Facebook is continuing its campaign against a planned Apple privacy feature in 2021, but told companies in an email that it “has no choice” but to comply with the iOS 14 change.
The feature in question makes an advertiser tracking type explicitly choose users. Facebook launched a comprehensive campaign against the feature, including full-page newspaper ads, claiming it could harm small and medium-sized businesses.
In an email sent to Facebook business users viewed by I more, the social media giant continued this campaign, declaring that the opt-in prompt would have “overwhelming implications in targeting, optimizing and measuring the effectiveness of the campaign for companies advertising on mobile devices and the web.”
“Apple’s changes will benefit them, while harming the industry and the ability of companies of all sizes to market themselves efficiently and grow through personalized advertising,” continued Facebook. “We believe that personalized ads and user privacy can coexist.”
Although Facebook says it disagrees with the privacy feature, it told corporate users that it “has no choice” but to take the prompt. He added that if it is not in compliance, it could be removed from the App Store.
In the coming weeks, Facebook says it will offer more guidance and advice to help companies prepare for the coming change. If users choose to opt out of advertiser tracking, Facebook said, it could result in “potentially reduced ad effectiveness and measurement limitations”.
Previously, Facebook estimated that the feature could reduce advertising revenue by up to 60%.
Initially planned for a release on iOS 14, Apple has postponed the implementation of the anti-tracking prompt until 2021 to give companies and advertisers more time to prepare for the feature.
While some companies that depend on advertising – including Facebook – have spoken out against the feature, some privacy groups and organizations have praised Apple for its implementation.
Mozilla, the maker of Firefox, launched a campaign thanking Apple for protecting privacy. The digital civil rights group, Electronic Frontier Foundation, praised Apple for implementing the feature and called the Facebook campaign against it “laughable”.
A December report also indicated that there is some internal disagreement about the anti-Apple campaign on Facebook. Some employees believe that Facebook’s attacks are unwarranted and could backfire on the social media giant.
The anti-tracking transparency feature is scheduled to launch in early 2021, although an exact date is not yet clear.