In the coming months, Apple will require application developers to disclose and opt for tracking. A new report said that Google is considering similar privacy measures for Android.
According Bloomberg, “Google is exploring an alternative to the new anti-tracking feature from Apple Inc.” He is specifically looking to limit data collection and tracking between applications as users become more aware of privacy, given Apple’s competing moves to emphasize and advertise this aspect of its operating system.
The Android team, however, needs to balance Google’s advertising business. Today’s report says that these efforts will be “less rigorous” than what Apple is doing, by not requiring people to explicitly opt in to tracking before they can continue using an application. Today, Android allows you to “disable Ad Personalization” in system preferences (Application Settings> Privacy> Ads), as well as reset identifiers.
This approach on iOS is set to go live this spring and has been widely criticized by the advertising industry. End users are expected to refuse “tracking” when requested and therefore will no longer see personalized ads. Generic ads instead will be less profitable. In fact, Google told developers that they monetize apps with ads to expect a significant impact on their revenue.
Google is still in the “early stages” of limiting crawling on Android. He is seeking input from stakeholders, with the approach possibly modeled after the Privacy Sandbox and Chrome’s plan to replace third-party cookies with alternatives more concerned with privacy. For example, replacing a cookie involves having advertisers target only groups of users with similar interests, rather than individuals.
Bloomberg reports that the company “has not decided when, or if, it will move forward with the changes”. Given that, it is not clear whether the measures will be included in Android 12 or launched in the next version.
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