Apple’s privacy changes – how will they impact marketers?

Apple’s privacy changes – how will they impact marketers?

Apple has shown off new privacy features in iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS Monterey, and watchOS 8, which the company hopes will help users better control and manage data access.

The tech firm said these features “represent the latest innovations in Apple’s legacy of privacy leadership”.

Third-party data should be protected.

Mail Privacy Protection in the Mail app prevents senders from collecting information about the user through invisible pixels. The new feature keeps senders from knowing when they open an email and hides their IP address so it can't be linked to other online activity or used to track their location.

Intelligent Tracking Prevention has been protecting Safari users from unwanted tracking for a number of years, using on-device machine learning to block trackers while allowing websites to function normally. Intelligent Tracking Prevention gets even better this year by hiding the user's IP address from trackers. This means they won't be able to use the user's IP address as a unique identifier to link their online activity and create a profile about them.

Examine the app's privacy settings.

Users can see how often each app used the permission they previously granted to access their location, photos, camera, microphone, and contacts over the last seven days with App Privacy Report. Users can check if this makes sense to them and take action if it doesn't by going to the app's Settings. Users can also see all of the third-party domains that an app is contacting to see with whom their data may be shared.

On the device, process Siri requests' audio.

The audio of users' requests is processed right on their iPhone or iPad with on-device speech recognition. Unwanted audio recording is one of the biggest privacy concerns for voice assistants, and this addresses it. For many requests, Siri processing is moving to the device, allowing requests such as launching apps, setting timers and alarms, changing settings, and controlling music to be processed without an internet connection.

iCloud+ can help you protect your online privacy.

iCloud+, according to Apple, includes all of the features customers love about iCloud plus new premium features like iCloud Private Relay, Hide My Email, and expanded HomeKit Secure Video support at no extra cost.

Private Relay is a new internet privacy service integrated into iCloud that allows users to connect to and browse the internet in a more secure and private manner. Private Relay ensures that all traffic leaving a user's device is encrypted, so no one between the user and the website they're visiting, not even Apple or the user's network provider, can access and read it. After that, all of the user's requests are routed through two different internet relays. The first generates an anonymous IP address for the user that corresponds to their region but not to their precise location. The second decrypt the website they want to go to and directs them there. Because no single entity can identify both who a user is and which sites they visit, this separation of information protects the user's privacy.

Hide My Email extends the features of Sign in with Apple by allowing users to share unique, random email addresses that forward to their personal inbox whenever they want to keep their personal email address private. Hide My Email, which is integrated into Safari, iCloud settings, and Mail, allows users to create and delete as many email addresses as they need at any time, giving them control over who can contact them.

iCloud+ adds built-in support for HomeKit Secure Video, allowing users to connect more cameras to the Home app than ever before while also providing end-to-end encrypted storage for home security video footage that does not use up storage space. HomeKit Secure Video also ensures that activity detected by users' security cameras is analyzed and encrypted at home before being securely stored in iCloud.

Mike Herrick, Airship's SVP of Technology

“Apple's WWDC, the mobile mecca, has just established new rules of consumer engagement, leaving best-in-class brand marketers, advertisers, and solution providers scrambling to adapt to what will become the new mobile experience in months.

“Advertisers attempting to circumvent dismal IDFA opt-in rates with device fingerprinting and email-based identity solutions to build user profiles across unrelated websites and apps topped Apple's hit-list this year. Email tracking pixels are joining IP addresses and ‘real' user emails as soon-to-be relics, where the only insight gained is based on users' clicks and subsequent app and website behaviors.

“Notifications, which became the centerpiece experience every time an iPhone was picked up five iOS versions ago, are set for a less interruptive future, federated by machine learning and user Focus settings, where less important, non-urgent messages are relegated to a cross-app round-up. As brands adapt to changing user behaviors and genuine, user-centric engagement becomes the focal point, less than worthwhile interruptions fade to the background, the benefits of Apple providing users fine-grained control to manage and balance notifications as mobile's critical, real-time channel could be massive.”

Vice President and Counselor-at-Law, Acoustic by John Story

“Measuring the success of your email marketing campaigns with metrics like email open or click-through rates, which are in many ways controlled by a third-party, isn't always a best practice. As marketers, we must consider how to design campaigns that result in the specific actions we want customers to take — it's an opportunity to reconsider measurement and reporting in the context of customer action.

“When it comes to the marketing industry as a whole, we need consumer trust to thrive in the long run, and changes like this help consumers establish that trust. Consumers are becoming more concerned about how brands collect and use their data, which Apple recognizes with their new privacy policies. I expect this to prompt other businesses to reconsider their policies, and we may see more industry changes in the future. However, for the time being, Apple's announcement is neither a good nor a bad thing for marketers; we simply need to adapt, as we always do.

“It's unlikely that consumers will stop buying Apple products as a result of this change in Apple's privacy policy. In fact, I believe that many consumers will view this as a benefit, allowing Apple to gain a competitive advantage.

“This means that consumers will become even more invested in how their data is used, which is good news for marketers. That's why it's crucial to think about not just data privacy, but also data ethics – and the MarTech vendors who make it possible. You can still create personalized campaigns for your customers by leveraging different data sources if you integrate ethical data collection, storage, and use into the fabric of your brand.

“The privacy landscape is ever-changing, with Apple's announcement being the most recent wave we must ride. Keep in mind that, while stricter privacy policies may appear to be difficult at first, they will build a foundation of trust with customers and, as a result, increase brand loyalty.”

Jenny Crook is the Vice President of Mobile Product at Jellyfish.

“Apple has taken another step toward providing end-users with privacy transparency and control. They believe that privacy is a basic human right that should be protected at all costs. This means that the end-user can expect a shift away from the freemium services they are accustomed to in favor of more subscription-based apps.

“Moreover, iOS 15 is a major setback for customer relationship management (CRM). To begin, the way notifications are used will change, with users having the option to silence all notifications with a do not disturb mode or group them based on whether or not they are currently working. Retargeting became significantly more difficult as a result of the tracking update in iOS 14.5; this makes it even more difficult for apps to use push notifications to re-engage with users and cut through the noise.

“The second update is Mail Privacy Protection – Apple's own VPN – where users can hide their IP and limit apps' ability to retrieve location information; regardless of whether iPhone users open an email or not, marketers' ability to measure the effectiveness of email campaigns will be limited. Finally, the App privacy report will show the user how apps use data and how often they use the phone's camera and microphone, for example. Only time will tell if this proves to be a unique selling point, or a step too far that apps are unwilling to meet.”