- Apple has sparked fear at the heart of the online advertising industry after issuing new warnings to users that they are being tracked on apps and sites.
- Some 16 ad groups, some backed by online ad giants Facebook and Google, complained that Apple was forcing apps to ask users for permission to track them twice.
- Facebook and Google make most of their revenue from online ads, and are among thousands of companies that track users’ Internet habits.
- Apple said it wanted to give users more transparency about how their information is used.
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A group of European digital advertising associations criticized Apple’s plans on Friday to require apps to seek additional permission from users before tracking them on other apps and websites.
Last week, Apple revealed features in its upcoming operating system for iPhones and iPads that will require apps to display a pop-up screen before enabling a tracking form commonly needed to display personalized ads.
Sixteen marketing associations, some of which are backed by Facebook and Google, owned by Alphabet, criticized Apple for not adhering to an advertising industry system for seeking user consent under European privacy rules. Applications will now have to ask permission twice, increasing the risk that users will reject, the associations argued.
Facebook and Google are the largest of thousands of companies that track consumers online to spot their habits and interests and show them relevant ads.
Apple said the new feature was aimed at giving users greater transparency about how their information is used. In training sessions at a developer conference last week, Apple showed that developers can present any number of additional screens beforehand to explain why permission is needed before activating their popup.
The popup says that an app “wants permission to track it through third-party owned apps and websites” and gives the app developer several lines below the main text to explain why the permission is being requested. It is not necessary until an application searches for access to a numeric identifier that can be used for tracking, and applications need only obtain permission once.
The group of European marketing companies said the pop-up warning and limited ability to customize it still carry “a high risk of user rejection.”
Apple engineers also said last week that the company will beef up a free tool made by Apple that uses anonymous aggregated data to measure whether ad campaigns are working, and that won’t trigger the popup.
“Because it is designed not to track users, there is no need to request permission to track,” Brandon Van Ryswyk, an Apple privacy engineer, said in a video session explaining the measurement tool to developers.
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis and Paresh Dave in San Francisco; Leslie Adler’s Edition)
