Apple has recently changed its privacy rules, and it reportedly has done more harm than good.
Apple's Privacy Rules Affected Small Businesses
According to TechTelegraph, Apple's App Tracking Transparency feature or ATT was first introduced in iOS 14.5.
It gave users the option of opting out of app tracking across third-party apps and websites, which would then stop the apps and websites from serving targeted ads to the customers.
The ATT feature has reportedly caused a 13% drop in revenue in Q2 2022 for companies that relied on the targeted mobile ads to entice new customers, according to Varos, a software firm which surveyed more than 1,300 businesses.
How ATT Works
Before the feature's introduction, app developers and publishers got access to massive amounts of users' data.
Though this could be used for legitimate ends to make apps work better like by giving location-based suggestions, it also allowed publishers and advertisers to sell user data to third-parties.
The introduction of ATT has not been without its fair share of controversy. Apple is currently facing an antitrust lawsuit in Germany, with the country's Federal Cartel Office, the Bundeskartellamt, investigating whether the introduction of ATT is self-preferencing.
But a report commissioned by Apple found it has not received a windfall under the new privacy rules.
The said report found that the tech giant is unlikely to "have significantly benefitted from the new privacy rule because Apple Search Ads is a part of the mobile advertising market," because displaced advertising spending could move to other companies that leverage first-party data for advertising.
Apple's changes to how its products share data may have had wider impacts in the industry.
Google has said that it will remove third-party cookies from Google Chrome by 2023.
Change Your Apple Settings
If you wish to change your iPhone settings to change how your phone tracks your data, you can go to "Settings" and click on "Privacy."
Next, go to "Tracking" and you will be able to disable or enable tracking for any of your apps.
ATT's Effect on Facebook
Small businesses are not the only ones that are affected by the new privacy rules. According to CNCB, Facebook admitted that it will lose $10 billion in revenue in 2022 because of ATT.
Dave Wehner, the CFO of Meta, Facebook's parent company, said that the release of ATT is a "significant headwind" for their business.
Meta shares decreased 23% in extended trading after the company warned about several challenges and came up short on user numbers.
Facebook said its first quarter revenue for 2022 will be $27 billion to $29 billion, while analysts were expecting that number to exceed $30 billion.
Wehner said that the $10 billion loss in revenue to hit them in 2020 is just their best guess.
Wehner added that they are just estimating what they think is the overall impact of cumulative iOS changes to where the 2022 revenue forecast is.
He added that if they aggregate the changes that they are seeing on iOS, that is the order of magnitude, but they can't be precise on this as it is only an estimate.
A study from AppsFlyer, an ad measurement firm, showed that 62% of iPhone users were choosing to opt-out of sharing their data.
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Written by Sophie Webster
