Report: Only 4% of iOS users in the U.S. opt in to ad tracking

According to Flurry Analytics, which has been tracking daily opt-in and opt-out rates following the release of iOS 14.5 late last month, about 4% of daily users in the U.S. allow apps to access their Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) tags. This number is based on a sample of 2.5 million daily mobile active users.

[[397930]]

If other countries are taken into account, the percentage increases, with about 11% of the 5.3 million daily active users worldwide opting in to ad tracking. The daily percentage is calculated by dividing the number of devices that have opted in by the total number of devices that have opted in and out using AT&T.

Interestingly, Flurry's data suggests that people are actively opting out of tracking requests. The company found that only 4% of iOS 14.5 users disabled the "Allow Apps to Ask to Track" option in Settings. Turning off the "Allow Apps to Ask to Track" option automatically limits IDFA data access and excludes apps from requesting tracking permissions.

Integrated into the latest iOS, iPadOS, and tvOS revisions, AT&T is a new feature that requires developers to ask before tracking users' movements across other apps and the web. Critics say Apple has touted it as an important user privacy tool, but requiring permission for ad tracking will make users reluctant to participate, hurting businesses that rely on advertising revenue.

Apple offers a suite of secure advertising attribution tools as privacy-focused alternatives to industry-standard tracking methods. These systems, including SKAdNetwork and Privacy Click Measurement, do not directly identify users and can therefore be integrated without explicit user permission.

Developers are still adjusting to the new guidelines, and a report published shortly after iOS 14.5 debuted suggested that about 10,000 apps had created the necessary user request prompts. According to some estimates, the App Store has about 2 million apps.