November 1, 2021
A recent Financial Times investigation found that popular social media platforms such as Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have lost about $9.85 billion in revenue as a result of changes in Apple’s privacy practices.
Some changes include their App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy which requires apps to get permission to track their users’ data.
According to the report, Facebook lost the most money compared to others because of its huge size, and Snap, the company behind Snapchat, “fared the worst as a percentage of its business” mainly since its advertisement income are mainly tied to smartphones because it does not have a desktop version.
Above all, experts believe Apple’s policies on tracking user data will eventually force these companies to adopt more creative ways of aggregating advertising than quietly tracking users’ data on their iPhones.
Adtech consultant Eric Seufert told the FT: “Some of the platforms that were most impacted — but especially Facebook — have to rebuild their machinery from scratch as a result of ATT. My belief is that it takes at least one year to build new infrastructure. New tools and frameworks need to be developed from scratch and tested extensively before being deployed to a high number of users.”
For more information, read the original story in The Verge.
