience Network, which provides advertisements in non-Facebook apps, will also be impacted because it uses IDFA data to choose the best ads to show to users based on Facebook data. If users opt out of sharing the IDFA, Facebook’s ad personalization efforts will be rendered useless outside of its own apps. Besides protecting your data from companies, the latest software update also introduces new ways to keep you safe, according to MacRumors.