The Financial Times conducted an investigation and found that Snapchat, Facebook Twitter, YouTube, and Twitter lost approximately $9.85 billion in revenue due to Apple's privacy changes. Apple's App Tracking Transparency policy (ATT) was announced last year. It requires that apps ask permission to track user data. This policy was in effect since April and prohibits apps from tracking users unless they opt out.
Facebook criticized the move in a newspaper ad. The FTs report reveals why company leaders were so upset. The report found that Facebook lost the most money relative to other social media platforms because of its size. Snap was the worst performer as a percentage of its overall business. Snap's advertising is primarily tied to smartphones which is understandable for a product without a desktop version.
According to Eric Seufert, an adtech consultant, some platforms were the most affected by ATT. However, Facebook is one of them. Before new tools and frameworks can be deployed to large numbers of users, they must first be created from scratch.
Apple's new policy will make it more difficult for social media platforms and other apps not to be creative in their advertising. This could mean focusing on Android devices, or investing in Apple's advertising business. Apple almost broke its own rules by collecting user data in the same manner third-party apps did. Apple will need to find another source of revenue that does not involve tracking users on their iPhones.
