Following in Apple's footsteps, Google deals a blow to Facebook ad profits

Google announced last Wednesday that it will adopt new privacy restrictions that will cut off cross-app tracking on its Android devices.

The Alphabet-owned company said it was developing new privacy-focused alternatives to its advertising identifier, which is a unique string of characters that identifies a user's device.

It comes on the heels of a similar move by Apple last year that seemed to turn advertising practices on its head.

Google said it is developing new privacy-focused alternatives to its advertising identifier, and digital identifiers in smartphones often help ad technology companies track and share information about consumers.

The changes may affect major companies that have relied on tracking users through applications, such as Meta, the owner of the Facebook application.

For example, Apple's adjustments to Meta's profits have severely affected Meta's earnings. Meta said earlier this month that Apple's privacy changes would reduce the social media company's sales this year by about $10 billion.

This news erased $232 billion from the company's market value in a single day, which eventually led to the total market value dropping below $600 billion. It suffices to know that last June, Meta was worth more than $1 trillion.

Oddly enough, while Meta has struggled against Apple's changes, she has expressed support for the way Google plans to implement its privacy tweaks.

“It is encouraging to see this long-term collaborative approach to privacy-enhancing personal advertising from Google,” Graham Mudd, Vice President of Product Marketing, Advertising and Business at Facebook, said on Twitter. the field".

Google said it will continue to support existing identifiers for the next two years, which means other companies have time to implement the changes.

Facebook and other companies have criticized Apple for introducing the App Tracking Transparency feature, which reduces targeting capabilities by restricting advertisers from accessing an iPhone user ID. With this change, users are given a pop-up allowing them to block their data from being tracked by apps for advertising purposes.

Google criticized Apple's approach in its blog post without naming the company. “We recognize that other platforms have taken a different approach to ad privacy, imposing explicit limitations on existing technologies used by developers and advertisers,” Anthony Chavez, Android vice president of product management, security and privacy at Google, wrote in the blog post.

"We believe that - without providing an alternative privacy-preserving path first - these methods can be ineffective and lead to worse user privacy and business outcomes for developers."

A focus on upholding privacy could help the tech giant overcome regulatory issues, as lawmakers and consumers become more aware and concerned about their personal data.