New Language Around IDFA Delivers Much Needed Clarity to the Mobile Advertising Industry

Apple and others in the industry have placed a strong emphasis on user privacy in recent years (e.g. the deprecation of UDID and MAC address). Today, Apple announced a new development in this effort by introducing a click-through agreement whereby the developer must confirm that they are only using IDFA for its intended purpose: namely, to allow advertisers to monitor the performance of their campaigns.

Apple just updated a section in iTunes Connect, the service mobile developers use to distribute and update their apps in the App Store, with more concise and detailed language that explicitly explains how the IDFA can be used.

App developers can now specify how their apps use IDFA by checking one or more of the accepted use cases:

• Serve advertisements within the app

• Attribute this app installation to a previously served advertisement

• Attribute an action taken within this app to a previously served advertisement.

Finally, they must confirm that their application as well as any third party that interfaces with the app, is compliant with the usage limitations for IDFA and the Limit Ad Tracking setting in iOS.

This is welcome news for app developers who had become concerned about Apple’s recent rejection of apps that used IDFA for attribution analytics but didn’t serve ads. Apple is sending a clear message that using IDFA for attribution is okay.

Needless to say, we’re super thrilled about this clarification from Apple as it allows advertisers to use IDFA with confidence and allows us to continue to provide attribution analytics to all of our clients and achieve our company goal of ensuring transparency through a truly unbiased and unparalleled attribution platform. 

For customers already working with our MobileAppTracking product, you can continue using the MAT SDK with confidence as we are fully compliant with all of Apple’s IDFA policies. If you’re interested in learning more about Apple’s IDFA use policy, please check out our support document on How to Submit Your App When it Uses IDFA.

Author

Becky is the Senior Content Marketing Manager at TUNE. Before TUNE, she led a variety of marketing and communications projects at San Francisco startups. Becky received her bachelor's degree in English from Wake Forest University. After living nearly a decade in San Francisco and Seattle, she has returned to her home of Charleston, SC, where you can find her enjoying the sun and salt water with her family.