Apple has officially announced that it will be delaying implementation of its new iOS 14 privacy measures until early in 2021 to give mobile advertisers and mobile app publishers more time to prepare.
The change was simple but massive: making the IDFA opt-in.
The IDFA is Apple’s identifier for advertisers. It’s always been opt-out on a global level, but that setting was buried, and only about 30% of American iPhone owners turned it off. It’s most commonly used by advertisers to measure the results of their marketing, but it can also be used in ways that violate privacy. In iOS 14, Apple is planning to require developers to ask permission to use the IDFA every single time they download an app. In other words, it was transitioning from opt-out, with most people not even knowing about it, to opt-in, with everyone getting asked for their permission every time they install an app.
Now that’s still the plan of record, but Apple is not implementing the new rules immediately.