Facebook and Twitter Are the Biggest Losers of Apple's New Privacy Policy

The update offered users a way to opt out of online tracking that was ubiquitous across instant messaging apps, social media, and content delivery services. Exercising this option would lock the app developer from accessing the advertising identifier (IDFA) on the user's device, taking away their access to user's activity as well as identification information such as email address, Apple had said, 

An analytics firm had found that just four percent of users in the U.S. had allowed apps to track their data following this update. Facebook was very critical of the update and had also released full-page ads opposing its roll-out, The Verge reported. 

The Financial Times report explains the financial reasons for Facebook's apparent outrage. As the leading provider of targeted advertising services, Facebook was set to become the largest loser in this effective policy change. As it turned out, Facebook lost over $8 billion in revenue. Other losers were services like Snapchat, YouTube, and Twitter, taking their total tally close to $9.85 billion as advertisers pulled back from financing campaigns that could not be explicitly targeted. Operating only on smartphones, Snapchat was the biggest loser in terms of impact on total business, the report said further. 

Following Apple's move, Google is also expected to roll out a similar update later next year. With over 70 percent of smartphone users on Google's Android OS, a similar move on the platform might sound the death knell for targeted advertisements as we know them today. 

Online advertising is expected to go through a sea change to adjust to the changing landscape with advertisers targeting groups of users than individual ones. An alternate option would be to shift to Apple's advertising platform that allegedly broke its own rules when collecting personal data.