Facebook says Apple's new privacy rules could hurt smaller app companies

In turn, Facebook collects data about users from the apps where it serves those ads, which it uses to inform highly tailored targeting throughout its business.

Apple has for years provided a tool called the identifier for advertisers, or IDFA, that allowed Facebook and others to engage in such tracking of users across apps.

As an alternative to the tracking tools it previously provided advertisers, Apple created a new advertising network technology that it says better protects user privacy. Facebook on Wednesday said it would stop using Apples older tracking tools in its own apps and adopt Apples new offering, though it said Apples new technology limits the data available to businesses for running and measuring campaigns.

The changes Facebook announced Wednesday will fall hardest on ads that prompt users to install new mobile apps, a format that is heavily used in the video game industry.

John Nardone, chief executive of ad serving software company Flashtalking, said Apples move to restrict its ad business could be viewed as anti-competitive by raising prices for consumers used to free, ad-supported apps.

Theres self-interest in Apple doing this because as the advertising revenue stream becomes more difficult, then apps have to charge users and Apple, as you know from the Epic Games case, takes 30% of that, Nardone said.

Many rely on what is known as first-party data, such as which stories a user reads, to determine which ads to show, an activity which is not subject to Apples new rules.

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