Apparently, Apple’s radical changes to its privacy policies are having a negative impact on some small businesses.
Introduced in iOS 14.5, the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature gave users the option to opt out of app tracking on third-party apps and sites, which would prevent those apps from showing targeted ads to customers.
According to data from Varos, which surveyed over 1,300 companies, this resulted in a 13% drop in Q2 2022 revenue for companies that relied on targeted mobile ads to attract new customers.
How does this feature work?
Before this feature was introduced, application developers and publishers gained access to a large amount of user data.
While this can be used for legitimate purposes to make apps perform better, such as with location-based suggestions, it has also allowed publishers and advertisers to sell user data to third parties.
The introduction of ATT was not without controversy, however. Apple is currently pursuing an antitrust lawsuit in Germany, and the German Federal Antimonopoly Bureau (Bundeskartellamt) is investigating whether the introduction of the new regulations is preferential.
But report commissioned by Apple (opens in a new tab) (perhaps not surprisingly) it turned out that he did not receive any gratification under the new regulations.
The report found that “Apple is unlikely to benefit significantly from ATT, as Apple Search Ads accounts for a tiny fraction of the overall mobile advertising market, and stalled ad spend can be shifted to many other companies that are effectively using their own data for advertising purposes.” .
Apple’s changes to the way its products share data may have had a broader industry-wide impact.
Google has said it will remove third-party cookies from Chrome by the end of 2023.
Do you want to change your settings?
If you want to change the way your iPhone tracks your data, you can go to the “Settings” app and then tap “Privacy”.
Then you can go to “Tracking” which is at the top of the screen and then you will be able to disable or enable tracking of any application individually.
By Financial times (opens in a new tab)