Earlier this year, Apple announced that it is rolling out App Tracking Transparency as a beta update to iOS 14. Simply stated, it forces apps to explicitly ask for consent from users in order to track their activity on apps and websites owned by other companies. If the user decides to not allow the app to track their activities, the app won't be given access to the system-level advertising identifier (IDFA). Apps are also required to give access to their full feature set regardless of whether a user gives tracking consent or not.
With its latest update, Twitter on iOS now asks users to allow tracking in return for more relevant ads.
As spotted by MacRumors, Twitter version 8.65 now contains a prompt with the following wording:
Keep ads relevant to you by allowing Twitter to track data from other companies on this device, like apps you use and websites you visit.
[...] You can decide if you'll allow tracking in the iOS prompt and you can always change this later in your device settings.
The move is quite interesting considering that it is fairly straightforward in its demands.
In contrast, Facebook has strongly criticized App Tracking Transparency in the past saying that it will damage small businesses since they'll not be able to sell personalized products to targeted audiences. In fact, it even utilized a rather shady tactic in its Facebook and Instagram apps by showing a prompt that suggested that personalized ads are necessary to keep the apps free of charge. This gave the impression that if users do not consent to tracking, they'll be eventually forced to pay to access the social media platforms.
It remains to be seen how successful Twitter is in its endeavor to convince users to allow tracking, but at least its phrasing in the prompt is relatively more straightforward and concise.
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