Privacy-First-World may soon be reality!

These days tracking information about the users has become a viable part of business advertisement methods. The more information you have on a used, the more you can know about their preferences and the more you can target them with your product. 

Advertisers and Publishers relying on Mobile Ad Software to experience weaker results

“somewhere in this process something very crucial to the user's is getting lost: Their privacy. Most of the information getting tracked these days is something which shouldn't be accessible to anyone besides the user. ”

Apple has been supplying apps with an identifier, IDFA, to help them track and link the same user over multiple programs. But now, envisioning a Privacy-First world, Apple is expected to enforce new transparency rules which would require the apps to show a one-time pop up message in order to gain the user's consent on accessing their IDFA. This is a new privacy move in IOS 14. This move will not only affect iOS devices but eventually will leave an impact on every other device. And hence, it can turn the tables for advertisers and publishers who depend highly on the ads via IDFA.

Google to stop using Apple's Tracking Software

Shortly before Apple was expected to enforce this policy, an announcement in Wednesday's blog by Alphabet Inc was made. In that announcement, Google declared that it's IPhone apps such as Maps and YouTube will stop using it's tracking tool that enabled it to personalize the ads for users. This would prevent the Apple warning that informs the users that their browsing is being tracked. Even last year, Google mentioned about stopping the use of third party cookies from chrome.

On Wednesday, Google said that they won't switch to any other tracking tool. Instead, it posits grouping together users with similar interests to narrow down the targeted audience.

“Today, we’re making explicit that once third-party cookies are phased out, we will not build alternate identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web, nor will we use them in our products", said David Temkin, Google’s director of product management.”

As most of the Google users are logged in, it has a tracking alternative to IDFA, so that it's main ad business wouldn't be affected by the changes Apple is making. Although, other app makers such as Facebook are concerned that the warning might discourage the user's from getting involved in crippled ad sales. Facebook said last month that it plans to display the pop-up for the user's consent.

“"Apple has made it clear that if we don't use Apple's prompt that they will block Facebook from the App Store, which would only further harm the people and businesses that rely on our services every month,", said Facebook. ”

This activity would directly affect those advertisers and publishers who depend vastly on the mobile ad software as the results would be weaker without IDFA access. So, advertisers and publishers can expect a weaker response in their expected traffic.

We all must have to focus on developing such technologies that will enable advertisers and publishers to get good results without compromising user's privacy. May be this is a beginning of Privacy-First World.

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