Google is considering developing an Android alternative to Apple’s upcoming transparency on app detection, a new planned opt-in requirement that the iPhone maker will impose on developers demanding that they ask permission from iOS users on various programs and websites. The news, first reported on Thursday by Bloomberg, emphasizes the increasing pressure on large technology companies, many of which are encouraged by Apple, to take more proactive measures to better protect the privacy of users.
Google will not say whether it is working on an anti-detection privacy measure for Android. But in a statement, a Google spokesman said The edge, “We’re always looking for ways to work with developers to raise the privacy limit while enabling a healthy, ad-supported app ecosystem.”
The App Tracking Transparency, announced first summer at Apple’s developer conference last year, shifts a system-level choice between app tracking and a user’s preferences. If the user says they would rather not be tracked down, the developer can do nothing about it, as Apple will exclude a developer’s ability to collect the so-called Identifier for Advertisers code, or IDFA. The code allows advertisers to track users from one app or website to another for ad targeting, while also helping advertisers measure the effectiveness of ads, such as whether a user ends up buying a product they saw in one app by using the merchant’s mobile site. .
Apple plans to use police developers using audits and other methods to enforce their policies, which may include suspending or banning apps in the App Store if a developer does not comply. Both Facebook and Google have publicly expressed concern about how Apple’s subscriber review could negatively impact their mobile advertising networks. But Facebook went a step further and began waging a PR war against Apple over the change, complaining that it would harm small businesses and accusing Apple of being self-serving.
Google’s approach to app tracking transparency is unlikely to be so serious, Bloomberg reports. Instead of forcing appropriate requirements on app developers, the Android alternative may look like some of the upcoming privacy controls planned for Google’s Chrome browser, in which the company seeks to put an end to the more insidious tracking technologies on the internet by developing less intrusive. alternatives and to give users more opt-out mechanisms.
Google’s work to develop new privacy practices and standards for the Internet is known as the Privacy Sandbox. As part of the ongoing project, Google has taken steps to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome and is working on tools that allow advertisers to target groups of users instead of targeting individuals directly. All of this could inform how Google is developing an anti-detection tool for Android, Bloomberg reports.