[fshbbdssbbgdd]

Apple sells app install ads and charges advertisers for conversions on those ads. Apple blocks Facebook from doing the exact same thing (recording conversions on app install ads). Apple has defined “third party data” so it doesn’t include transactions on an advertiser’s app through the App Store, so they can say they don’t use “third party data”. But also, Apple won’t let anyone else run an App Store. So they are forcing transactions to go through their store, defining their own use of the transaction data as privacy-compliant, and then banning other means of collecting the same data. A pretty genius way to use their power as platform owner to cut out the competition and somehow get good PR while doing it.

Apple has defined themselves as party one or two in any interaction with the device, so the data they touch is not “third-party” data. That’s a masterful work of lawyering and whoever came up with that strategy is a genius, but we shouldn’t accept the definition and repeat it.

Let’s be clear about what is actually happening: Apple sees that other companies are making money on iPhones (in part, through data), and they are using their platform ownership to collect all that money/data for themselves.

[askafriend]

App Store transactions are probably the least important transactions in terms of general consumer spend and ability to target ads. Weird to single that out and paint it as some crazy important thing.

Advertisers want to know if you’ve bought shirts from Banana Republic or if you’ve been searching for a washer and dryer recently.

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“Global app install ad spend to double by 2022 to hit $118 billion”

https://www.appsflyer.com/blog/trends-insights/app-install-a...

It’s actually an extremely lucrative market. The major players usually don’t bring this up, because nobody wants to talk about how much of their business is Clash of Clans whales.

Everybody talks about targeting, but conversion measurement is the elephant in the room. You don’t really need fine-grained info to target Clash of Clans ads, but you definitely need to track conversions to get credit for the whales.

One way to think about this is that advertising revenue allows Apple to effectively increase the size of their 30% cut on digital goods.

There’s a lot of collateral damage, and other markets to pursue in the future, but this pot of gold is what Apple is going after first.

[askafriend]

I understand the size of the app install market and you're absolutely right to point that out.

However you're saying Apple is blocking Facebook. No one is blocking anyone. Apple is saying you have to ask for user consent before gathering that data.

For Apple to use their own first-party data to personalize the App Store, you have to give them permission - they ask you for consent upfront.

[fshbbdssbbgdd]

I’ve seen the prompt that Apple gives when asking if you want personalized ads (different from the “ask app not to track” prompt they apply to Facebook). I don’t believe that rejecting this prompt blocks conversion measurement. For Facebook and others, Apple lumps these concepts together into the term “tracking”, but they don’t apply that standard to themselves.

Apple talking about how users who reject personalization in the App Store convert at the same rate, according to Apple’s tracking of their conversions: https://9to5mac.com/2022/05/11/ios-15-users-opt-out-of-perso...