Popular photo-sharing service Instagram has reacted sharply to Apple’s advertisement tracking change. The company has promised to make it a big case against the iPhone maker. Its CEO Adam Mosseri said that the feature is not in the interest of advertisers, publishers, and users as well. According to Mosseri, it will do away with their ability to display relevant advertisements to the target users. Besides, it will also affect advertisers and thus resulting in loss of revenue. The top executive argued that advertisers will not be able to evaluate their return on investment in the changing ecosystem. Therefore, this is a problematic feature for businesses, especially small ones.
Mosseri said that Instagram will definitely make a strong case against Apple’s new feature. The CEO said that small businesses will be the worst hit. He said that there are thousands of small businesses that depend on big platforms like Instagram to reach out to their customers with advertisements. He admitted that Instagram doesn’t have much influence over Apple, but promised that the company will push for how other mobile advertisers track users. Apple enjoys a vast control over app makers. It acts as the only gateway for apps that are installed in over a billion devices. Apple had earlier said that it will provide an option in apps to block tracking.
The Cupertino based iPhone maker was planning to ask developers to request permission for in-app advertisement tracking. The company was likely to enforce this with the release of iOS 14. Instagram’s parent company Facebook recently warned publishers that Apple’s feature could cause a revenue loss of over 50 percent. Facebook even in a European Commission filing sought to know from Apple whether the company itself will adhere to the new changes. Meanwhile, Apple in a statement said that it has deferred the release of the feature for now. Reports say Apple has postponed the rollout until 2021. The decision was believed to be taken in the wake of concern being flagged by advertisers and publishers.
