Privacy Changes Will Force Adtech Landscape To Adjust

Apple’s recent privacy changes will not spell the end for adtech companies, but will force companies in the industry to rely on new tech and innovation as users demand more privacy.

The changes — as many people have seen on the commercials and the pop ups on their phones — went into effect less than two months ago and allow users to opt out of ID for Advertisers, or IDFA as they are commonly called. Those IDFAs allow advertisers to track iOS users’ activity across apps to better target ads and measure the effectiveness of their campaigns.

Those new rules also do not appear to be going away. Earlier this week during its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple said its upcoming iOS 15 update will give iPhone users even more control over their privacy and see more detail about where their data is going. Users of the new iOS will be able to see who their apps are sharing data with and keep internet activity more private.

Those enhancements to user privacy will affect an advertising market that saw more than $2.7 billion in venture invested globally in it last year and is already at $3.2 billion this year, according to Crunchbase numbers. Mobile advertising specifically only makes up a small fraction of those dollars — with about $278 million in venture coming in last year.

“Apple’s moves should send a signal to startups that they should take privacy issues seriously at an early stage,” said Christine Tsai, CEO and founding partner at 500 Startups and an investor in adtech.

“They’re less costly to implement while companies are still young, which is what we’re encouraging our startups to do as part of our (environmental, social and governance) initiative,” said Tsai, who was part of the original technical support team that helped launch Google AdSense.