Facebook will start showing a prompt on its iPhone and iPad mobile app designed to convince users to allow ad tracking, in preparation for an impending privacy change in which Apple will force developers to obtain permission to track users on apps and sites in the future. The new screen, first reported on Monday by CNBC, will be shown to users around the world starting today and will provide Facebook with advance data on how Apple’s privacy change could affect social networking businesses before of Apple’s planned update in early spring that will make membership application mandatory.
The prompt will provide users with an information page detailing why Facebook thinks a user should give the company permission to track them on iOS. The company argues that this will make ads more personalized and help support companies that depend on advertising. Apple’s next move, which was detailed for the first time at its developer conference last year, will allow users to choose not to allow applications to collect code called Identifier for Advertisers, or IDFA, which companies share with each other for track a user on apps and websites and to measure the effectiveness of digital ads.
Facebook has spent the past few months citing the potential damage to small businesses represented by Apple’s new privacy measures, which Facebook says will lead to less effective advertising and potentially lower revenue. The company even ran full-page ads in newspapers criticizing Apple’s changes, and both Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook made a series of increasingly hostile public comments against business models. of the other company. Now, Facebook says that, according to App Store rules, which allow developers to educate consumers, it is using its new prompt “to help people make a more informed decision”.
“Apple’s new prompt is designed to present a false trade-off between personalized ads and privacy; when, in fact, we can provide both. Apple is doing this to have a preference for its own targeted advertising products and services, ”said a Facebook spokesman. The Verge. “To help people make a real choice, we’re also displaying their own screen to provide more information about how we use personalized ads, which support small businesses and keep apps free. Agreeing with our screen does not result in Facebook collecting new types of data; it just means that Facebook can continue to provide people with better experiences. ”
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Image: Facebook
The prompt aims to preface the system-level pop-up that Apple will make mandatory in the next release of iOS 14 this spring. Notably, Facebook doesn’t use the word tracking, but instead asks to “use your apps and website activities”, while the Apple pop-up that follows explains that Facebook is asking for permission to “track you on apps and websites owned by other companies. ”Developers have been able to ask for permission since the new operating system was released last fall, but few have done so, while Apple delayed the implementation of the opt-in requirement in September last year. to give developers more time to comply.
In that case, however, Facebook is asking for permission early on in an effort to prepare for what could be a substantial amount of its users who refuse to opt in to ad tracking. According to a The information Last week, some internal company estimates predict that less than 20% of Facebook users agree to allow tracking on iOS. Regardless of the user’s choice if they see the pop-up today or in the coming weeks, Facebook intends to honor the choice when Apple makes the opt-in requirement mandatory, according to CNBC.