The AD and Privacy Drama: the iOS 14 story

Today privacy is a big deal, especially after the Cambridge Analytica scandal and discovering how Facebook has been using user data. As a matter of fact, now users can decide if they want to be tracked or not by websites. Plus, they can refuse to let an app use some particular device capabilities or even block them entirely. And what about the very time-consuming terms and conditions you have to accept before playing online video games? Crazy!

Recently, Apple has put much effort in order to provide users with a smooth and secure experience. How? By providing them with full control of data management. Indeed, the iOS 14 goal is to enhance transparency, and ensure a secure user experience through several new features. One, in particular, that catches the eye is the dreaded AppTrackingTransparency framework: forcing companies to ask users the permission to track their data across third party apps and websites.

They’re just asking for a useless permission, right? Wrong! Without this permission, companies’ apps won’t be able to share user data with third party companies, or even track users. That is to say: no chance to monetize users data. That’s great news for users, because they won’t see cat litter ads anymore, only because they’ve just watched some cat videos on Facebook. But that’s not good news for developers. Why? Because this will drastically reduce the quantity of data advertizing companies will receive. This, in turn, will lead to less effective ad campaigns because they’ll be less focused on users.

Facebook business model is based, in particular, on ad campaigns and user interests. As a consequence, the company has already shown its disappointment over this new feature, estimating that Audience Network editors will see a drop of more than 50% in their income. Even Google AdWords will be likely to face a significant decrease in effectiveness, because I guess most users may think: “please, don’t track my data, what happens on my iPhone, stays on my iPhone”. And they’re absolutely right! User data should stay private if that’s what they want. On the other hand, it’s also important to stress that without ad services many apps won’t be the same anymore: some apps won’t run as well as with ads, others won’t exist. Think about free game apps, they earn a lot of money through ads. And if these ads are irrelevant to users or ineffective, this business model will probably be severely compromised.

If you are an iOS developer check out this article and the official documentation to learn more.