Snap CEO Evan Spiegel told CNBC on Friday that Apple’s upcoming iPhone privacy changes would certainly be disruptive to advertising, making it ultimately the right choice for its consumers.
“We feel that we are well prepared for these changes and clearly because these changes are consistent with our privacy philosophy, we have never allowed specific targeting to the device, for example, and when it comes Hai, we’ve always taken a very protective stance. For the data of our users, “Spiegel said in a” Squawk Alley “interview. “We generally see this as a good thing for consumers, even if it’s a bit disruptive for advertisers in the near term.”
To target mobile ads and measure how effective they are, app developers and other industry players currently use Apple’s identifier (IDFA), a unique string of letters and numbers on each Apple device. But once a privacy update rolls out, app makers will be forced to ask for permission to access the user’s IDFA through a prompt. A significant portion of users are expected to say no, which is expected to make targeted advertising less effective.
Spiegel’s more casual gesture towards the upcoming change is a dramatically different reaction than his Facebook peer Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook also conducts a huge online advertising business with almost all revenue derived from advertisements.
Facebook has reiterated Apple for the planned change since it was announced in June, and has claimed that it will hurt small businesses.
“Apple can say they are doing this to help people but the moves clearly track their competitive interests,” Zuckerberg said during Facebook’s earnings call last week. “We and others are going against this for the foreseeable future.”
This is not to say that Snape is not worried at all. The company in its Q4 earnings report on Thursday warned investors that there would be a risk of demand disruptions after Apple’s changes were implemented.
“The reason is that some of the policy changes Apple is making will affect our ability to effectively measure and optimize advertising outside of Snapchat,” said Spiegel.
Snap said it is working with Apple to prepare for the changes, and plans to provide more opportunities for advertisers to provide their products and services directly to their users via Snapchat.
“The reality is that we praise Apple, and we believe they are trying to do the right thing for their customers,” Snap Chief Business Officer Jeremy Gorman said on the company’s earnings call. “Their focus on protecting privacy is aligned with our values and the way we built our business from the beginning. Overall, we are really well prepared for these changes, but in this ecosystem The changes are usually disruptive and the outcome is uncertain. “
– Megan Graham of CNBC contributed to this report.
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