LinkedIn to stop collecting tracking data ahead of Apple’s anti-tracking changes

The company said it would not track Identifier for Advertising data on iOS.

LinkedIn has decided to stop iOS apps’ collection of IDFA data for now. (Pixabay)

LinkedIn has announced that it will stop collecting Identifier for Advertising (IDFA) data on iOS. The move comes in the wake of Apple's anti-tracking features set to be rolled out for iOS users.

Linkedin said the move would affect its LinkedIn Audience Network (LAN), Conversion Tracking and Matched Audiences. The change, however, will have a limited impact on campaign performance. LinkedIn added that it did not foresee any critical changes for the campaign on the platform.

The professional social networking platform also added that it would regularly re-evaluate the collection of IDFA data.

“Our plan is to leverage our first-party data to help marketers reach buyer groups, which are critical for success in B2B marketing, so they can achieve better value for their campaigns across all LinkedIn placements.,” the company added.

LinkedIn's response to Apple's new privacy features is in stark contrast with Facebook's. Mark Zuckerberg has maintained that Apple's move would hurt its revenue as well as small and medium businesses on its network. Facebook has also launched multiple campaigns against Apple's anti-tracking features.

“Apple may say that they are doing this to help people, but the moves clearly track their competitive interests," Zuckerberg said during an investor call in January this year.

Apple has rejected Facebook's arguments that the changes would hurt the online ad industry. It also maintained that users should have more control over their data.

“When invasive tracking is your business model, you tend not to welcome transparency and customer choice,” Apple's software chief Craig Federighi said in December.

As far as LinkedIn goes, the Microsoft-owned company has now cleared the air over its position on Apple's privacy features. Last year, LinkedIn and many other platforms had drawn ire for secretly reading iPhone clipped data. It also faced a lawsuit last year for accessing the clipped data.