Interview with Facebook ad exec Graham Mudd on Facebook's plans to enhance privacy in its ads, regulation, Apple's ad tracking prompt, Google's FLoC, and more
The VergeAlex Heath
Context & Ripple Effects
This interview lands mid-arc in a fight that has been escalating for a year: Apple put its own advertising on by default in iOS 14 while forcing everyone else to ask permission to track, and by December the ad industry was openly bracing for the IDFA changes with new targeting workarounds. By early 2021 the conflict was framed as existential — analyst Eric Seufert argued Apple's privacy push threatened businesses built on targeted ads — and Facebook's response here is a public-relations countermove: an ad executive arguing the company can enhance privacy inside its own ads while questioning Apple's prompt and Google's FLoC alternative.
What makes the timing matter is that the financial damage was already visible on the horizon. Weeks after this interview, Facebook reported strong Q3 ad revenue growth but warned of continued headwinds from ATT, and reporting showed limits on its targeting were raising brand ad spends and pushing some advertisers toward Google. Mudd is effectively making Facebook's case before the numbers land.
First-order effects
Facebook is staking out a public position that it can deliver privacy-enhanced ads without Apple's opt-in prompt, aiming to keep advertiser confidence as Q3 results flagged continued headwinds from ATT.
Google's FLoC becomes both a foil and a potential ally — Facebook engaging with it signals that platform-built cohort alternatives are now the battleground where displaced third-party tracking demand settles.
The permission asymmetry Apple set up — exempting its own ad business from the prompt it imposes on rivals — gives Facebook a concrete grievance to organize advertisers around, echoing how GDPR-era cost increases drove advertisers to re-examine their Facebook commitments.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, mobile advertising structurally splits between platforms rich in first-party data (Apple, Google, Facebook itself) and everyone else dependent on rented identifiers, concentrating ad budgets further into walled gardens.
Regulators gain precedent either way: whether privacy-enhanced ad techniques satisfy policymakers or prompt-style consent spreads beyond Apple determines whether consent architecture becomes the default regulatory template.
The trend: Mobile advertising is consolidating around platforms that control both the operating system and the identity layer, with consent prompts and first-party alternatives deciding who keeps targeting power.
One consequence of FB's diminished targeting effectiveness that Im seeing manifest in real time is that smaller cos need to operate across more channels to deploy the same budget. More channels = more overhead, more analytical complexity. A new hurdle to early-stage growth (1/X)
Have I missed any news on Amazon's privacy strategy? Great stories by @Digiday and @verge today on Google and FB's moves, but how will Amazon's ad business adapt to a privacy-first world?
Facebook turning into a shopping mall definitely accelerating because of ad tracking changes on iOS — if you never leave Facebook, you don't need to be tracked. Good interview with @alexeheath and Facebook ad exec Graham Mudd: https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/...
A big effort is underway inside Facebook to rebuild how its ads work. The goal is for Facebook and its advertisers to know a lot less about users. Ironically, some of the techniques Facebook is working on are already used by Apple. https://www.theverge.com/...
Facebook is exploring “on-device learning.” Instead of sending data about users to the cloud, an algorithm runs locally on a phone to determine the kinds of ads someone would find compelling and then show them said ads. https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@paulg @eric_seufert @Dominic2306 Apple doesn't let companies (even FB) track users at the individual level without a user opt-in, which means the granularity of everything—targeting, who saw which ad when?, etc.—diminishes significantly. Which means FB's users must be modeled wi…
2/ Previously, a startup could operate exclusively on FB to reach breakout scale and possibly beyond (this wasnt without downsides, as per the link). Startups could focus on product without building a mktg org. Not the case in the new ATT environment https://mobiledevmemo.com/...
Will be interesting to see how Facebook and others adapt to Apple & Google's data changes. No matter what, the best course of action for any brand is to triple down on building customer relationships and collecting personalization data that you own. https://www.theverge.com/...
I'm calling BS on this. What you have here is Facebook realizing it failed to stop Apple and needs to buy time- what Google has done last two years - by suggesting future change. They've lost on 3P data and need to protect data between their gatekeepers(WhatsApp, blue, IG). 1/3 h…
6/ FB was essentially the MVP growth engine for startups broadly. With FB less capably routing the most relevant users to products effortlessly through Ads Manager tools, achieving provable scale becomes harder and more expensive for startups https://mobiledevmemo.com/...
@eric_seufert This is a tricky one because very early stage is now penalized even more from low scale on FB. Not driving >150 conversions per week per campaign is basically an algorithmic dead zone. So, for some startups, they need to diversify AND concentrate their tactics withi…
Another perspective on Apple's ATT change kingmaking Amazon is this article claiming some advertisers have branched out from Facebook to Amazon seeking better ROI on their ads. As @eric_seufert has argued, ATT has kicked off the rise of content fortresses https://www.bloomberg.co…
Curious if this is an extremely proactive move or one that's responding to incremental ad performance reductions due to millions of people using iOS14 to opt-out of tracking https://www.theverge.com/...
lol in all seriousness though im trying to parse apart anything novel or newsworthy in this interview, but it is extremely boring. the only thing worth taking away imo is this update on fb's (hella preliminary) multi-party computation tests https://www.facebook.com/...
Advertising system effectiveness comes from learning which ads lead people to buy things. On Amazon you see the ads and buy items on their site. For FB & Google you buy the items elsewhere so there needs to be a way for the retailer to tell them which ads drove sales. https://twi…
Privacy rules that prevent companies from sharing data about whether an ad on one site led to a sale on another effectively favors platforms like Amazon where the ad and the sale are on the same site. Google & FB now have to evolve but not Amazon who has now been made king👑 .
Apple's ATT changes have had the predicted negative effects on small advertisers on iOS. Funny enough, with the increased scrutiny of the company it's actual a bad look that they unilaterally tanked an entire ecosystem of companies to score points in a big tech dunk contest. http…
Posting this not to brag on FB—proof will be in the pudding, over several years—but to highlight how continued external privacy advocacy & policymaker action can make a huge difference in the company's basic direction. Keep holding our feet to the fire! https://www.theverge.com/.…
Today we're sharing more details about how we are approaching the next era of personalized experiences and building a portfolio of privacy-enhancing technologies: https://www.facebook.com/...