Peloton Latest to Complain That Apple Privacy Hurts Ability to Target Users

Fitness company Peloton recently held an earnings call with analysts and mentioned that Apple’s privacy features with iOS have negatively affected its ad revenue (via Bloomberg).
Privacy and Advertising
On Monday a report surfaced that showed how App Tracking Transparency affected social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Snap. Now Peloton says it too has been impacted, although didn’t share by how much.
Revenue rose 6% to $805.2 million last quarter. That was just above Peloton’s $800 million forecast, but below the roughly $809 million anticipated by analysts. The company posted a net loss of $1.25 a share.
The slim growth came from a 94% increase in revenue from subscriptions, which totaled $304.1 million. Hardware sales fell 17% to $501 million in the first quarter.
Introduced in iOS 14.5, App Tracking Transparency forces an app to display a dialog box when the developer wants to collect your data. People can choose Allow or Don’t Allow. The toggle, found in Settings > Privacy > Tracking, is turned off by default. When it’s turned off the app can’t ask and can’t track you.
Apple gives people a choice with App Tracking Transparency, and the feature is enabled by default.  It’s telling how these companies try to paint “user choice” as negative. The message is clear: People don’t want to be tracked.
Tags: Advertising, featured, iOS, privacy