Facebook has been at war with Apple since the iPhone maker announced new privacy policies for its operating systems. A group of employees working at the social networking company have come out explaining as to why the upcoming changes will hurt the ad business badly. In the past, the social networking giant has published full page ads in notable newspapers, explaining why Apple’s decisions surrounding privacy are not right and also showed the company as a monopoly for charging heavy tax from app makers.
Recently, former Facebook employees who had worked on the company’s ad business, talked to CNBC about the upcoming changes in iOS and how they will affect the company. Companies use IDFA (Identity For Advertisers) to specifically target users and also helps in identifying users with the data collected. Going forward, iOS will make the feature opt-in, meaning users will be able to disable the feature altogether, limiting the amount of data shared with the apps they use.
Facebook being a internet company which solely relies on revenue generated from ads, will likely be affected at the very slightest by the changes Apple is making on its devices. Apple is expected to release the new privacy feature starting with the upcoming iOS 14.5 update which will change the way and the amount of data developers collect from their users. The upcoming feature is part of the company’s larger initiative App Tracking Transparency which aims to give users total control over the data being shared with apps.
However, the former employees of Facebook argue that by disabling IDFA, developers will not have access to insights such as view-through conversions. It reportedly allows companies to know the number of users that make a purchase after having interacted with the ads. It gives an insight into the fact whether a user was converted into a buyer after seeing the ad or not.