Facebook continues its campaign against an Apple privacy feature scheduled for 2021, but told companies via email that it “has no choice” but to comply with the iOS 14 change.
The feature in question causes a type of advertiser tracking to be explicitly chosen by users. Facebook has launched a full-scale campaign against this feature, including full-page newspaper ads claiming it could harm small and medium-sized businesses.
In an email sent to business Facebook users seen by Me more, the social media giant continued this campaign, stating that the application for participation would have “very hard implications on the segmentation, optimization and measurement of the effectiveness of the campaign for companies advertising on mobile devices and on the network “.
“Apple’s changes will benefit them, while hurting the industry and the ability of businesses of all sizes to market efficiently and grow through personalized advertising,” Facebook continued. “We believe that personalized ads and user privacy can coexist.”
While Facebook says it disagrees with the privacy feature, it told business users it “has no choice” but to adopt the request. He added that if he doesn’t comply, he could risk withdrawing from the App Store.
In the coming weeks, Facebook says it will offer more guidance and advice to help companies prepare for the next change. If users turn off ad tracking, Facebook said, it could result in “potentially reduced ad effectiveness and limitations on measurement.”
Previously, Facebook estimated that the feature could see advertising revenue drop to 60%.
Initially planned for a release on iOS 14, Apple delayed the implementation of the anti-crawl application until 2021 to give businesses and advertisers more time to prepare for the feature.
While some companies that rely on advertising, including Facebook, have spoken out against this 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, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, praised Apple for implementing the feature and called Facebook’s campaign against it “laughable.”
A December report also indicated that there is some internal disagreement about the anti-Apple campaign on Facebook. According to reports, some employees believe Facebook attacks are unwarranted and may counteract the social media giant.
The anti-crawl transparency feature is scheduled to be released in early 2021, although the exact date is currently unclear.