Facebook started testing a new in-app screen on Monday that appears before the login prompt required in iOS 14 apps by Apple’s upcoming AppTrackingTransparency (ATT) policy.
The test will be rolled out worldwide on both Instagram and the Facebook app.
The additional prompt aims to provide more information about Facebook’s privacy controls and how it uses data to personalize ads before users are given the choice to allow or deny app tracking.
Facebook says this is necessary because while Apple lets developers tweak some of the language in the ATT popup, there isn’t much room to convince anyone to opt for tracking.
Facebook will experiment with showing both Apple’s prompt and a different version of its own test screen, although it hasn’t finished exactly when during the onboarding process or user flow, it will show the prompts to users.
In an example of the test screen, Facebook encourages users to share their app and website activity as a way to “support businesses that rely on ads to reach customers.”
Facebook has been on a massive anti-Apple PR blitz since late last year that is challenging itself as the small business savior. During a phone call with reporters in mid-December, Dan Levy, Facebook’s VP of ads and business products, accused Apple of making changes to the digital ecosystem that will harm small businesses already struggling to survive during the pandemic .
Some Facebook employees argue that this coverage is hypocritical and dissonant for a company that made $ 84.2 billion in ad revenue in 2020 alone.
For example, according to Buzzfeed, a Facebook engineer wrote in response to an internal post from Levy about the Facebook campaign, “It feels like we’re trying to justify something bad by hiding behind people with a sympathetic message.”
Despite its strong objections to Apple’s IDFA changes, Facebook is subject to it, just like any developer.
While Facebook initially said it would stop collecting IDFA on iOS 14 devices, it later went back. Facebook has said that if Apple does not agree to display the prompt, Apple will not allow Facebook to make its apps available in the App Store.
Developers must obtain consent through the AppTrackingTransparency prompt for any data collected in an app used for tracking.
While the App Store guidelines prohibit developers from using language in the ATT prompt that encourages people to allow tracking, Apple has said it’s okay for developers to provide additional information to educate users before popping the ATT opt-in -up show “as long as you are transparent to users about your use of the data in your explanation.”