Report Reveals Apple Employees Internally Unhappy With Plans to Show More Ads to iPhone Users

https://www.macrumors.com/2022/11/15/apple-employees-unhappy-with-ads-for-iphone-users/

A new report has revealed internal disagreement within Apple, causing some employees who work on the company's ads business to raise concerns that showing more ads to iPhone users ruins the premium experience that's been long offered to its customers.

The lengthy report by The Information takes a deep dive into how Apple's ads team operates and internal concerns that the company's already growing ads business is going too far. According to the report, for example, Apple's ads salespeople are forbidden from using specific keywords when talking about the company's ads business. Salespeople should use "audience refinement" instead of saying "targeting," "platform" instead of "algorithm," and "competitor keywords" and "brand defenses" instead of "conquesting."

An Apple spokesperson, responding to the list of forbidden words, told The Information that the company wants employees to use language that is appropriate to Apple's offerings and that terms such as "targeting" do not apply since Apple doesn't let advertisers target specific users. Apple does not allow advertisers to target a demographic of less than 5,000 users to safeguard user privacy, according to the company.

While publicly, Apple displays a unified front on ads, especially those in the App Store meant to help developers gain more users and customers discover more apps, internally, employees are less than satisfied with the current approach. In internal chatrooms, at least seven employees who worked on Apple's ads team voiced concerns that the company is going too far in its ads business and will damage the premium experience of using an ‌iPhone‌. The report reveals that in 2018, Apple had plans to show users ads in Spotlight search on iOS, but it was reportedly abandoned after possible internal backlash.