Apple and ad industry clash over iOS 14 popup seeking permission for tracking - 9to5Mac

Apple and the ad industry are once again in conflict, as ad associations object to the way iOS 14 seeks user permission for tracking.

Advertisers like to measure the effectiveness of their ads by working out how many people who purchase a product have seen an online ad for it.

Conversely, if you visit a website about (eg) drones, the site can drop a cookie, and ad networks like those run by Google and Facebook can check for that cookie and then serve you ads for drones.

This type of tailored advertising is more likely to be effective, so ad networks can charge more for displaying personalized ads.

In iOS 14, if an app wants to show tailored ads, it must display a popup asking permission from the user.

This means that apps with European users will need to seek the same permission twice, once with a GDPR-compliant request, and again with Apple’s request.

Advertisers fear this will make it seem a bigger deal than it is, and lead to more users refusing permission.

Apps will now need to ask for permission twice, increasing the risk users will refuse, the associations argued.

“Because it’s engineered to not track users, there’s 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.

Part of this would involve giving websites greater control over the ads inserted by ad networks like Google.