Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Financial Services Committee at the Rayburn House office building on Capitol Hill on October 23, 2019 in Washington, DC. Zuckerberg testified about Facebook’s proposed Libra cryptocurrency, how his company will handle false and misleading information from political leaders during the 2020 campaign, and how it handles its users’ data and privacy.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images News | fake images
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday that he is confident the social media company will “be able to manage” through Apple’s upcoming planned privacy update for iOS 14, which will make it easier for iPhone and iPad users to lock down. companies so they don’t track their activity on the target. advertisements.
“We will be in a good position,” Zuckerberg said in a clubhouse room Thursday afternoon.
Apple’s upcoming privacy changes will inform users about device identification tracking and ask them if they want to allow it. Tracking is based on a unique device identifier on each iPhone and iPad called IDFA. Companies that sell mobile ads use this identification to help target their ads and estimate their effectiveness.
Apple has said that the change will be implemented early this spring.
Zuckerberg explained that the change could benefit Facebook if more companies decide to sell products directly through Facebook and Instagram.
“We may even be in a stronger position if Apple’s changes encourage more companies to do more business on our platforms by making it difficult for them to use their data to find customers who want to use their products outside of our platforms,” he said Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg’s comments are the most optimistic statements Facebook has made about how the upcoming changes at Apple may affect the company’s advertising business.
In July 2020, Facebook CFO David Wehner said that Apple’s iOS 14 changes could harm the social media company’s ability to target ads to users, and in August 2020, the company said that the changes could lead to a drop of more than 50% in your audience network. advertising business, which represents less than 10% of the company’s net income. The company told investors during its fourth-quarter earnings in January that the impact of Apple’s changes could begin to affect Facebook’s business by the end of the first quarter.
Facebook has prepared for Apple’s impending changes by introducing more commercial products.
In particular, the social media company introduced Facebook stores and Instagram stores in 2020. These features make it possible for brands to list their product catalogs directly on the most popular Facebook apps and sell products directly on Facebook and Instagram.
Zuckerberg said Thursday that Facebook already has 1 million active stores on its services and 250 million people actively using stores.
“Compared to the first conversations we had about how people would use this on Facebook and Instagram and our product, I think this is something that is well on the way to being something that will become increasingly important to people,” Zuckerberg said.