Apple CEO Tim Cook on stage during an Apple event in September 2018.
With Apple’s big change for tracking apps around the corner, Chinese companies have warned Cupertino that their efforts to circumvent the change will not be successful. At the same time, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg seemed to be shifting his messages about the change.
A few months ago, Apple announced that it would require users to use IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers), a tool that advertisers use to identify and track users across applications and websites. If users sign in, it will do business as usual. But if they reject, the app in question cannot use the tracking method. The change applies to all iPhone and iPad apps, and will take full effect in iOS 14.5, which will appear sometime in the next few weeks.
ByteDance, Baidu and others push back
The press coverage so far has focused on U.S. and European countries struggling with the change, particularly Facebook, which is showing ads and investigating the possibility of an antitrust lawsuit to fight Apple’s ruling. Several reports over the past few days have indicated that some major Chinese technology companies are no less determined to fight Apple’s new policies.
Baidu, Tencent and ByteDance are one of the Chinese technology companies looking for solutions. Bloomberg reports that these companies have been looking for several ways to collect data and track users despite Apple’s policies, including fingerprinting, “which uses device-specific information such as the IMEI number and location to create a unique identifier.” And they are also testing a system called CAID. This system was developed by a government tank and the China Advertising Association and can be used “as a replacement if the user’s IDFA is not available.”
The efforts of the companies led Apple to issue a statement explaining that the upcoming changes apply to all programs of companies around the world, not just those developed and maintained in the United States:
The terms and conditions of the App Store apply to all developers around the world, including Apple. We believe that users should ask permission before being detected. Programs that ignore the user’s choice will be rejected.
The actions of these companies nevertheless threaten to put Apple in a difficult position. China accounts for at least 15 percent of Apple’s business. Although it is too early to make absolute predictions and it depends on the role the Chinese government chooses here, it is likely that this situation could escalate to the point where Apple will have to make a decision to continue doing business there. do or to change course. to draw up special rules for ad tracking for that country that differ from those in other regions.
Zuckerberg changes tune
Zuckerberg spoke in a Clubhouse chat on Thursday and commented more positively on Facebook’s ability to thrive with the upcoming change. “We will be in a good position,” he said. “We’ll get it right.”
Facebook had previously offered full-page newspaper ads suggesting that Apple’s change could fatally injure many small businesses, and Facebook chief financial officer David Wehner said last year that the change led to a 50% drop for its lucrative advertising network. will lead.
Zuckerberg also initially took an aggressive stance against the change in the company’s last quarterly earnings call, and The Information reports that he worked with a legal adviser to set up an antitrust case against Apple as a way to shift the policy shift. fight.
But yesterday, Zuckerberg went so far as to say:
We may even be in a stronger position if Apple’s changes encourage more businesses to trade more on our platforms by making it harder to use their data to find the customers who want to use their products outside of our environment. . platforms.
Although the messages differ, it seems that the planned actions of the businesses are unlikely to change. Apple will still start requiring Facebook applications to ask users for permission to track it, and Facebook still intends to apply the change so that its apps and services can remain available to iOS users.