Google is assuming steps to make Android apps more private
Google’s plan to restrict data tracking on its Chrome browser has been expanded to include apps on its Android-powered smartphones.
Its Privacy Sandbox project aims to limit the amount of user data that advertisers can collect. Rival Apple now requires app developers to obtain user permission before tracking them.
The news will be devastating to companies like Meta, which rely on putting their code on apps to track consumer behavior.
This month, Meta estimated that Apple’s changes would cost it $10 billion (£7.3 billion) this year. Around 85 percent of smartphone owners worldwide use Google’s Android operating system.
There is no specificity
Third-party cookies, which use people’s browsing history to target advertisements, will be phased out of Google Chrome by 2023. Google declared in a blog post that it is now extending its Privacy Sandbox to Android apps and working on solutions. That will limit sharing users’ data and “operate without cross-app identifiers, including advertising ID.”
These identifiers are associate with smartphones and are use by apps to collect data. Google stated that it would maintain them for at least two years while working “with the industry” on a new system.
“We’re also looking into technologies that reduce the potential for covert data collection. Such as safer ways for apps to integrate with advertising SDK (software developer kits),” the company said.
The tech behemoth did not elaborate on how it intends to accomplish this.
In April of last year, Apple decided that app developers must explicitly ask users for permission to use IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers). However, according to data from the advertising company Flurry Analytics and published by Apple. US users choose to opt-out of tracking 96 percent of the time.
Google’s blog did not specifically mention Apple, instead referring to “other platforms” that “have taken a different approach to ad privacy. Bluntly restricting existing technologies used by developers and advertisers.”
“We believe that such approaches can be ineffective without first providing a privacy-preserving alternative path,” it added. Google, unlike Apple, is primarily support by advertising revenue.
