By Rachel Lerman, Technology Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) --Apple says its services respect your digital boundaries — and it wants you to know it.
The company took several opportunities Monday to emphasize user privacy — and indirectly take a jab at rivals — at its splashy, celebrity-laden event in Cupertino, California.
Apple announced a new streaming TV service, a paid subscription level for its news app, a video game service and an Apple-branded credit card, as it tries to push its services businesses to make up for a decline in sales of the iPhone.
The new services will pit Apple against the likes of Google and Facebook in news, and Amazon and Netflix in streaming video. But unlike many of its competitors, Apple said it won't use your news preferences and spending history to sell advertising.
Facebook, Google and other tech companies have come under fire for the amount of data they collect on users to sell advertising. Apple has largely escaped this backlash and has sought to set itself apart by emphasizing its privacy safeguards. Apple has been able to do so because the bulk of its business is in hardware, namely iPhones.
Apple wants to reassure customers that it's still committed to privacy with the new push on services.
It's a way for Apple to remind people that the company is more consumer-friendly than many of its competitors, said eMarketer analyst Paul Verna. He said the strategy is especially important because Apple is a late entrant to the streaming market.
"It doesn't surprise me that they hit that pretty hard," he said. "Apple has always been different from their competitors in that they are not very advertising-centric."
Apple News Plus, which charges $10 a month for articles from some magazines and newspapers, will make article recommendations within the app. Apple said it will not send information about what you read to its servers.
Though publishers will be paid based on how many people read, Apple says data will be collected in such a way that it won't know who read what, just what total time is spent on different stories.
Similarly with its credit card, Apple will store purchase information on devices that the card is tied to. The company said it won't send that information to its servers or sell it to third-party companies for marketing and advertising.
"Apple doesn't know where a customer shopped, what they bought or how much they paid," the company promised in announcing its new credit card, the Apple Card.
The paid gaming and TV streaming services will be ad-free, Apple pledged.
Games won't be able to collect data or track how people play without getting consent, though Apple didn't elaborate on what getting consent entails.
Apple also said its TV service will not share user's personal information with anyone.
Effie UK and Ipsos Report Concludes Marketing Industry Should Do Its Part To Heal Societal Divisions
Society has never been more divided, according to a new report Healing the Divide in which Effie UK and brand and advertising experts from Ipsos explored brands’ role in shaping society and healing societal divisions.
The report details how instability, inflation, and COVID recovery —the convergence of multiple interconnected crises around the world that coincide with and amplify each other, causing hard to resolve systemic challenges, have become the norm over the past few years. As a result, the use of division as a weapon is now a major theme in today’s culture and politics, and sadly 47% of the UK and 49% of the US agree with the statement that “Within my lifetime, society in my country will break down,” according to Ipsos Global Trends 2024.
While some brands have tried to respond to this, the report finds responsible marketing is now threatened by weaponized division. It points to the World Federation of Advertisers’ decision to shut down the Global Alliance for Responsible Media following an antitrust lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s X, combined with DEI rollbacks, as significant setbacks.
The report says these setbacks underline the importance of marketing in solving collective problems, such as climate change, food security, and harmful online content. It also points to a need for marketers to take more interest in and more responsibility for healing divisions.
Research claims marketers are ideally placed to build and rebuild the antidote to division (trust, empathy, a sense of control, connection and collaboration). According to the Ipsos Veracity index of trusted professionals, society is becoming more trustworthy of advertising executives. Additionally, 57% of Britons agree that brands should communicate their... Read More