Apple’s App Store homepage will soon feature ads

Apple has famously bragged that it will never invade your privacy to serve ads, but it does have an ad business on its App Store and elsewhere. The company is now expanding that business by adding a new ad slot to its “Today” homepage tab and on individual app pages, 9to5Mac reported. Those are on top of the ads already found on the App Store’s main “Search” tab and in the Search results. 

“Apple Search Ads provides opportunities for developers of all sizes to grow their business,” Apple wrote. “Like our other advertising offerings, these new ad placements are built upon the same foundation—they will only contain content from apps’ approved App Store product pages, and will adhere to the same rigorous privacy standards.”

The Today tab is the first thing that loads in the App Store and features a curated and personalized selection of apps to browse (it arrived in 2017 with a significant App Store redesign). The other new space is in the “You Might Also Like” section of an app’s product page. The new ads will let developers promote apps alongside Apple’s own content and are clearly marked as ads. 

The new slots will adhere to Apple’s policies on privacy and transparency, by not offering personalized ads to users under 18, never using sensitive data and avoiding hyper-targeting, Apple said. The company didn’t say when the new ad slots will appear, but Apple plans to start testing them “soon.”