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Apple last week disclosed features in its forthcoming operating
system for iPhones and iPads that will require apps to show a
pop-up screen before they enable a form of tracking commonly
needed to show personalized ads.
Sixteen marketing associations, some of which are backed by
Facebook Inc <FB.O> and Alphabet Inc's <GOOGL.O> Google, faulted
Apple for not adhering to an ad-industry system for seeking user
consent under European privacy rules. Apps will now need to ask
for permission twice, increasing the risk users will refuse, the
associations argued.
Facebook and Google are the largest among thousands of companies
that track online consumers to pick up on their habits and
interests and serve them relevant ads.
Apple said the new feature was aimed at giving users greater
transparency over how their information is being used. In
training sessions at a developer conference last week, Apple
showed that developers can present any number of additional
screens beforehand to explain why permission is needed before
triggering its pop-up.
The pop-up says an app "would like permission to track you
across apps and websites owned by other companies" and gives the
app developer several lines below the main text to explain why
the permission is sought. It is not required until an app seeks
access to a numeric identifier that can be used for tracking,
and apps only need to secure permission once.
The group of European marketing firms said the pop-up warning
and the limited ability to customize it still carries "a high
risk of user refusal."
Apple engineers also said last week the company will bolster a
free Apple-made tool that uses anonymous, aggregated data to
measure whether advertising campaigns are working and that will
not trigger the pop-up.
"Because it's engineered to not track users, there's no need to
request permission to track," Brandon Van Ryswyk, an Apple
privacy engineer, said in a video session explaining the
measurement tool to developers.
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis and Paresh Dave in San Francisco;
Editing by Leslie Adler)
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