Ep 173: The privacy saga: Apple v Google - Allison Schiff

Staying on top of Apple and Google’s ongoing policy changes to app tracking and user privacy is a business imperative for advertisers and essential for the future of the mobile marketing industry.

It’s also been Allison Schiff’s job. As a journalist, she has covered privacy topics in the marketing technology field for over a decade. In this episode, Allison shares her views on how the mobile advertising industry received Apple’s ATT framework, what Apple is doing now, and how Google has approached the Android Privacy Sandbox rollout. Catch up on the last few years of mobile privacy, and find out how to prepare for what’s ahead.

Allison Schiff is the managing editor of AdExchanger, a leading source for news, analysis, and events dedicated to the data-driven marketing technology industry. As a journalist in the space, Allison primarily covers privacy topics, measurement, attribution, and retail media. She is also the host of the AdExchanger podcast, AdExchanger Talks.

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• How do you stay informed on policy changes with privacy?
• Why is this shift in privacy happening? What is Apple’s App Tracking Transparency framework? And how does it work?
• Have you heard any theories about Apple changing the way they are rolling out ATT and doing measurement?
• How would you describe Google Privacy Sandbox? And what does it set out to achieve?
• What are your recommendations for app marketers to stay up-to-date on all these privacy changes?
• What should advertisers expect and prepare for?
• How would you explain the last ten years of privacy in AdTech to a 5-year-old?
• What do you think is going to be the buzzword or hottest topic of 2024?

• 1:28 Allison’s background
• 7:20 Staying on top of privacy changes
• 10:00 ATT & the industry’s adaptive response
• 13:27 Recap: Apple’s ATT rollout
• 19:48 Apple begins soliciting feedback from AdTech
• 26:06 Android Privacy Sandbox APIs
• 30:12 How advertisers can prepare for privacy changes
• 37:15 The most important buzzword for advertisers in 2024

(5:43-5:58) “Privacy is absolutely essential to our coverage now. It comes up daily. Even stories that I’m writing or that my colleagues are writing that aren’t ostensibly about privacy, you really have to address it anyway.”

(26:46) “The main APIs being worked on [by Android Privacy Sandbox], or maybe incubated is the right word, are topics, protected audience, which used to be Fledge, and there’s an attribution API, and those are all mobile app versions of the APIs that are also in the Chrome Privacy Sandbox. So, topics for basic targeting without cross-app identifiers, protected audience for remarketing, and the attribution APIs are obviously for attribution. And then there’s this other API that’s unique to Android, which is SDK run time.”

(32:56-33:06) “The best question that I ever ask when I’m interviewing someone is to explain whatever it is as if I’m five. Even if I think I know, I learn every time.”