Apple's privacy changes have cost big tech over $300 billion so far

The losses come following Apple's privacy changes that went into effect in April 2021.

The changes Apple made to iOS made it so that users must opt-in to allow ad-tracking by social media applications instead of an opt-out from it being enabled by default. Rather than an opt-out option being relegated to deep in the settings menu, a pop-up now appears before opening an app that uses advertising and data collection.

"Like others in our industry, we faced headwinds as a result of Apple iOS changes. Apple created two challenges for advertisers: one is that the accuracy of our ads targeting decreased, which increased the cost of driving outcomes; the other is that measuring those outcomes became more difficult," Meta Platform chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said in its earnings call.

Meta Platforms CFO David Wehner estimates that the privacy changes cost the company $10 billion in revenue. When comparing market values from April 26th, 2021 to the present, Meta Platforms has lost $205 billion, Snap has lost $51 billion, Twitter has lost $26 billion, and Pinterest has lost $33 billion, for a combined $315 billion in market value losses.