Facebook continues its campaign against a planned privacy feature from Apple in 2021, but told companies in an email that it has “no choice” but to comply with the iOS 14 change.
The feature in question ensures that some type of advertiser tracking is explicitly notified to users. Facebook has launched a full campaign against the feature, including full-page newspaper ads claiming it could harm small and medium businesses.
Business users are seen by in an email sent to Facebook I more, the social media giant continued that campaign, stating that the sign-up prompt would “ have a severe impact on targeting, optimization and measurement of campaign effectiveness for companies advertising on mobile devices and the web.
“Apple’s changes will benefit them, while hurting the industry and the ability of businesses of all sizes to market and grow themselves efficiently through personalized ads,” continued Facebook. “We believe that personalized advertising and user privacy can co-exist.”
While Facebook says it doesn’t agree with the privacy feature, it told business users it had “no choice” but to take over the prompt. It added that if it fails, it could be at risk of being removed from the App Store.
Facebook says it will provide more guidance and advice in the coming weeks to help businesses prepare for the coming change. If users opt out of advertiser tracking, Facebook said, it could result in “potentially diminished ad effectiveness and measurement limitations.”
Previously, Facebook estimated the feature could drop ad revenue by as much as 60%.
Originally slated for a launch in iOS 14, Apple delayed the implementation of the anti-tracking prompt until 2021 to give businesses and advertisers more time to prepare for the feature.
While some ad-dependent companies – including Facebook – have rallied against the feature, some privacy groups and organizations have praised Apple for its implementation.
Mozilla, the maker of Firefox, launched a campaign to thank Apple for protecting its privacy. Digital civil rights group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, praised Apple for implementing the feature, calling Facebook’s campaign against it “laughable.”
A December report also indicated that there is some internal disagreement within Facebook about the anti-Apple campaign. Some employees reportedly believe that Facebook’s attacks are unfounded and could backfire on the social media giant.
The anti-tracking transparency feature is slated for early 2021, although an exact date is currently unclear.