During their annual WWDC, Apple announced some major changes around privacy and identity management coming to their iOS 14 release in September. These changes will have a significant impact on how in-app inventory is monetized on iOS devices. While the update is still in beta mode and subject to change, below is a recap of what we know so far and what this means for you as a publisher.
What lies ahead?
Transparency
Apple is planning two changes to bring about more transparency on iOS 14:
1. More information on the App Store page regarding how apps store personal data.
App developers will need to declare what is tracked and by whom. This will inform users which data types an app may collect and whether the information is being used for tracking or is linked to their identity or device.
2. When users access an app, they will be presented with a prompt to allow the sharing of third party information. This prompt should only be displayed once per app by the system.
Keep in mind, users can deny personal information tracking for each individual app through the do not track button and they also have the option to utilize the privacy settings to prevent access to personal information across all apps as a rule.
Geolocation
Impact for publishers
In the short-term, publishers will need to update and submit their apps in compliance with the new framework. Otherwise, access to the device’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) may be lost for users upgrading to iOS 14. This initiative has no impact on your CMP, which will still have to be implemented in your apps.
Medium-term, publishers can expect a decrease in in-app revenue as personal information is a key driver for high-value buying strategy. The impact is difficult to predict as we can’t assess the share of non-consented traffic, but the presence of the decline option in addition to changes to the general privacy settings in the update will likely negatively impact the consent rate.
