Facebook reports record ad revenue after grousing about iOS privacy features
Facebook is making money hand over fist despite warnings of impending doom due to new iOS privacy features Apple introduced in April.
The social network raked in $28.6 billion in advertising revenue for the second quarter of 2021, up 56% from the same period last year. Advertising accounts for nearly all of the company's income, with total revenue coming in at $29.1 billion.
Facebook more than doubled its profits from the previous year with a $10.4 billion performance, up from $5.2 billion in 2020.
Still, the company is bracing investors for rough waters in the coming months. CFO David Wehner in a statement blames the headwinds on new privacy features Apple baked into its iOS operating system.
"We continue to expect increased ad targeting headwinds in 2021 from regulatory and platform changes, notably the recent iOS updates, which we expect to have a greater impact in the third quarter compared to the second quarter," Wehner said.
Apple in April rolled out updates to iOS that are designed to limit ad targeting by restricting app access to users' Identification for Advertisers (IDFA) tags. Called App Tracking Transparency, the feature requires developers to ask users for permission before using IDFA tags to track their activity across apps and the web.
The notification comes in the form of a consent prompt that is displayed when an app is first opened. It is expected that more users will opt out of ad tracking with the option surfaced so prominently, leaving ad companies in search of new targeting technologies. Apple provides the privacy-conscious SKAdNetwork and Privacy Click Measurement ad attribution tools as replacements for IDFA tags.
Facebook has aggressively resisted Apple's implementation of ATT on claims that the privacy change will deal a major blow to the bottom lines of ad tech companies and small businesses reliant on ad sales. CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously predicted fallout from ATT would begin to impact Facebook's bottom line this quarter.
Read on AppleInsider
The social network raked in $28.6 billion in advertising revenue for the second quarter of 2021, up 56% from the same period last year. Advertising accounts for nearly all of the company's income, with total revenue coming in at $29.1 billion.
Facebook more than doubled its profits from the previous year with a $10.4 billion performance, up from $5.2 billion in 2020.
Still, the company is bracing investors for rough waters in the coming months. CFO David Wehner in a statement blames the headwinds on new privacy features Apple baked into its iOS operating system.
"We continue to expect increased ad targeting headwinds in 2021 from regulatory and platform changes, notably the recent iOS updates, which we expect to have a greater impact in the third quarter compared to the second quarter," Wehner said.
Apple in April rolled out updates to iOS that are designed to limit ad targeting by restricting app access to users' Identification for Advertisers (IDFA) tags. Called App Tracking Transparency, the feature requires developers to ask users for permission before using IDFA tags to track their activity across apps and the web.
The notification comes in the form of a consent prompt that is displayed when an app is first opened. It is expected that more users will opt out of ad tracking with the option surfaced so prominently, leaving ad companies in search of new targeting technologies. Apple provides the privacy-conscious SKAdNetwork and Privacy Click Measurement ad attribution tools as replacements for IDFA tags.
Facebook has aggressively resisted Apple's implementation of ATT on claims that the privacy change will deal a major blow to the bottom lines of ad tech companies and small businesses reliant on ad sales. CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously predicted fallout from ATT would begin to impact Facebook's bottom line this quarter.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
How are they able? Because most consumers aren't aware of what it means when Facebook(or Google) says "advertising" or "user experience" or my favorite "user interaction". To most consumers, they hear "advertising" and they think of a beer or car commercial on TV, or a corner of webpage with an image selling Tshirts, Most consumers have enough on their plate, are tech internet savvy limited, and will not be digging into what Facebook actually does behind the scenes to make "advertising" so lucrative. Plus most consumers get much of their information snippets from online platforms and corporate media. None of these entities (some of who are in on the data mining money stream stream to small extents) question or explain data mining whatsoever. Then add to that troll farms and Android users online (some you'll read hear at AI) who purposefully muddle the issue with 'they all do it', 'the internet is not private', 'everyone knows they collect your data, it's no big deal'. This is purposeful clouding of th issue. But factually, indisputably, Android users(and Apple haters) have to muddle it. The truth is clear in regards to expanded data mining and who does this on big scales. Be aware when you see posters on AI trying to make the 'they all do it' claims in differing ways. They ultimately are saying the same thing that is trying to cloud the truth.
Apple is a minority portion of the mobile operating system market. Further, it has only been the last 18 months that Apple has significantly begun to cutoff these big personal data miners, Facebook and Google. Hopefully more people will become aware over the next 18 months.
Simply cutting off the ability for one installed app to not be able to record what you do while using other apps (maps, texts, internet, calendar, contacts etc) is a huge step in the right direction. Probably the biggest step that could be taken.
FB is whistling in the dark.
Google doesn't sell user data.
User data is not for sale, tho there are companies that do, even ones you inherently trust (perhaps because you don't know any better?)
Google places ads for companies based on baskets of ANONYMISED USERS WITH SIMILAR DEMOGRAPHICS in much the same way Apple creates baskets of users for delivering targeted ads in certain Apple services. Baby steps. You know why Apple treats that as OK to do? Because they aren't selling that data or even giving it away, and neither is Google. The intellectual dishonesty is pretending they do.
Is maintaining a talking point so important to you that using half-truths to do so is acceptable? Don't work that FUD. Be better than that.
Political beliefs? Google doesn't permit ads based on that, nor allow collection of data related to it.
Sexuality? Nope, another category that Google does not allow.
You're also not all that familiar with Apple's ad platform, so the link to that is here:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223
If you do more reading and research and less assumption you'd not be so misinformed.
The difference between what private information Google(and Facebook) collect on you(personally you not an obscure group) and what Apple collects on you is massive, and I mean MASSIVE! Anything Gatorguy says from this point will not factually contradict that, period, end of story. He's trying the bait and switch with 'who gets to see that personal information'. Then using that to push ''see, they all do it' equivocation. It's used by the Android crowd time and time and time again -- and it's dishonest.
but they have to do that. The issue of privacy data mining is not just won by Apple, Apple wins it running away by 100 miles. That's not the simple claim of an Apple user, that is verifiable, quantifiable, indisputable fact. Everything they try to push from here will be to obscure that 100% fact.
But to play the obfuscation game: who gets to see the massive private information of a user on an Android platform and the minimal information that Apple collects? For both platforms it is negotiable via ToS updates(especially using gray area wording in the ToS. Don't ever believe that a company (Google, Facebook, even Apple) may not change their policy. They will. For Google (and Facebook... among others) whose main income of 100 to 200 billion dollars per year in "advertising" revenue, this huge number is achieved by knowing as much about you as possible. I can almost guarantee there will be changes to ToS especially if these many billions in revenue start going south.
It's free and relatively say to do: get a copy of the private data recorded by Google, by Facebook, by Apple. See the truth for yourself. Just be prepared to be shocked at how big the file and how huge the private information Google and Facebook have recorded on you (again this is fact, nothing Gatorguy or the others trying to cloud the issue can honestly dispute).
At the same time Apple is making sure to keep their fingers in advertising and if a time comes that hardware isn't delivering the revenue gains they want don't' believe they won't make ads a much bigger piece of their business. While iAd failed, and they will probably never be as good at it as Google anyway, Apple never has given up on testing the targeted ad waters. There's so much money there, why would they? Apple can see how successful Alphabet is, all they have to do is look at recent results. MASSIVE gains YOY. I'd be shocked (and so would you IMHO) if they wouldn't like a bigger piece of it, just as Google wants a bigger piece of hardware.
-It's fine that Google does this because Google doesn't share it (oh and because they make well over 100 billion on it too). See Google itself having this massive amount of private personal data gathered they own, they wouldn't share it (Jigsaw)! Nothing to see here, it's perfectly ok. (they'll never change ToS either).
-Apple just isn't successful at amassing huge private data on its users. ((I tell you what, this is a new one and remarkably entertaining. Yes, you're right, it would be a marvel of Apple engineering to code iOS to amass private data across iPhone and app usage, then send it back to central servers. Yea, that is some real high technology right there. But credit for trying a new tact in defense of private data amassing.))
- At the dawn of surveillance capitalism, Apple did try IAds. See, 'they are all the same'. ((But Apple failed! Small software companies monetize personal data but Apple isn't capable! Oh no, lol. Fyi, Apple abandoned it and I'll be glad to provide the quotes to back that up. But if Apple ever started down the Google path I'll be on them 100%. That makes us very different)).
-Apple does advertisements? Oh no, oh goodness! Just wow. Another great try and dishonest equivocation. Because of course a beer commercial on TV and amassing a huge trove of your private data is all the same (again, 'see they all do it, they are all the same'). That you would equate all advertising to massive amassing of private data as the same thing is just sad. That right there is a desperate attempt to try and make that amassing of private data ok.
Again, at the end of every equivocation and obfuscation post you type, with all the ';they all do it' and 'they don't share it' and 'advertising is advertising' and 'Apple is incapable of gathering data or selling the metrics to advertisers' (just wow) etc etc, you are still against the same concrete and steel wall. Indisputably, factually, you can't (and haven't) refuted the reality: Google and Facebook amasses a staggering amount of private data on you that they own. Period.
To those reading this, hey don't believe me and certainly don't believe Gatorguy, see it for yourself. Get a copy of that data for free from Google and Facebook. Also get a copy from Apple. Do your own reading and comparison. Then see for yourself what Gatorguy is trying to do here (hint, it isn't to help you believe or see the massive amount of private data Google and Facebook own on you, and certainly isn't to help you maintain your right to privacy, that's for certain).