For the readers on the go:
Moving towards a privacy-focused future, Apple announced that an iOS 14 feature would let users decide if they want to be tracked by advertisers and apps. The billion-dollar mobile advertising industry relies on IDFA (The Identifier for Advertisers), which allows developers and marketers to track user activity, to provide personalized advertising.
Apple’s decision to make this an opt-in feature is expected to severely disrupt the mobile marketing industry.
Dive deep:
Apple has differentiated itself from Google, Facebook, and other global tech companies with a focus on privacy. The company has made a significant effort to lock down SMS with end-to-end encryption for iMessage. It has further built an anti-tracking software into Safari.
It has locked down iCloud so only the user can access their stored information, it doesn’t target email in Mail, its email client, for advertising. Moreover, it doesn’t share the user’s location with ad networks, it doesn’t use health data to target advertising, and Apple doesn’t share data on what the user buys from their phone with any other companies.
Notably, in August 2020, Apple became the first company in history to pass the mark of $2 trillion. It was also the first company to reach $1 trillion valuations in 2018.
At $2 trillion, Apple’s market value is now higher than the GDP of numerous developed countries, including Italy, Brazil, Canada, Russia, and South Korea, to name a few.
