Snap CEO firm believer in Apple's evolving privacy moves

Evan Spiegel says that App Tracking Transparency in iOS 14 hurt his Snapchat app, but believes Apple is doing the right thing for users — and businesses.

Apple's requirement that apps ask users for specific permission to track them has had a big impact on advertisers, and on app developers. Snap CEO Spiegel says that the move was a jolt, but he believes Apple is adapting to help developers.

"I think the good thing, I'm optimistic, is Apple does continue to iterate," he told the Wall Street Journal. "And so while this transition has been disruptive, I see a real commitment from the Apple team to continue to improve so that their developers can be successful on their platform."

Spiegel admitted that Apple's moves had so far created challenges for his business, he said he backs the company because he agrees that user privacy is paramount.

"We have always really cared about privacy," he continued. "We were really the first to pioneer ephemeral communications."

Spiegel was talking to Joanna Stern at the Wall Street Journal's Tech Live Conference, where she also interviewed Apple's Craig Federighi.

1 Comment

auxio 19 Years · 2766 comments

About 2 years ago

AppleInsider said:

"We have always really cared about privacy," he continued. "We were really the first to pioneer ephemeral communications."

Which is really just a gimmick to stand out from other chat apps.

In the modern era of "free but paid for by data harvesting" apps, privacy is about tracking as little information as possible about customers, and anonymizing what you do track. That's what Apple is trying to shed light on with ATT and privacy nutrition labels. Giving people the information needed to make informed choices about what they're willing to share with app developers.