| It’s not just Google that’s making waves in its bid to protect consumer privacy. Apple’s changes to its IDFA, the in-app identifier for advertisers, is imminent, and the details of what is being proposed is causing concern — and in the case of Facebook, outright condemnation. All apps on Apple’s devices will be forced to require explicit consumer opt-in for tracking to be enabled. “Apple is taking a very aggressive stance here,” Michael Schoen of Neustar told us, “because not only are they requiring opt-in — they can enforce that opt-in is required. If an app does not present the opt-in functionality, and the consumer doesn’t actively opt-in, then literally the application won’t be able to access the IDFA. Apple is also requiring that other identifiers can’t be used, even if they can’t be directly blocked by Apple. It’s going to be interesting to see how that actually plays out.” Facebook will aggressively message consumers to opt in, and is already denouncing Apple’s move as anti-competitive. “Having a logged-in user,” said Patrick O’Leary of boostr, “that’s gold. Facebook has very rich behavioral and contextual information about those people. It’s the ability [for users] to go off network that freaks Facebook out.” With around 80% of Facebook users accessing the platform only by mobile phone (a small percentage would access by iPhone, of course), users not choosing — or bothering — to opt in, will be depriving Facebook of much of the data it uses for ad targeting. Why we care. Facebook proved itself well-insulated from advertising boycotts in 2020, but a trend towards preventing it from collecting user data (without consent) strikes at the heart of its value proposition to marketers. | 