Apple said, “Privacy is a Basic Human Right” and We Agree

The Update on Privacy

In the past few years Apple has made Privacy an autonomous experience for the iPhone user. With most things in life, customers like to be in control, not just of their purchases and lifestyle, but also about who gets to know about it. 

With the new iPhone feature – App Tracking Transparency with its iOS 14.5 update,  users can now decide which apps can track their activity across apps and websites “for ads or sharing with data brokers.” Basically that means you get to give apps and websites permission to track your activity across apps and websites “for ads or sharing with data brokers.”. 

Apple CEO Tim Cook explained how it will work, “They’ll see a simple pop-up that basically prompts them to answer the question of, are they okay with being tracked or not? If they are, things move on. If they’re not, then the tracking is turned off for that individual with respect to that specific app.” 

Why Some Tech Companies are Upset

Isn’t it scary to think that companies like Facebook and Google are gathering and selling your online activity without your permission?! 

Since 2012, many apps made for iOS have leveraged an Identifier for Advertising (IDFA) that’s unique to the device and tracked users across different platforms. Some companies have an issue with Apple’s new App Tracking Transparency feature because it blocks this identifier, which makes it more difficult to serve up super targeted ads and decreases their ad-based revenue. 

There have been reports which suggest that 96% of iPhone users have opted out of app tracking. As a result, this has led to a drop in advertising spending on iOS devices.

Facebook parent Meta reported its first revenue decline in history. These results followed a broader decline in the digital advertising market for Google, Twitter and Snap. Although not reported by Meta directly, it’s easy to see how this revenue drop can in part be attributed to Apple’s App Tracking Transparency given the adoption rate above. 

How to check the privacy settings of apps on your iPhone

If you want to see which installed apps are tracking you, it’s easy. Open up the Settings app and select the Privacy pane. Once there, select Tracking. There you will see a list of your installed apps that have requested permission to track you. From this list, you can easily deny or grant access to tracking for specific apps.

We believe privacy serves the customer

This is where Authentic Labs and Apple differ from the actions of other tech companies. We feel strongly in protecting consumer privacy. Our consumer facing technologies – Realproduct.info and the Real app – were explicitly designed to not collect any personally identifiable information. We don’t store your searches permanently. We don’t sell your data. Everything is encrypted. And you can turn off all tracking, even our own analytics, within the preferences in the Real app.

The analytics we gather are used to give brands general information about their customer’s behaviors so they can best respond to their needs and design better products. We do not share your data with other companies. 

We remove the ?s of accessing product and brand information

The Real platform is a safe place for brands to be transparent, build trust and disseminate information and to engage with their customers. The brands on Real have full autonomy over all information in their listing and customer information is not shared with other companies. 

Download the Real app or search online from your desktop with RealProduct.info