Something is clearly in the works. Apple’s plans for media dollars haven’t exactly been conspicuous — far from it. From new ad spaces in the App Store to new search tools that could one day be monetized akin to Google, Apple hasn’t tried to hide its interest in advertising. For the sake of brevity, however, we’ve focused on how those ambitions are manifesting through the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) privacy safeguard given its the clearest sign yet of Apple’s intentions.

Here’s what we actually know, broken down into eight main points: 

1. Apple didn’t deprecate mobile identifiers on its platform in the way Google plans to do so for third-party cookies on its own. Instead, it put the choice in its customers’ hands — except there’s a chance many of them won’t be informed of what that means.
   Not every customer will know that their favorite, free apps might become unavailable if enough of them decide not to share their data. If any of those free, ad-supported app devices have to now charge a fee to make up the lost ad dollars from ATT then that benefits Apple, which takes a cut. That cut can range from 15% for small app developers to 30% for larger ones.
2. Apple’s ATT prohibits app owners from offering users incentives or from withholding features as a way to get people to share their data. But media execs wonder why someone would opt-in to something like ATT if they didn’t think they were getting something in return.
3. Apple presents ATT as an option for customers with a notification in their favorite app which gives them two choices: opt-in and allows that app to share their data with other companies or opt-out without consequences. That said, Apple hasn’t been exactly quiet on which choice it would prefer people made: the company is running high-profile ads that warn people of the perils of being tracked from their Apple devices — which, according to the ads, is only possible if they opt-in to ATT.
4. ATT has broad limits on how data is used from those people who have opted out. “One of our B2C clients has concluded that if a user opts out then they can’t use any of that data whether it was part of the app or not for personalization of their advertising anywhere,” said a senior agency exec on condition of anonymity due to not being authorized to talk to Digiday. In other words, the opt-out has taken the user completely out of the audience group they would’ve served ads to in all scenarios. Regardless of the legality of this, few marketers would want to risk flouting those rules if it meant getting suspended from the App Store. Instead, they’re playing by Apple’s rules. 

5. Since ATT launched in the spring, Apple …read more

   Source:: Digiday

         

   

   Author: Aaron