Social media didn't make nearly $10 billion because of Apple's privacy policy

A new investigation by The Financial Times reveals that social networks Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube lost about $9.5 billion in revenue after changes to Apple's privacy policy. Last year, the Cupertino-based company announced its new transparency policy regarding tracking user activity in apps, which requires all developers to specifically and explicitly ask users for permission to track their data. The policy went into effect in April, with the company banning apps from tracking user activity and data unless they give permission to do so.

Facebook, in particular, has repeatedly criticized Apple's move, and now, thanks to an FT report, we know why the social network's executives were so disappointed with the decision. According to some estimates, Facebook is the company that has lost the most money from this change compared to other social platforms because of its large size. Meanwhile, Snapchat has lost the largest percentage of its business due to the fact that the targeted ads it offers to its advertisers are aimed at smartphone users, which is understandable since the product does not have a desktop version.

Apple's new policy will force social platforms and other apps to get more creative with their ads. Whether it's focusing on Android devices or investing in developing new advertising technologies and non-personalized user profiling to track activity and advertising in the digital space, the process of bringing back old features will be long and difficult for social networks, which will have to figure out other ways to generate revenue not related to tracking iPhone user activity.

Source: xda-developers