Snap warns Apple’s upcoming privacy changes could risk its app business

Snapchat owner Snap Inc, on Thursday warned that Apple’s upcoming privacy feature could pose a risk to Snap’s ad business, despite its positive fourth quarter earnings. 

Apple’s App Tracking Transparency Feature which was first announced at the WWDC 2020 will require developers to get user permission to continue tracking their data to show them personalized ads. 

The feature was planned to roll out with iOS 14, however, Apple later postponed the enforcement of the feature. In December, the company threatened to remove the apps that don’t comply with the App Tracking Transparency feature and last week it announced that the privacy feature will roll out in early spring.  

The popular photo-messaging app Snapchat’s owner Snap Inc, recently reported its fourth quarter earnings. Although the company reported a positive growth in both number of users which rose to 265 million and ad sales which rose to $911 million, the Snap CFO Derek Andersen said that Apple’s upcoming privacy changes “present another risk of interruption to demand”, as reported by CNBC.  

Also Read: Snapchat (Snap Inc.) Revenue and Usage Statistics

“It is not clear yet what the longer term impact of those changes may be for the topline momentum of our business, and this may not be clear until several months or more after the changes are implemented,” he said. 

”The reality is we admire Apple, and we believe that they are trying to do the right thing for their customers,” said Jeremi Gorman, Snap’s Chief Business Officer. ”Their focus on protecting privacy is aligned with our values and the way we’ve built our business from the very beginning.”

She added that Snap has been working with Apple to prepare for the upcoming privacy changes. 

”Overall, we feel really well prepared for these changes, but changes to this ecosystem are usually disruptive and the outcome is uncertain.”

Snap’s biggest rival Facebook has also been criticizing Apple’s privacy changes accusing the company of anti-competitive behaviour.

Following Apple’s announcement at the WWDC 2020, Facebook shared a couple of blog posts about how the IDFA deprecation will impact Facebook’s Audience Network and hurt small businesses.  

It even ran full-page newspaper ads in major papers with the headline of ”We’re standing up to Apple for small businesses everywhere”.

This week, Facebook started showing prompts to encourage users to allow ad tracking.