Just six months after Apple implemented its new privacy policy, the social media industry has reportedly lost almost $10 billion USD.
According to an investigation undertaken by the Financial Times, since the introduction of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency policy back in April, companies including Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and Twitter have lost a staggering $9.85 billion USD combined. The new policy required apps to ask for permission before tracking data, and the report indicates that Facebook has been hit the hardest “in absolute terms” largely due to the size of its platform. However, Snapchat “fared the worst as a percentage of its business” since the app doesn’t have a desktop version and so almost all ads ran on smartphones.
“Some of the platforms that were most impacted — but especially Facebook — have to rebuild their machinery from scratch as a result of ATT,” adtech consultant Eric Seufert explained to the Financial Times. “My belief is that it takes at least one year to build new infrastructure. New tools and frameworks need to be developed from scratch and tested extensively before being deployed to a high number of users.”
Elsewhere in tech, an image of Meta’s rumored smartwatch has leaked.
