Google announced plans on Wednesday to limit ad tracking on its Android operating system, a sensitive privacy issue that rival Apple has already moved to address on its iPhones.
Tech giants are under increasing pressure to better balance privacy and targeted advertising, as users complain, regulators threaten tougher rules, but companies themselves try to keep access to key data for their many billions in ad revenue.
Apple and Google’s operating software runs on most of the world’s smartphones, so any changes they make to their policies have the potential to affect billions of users.
“Our goal … is to develop effective and privacy-enhancing advertising solutions, where users know their information is protected, and developers and businesses have the tools to succeed on mobile devices,” Google said in a statement.
For its part, Apple announced last year that users of its one billion iPhones in circulation can decide whether to allow their online activity to be tracked for the purpose of ad targeting.
It was a change that Apple said shows its focus is on privacy, but which critics said doesn’t stop the company from tracking its users.
Apple’s tweak has caused an uproar in the tech world, with Facebook parent company Meta saying it expects the policy to cost the social media giant $10 billion in lost revenue this year.
A strong impact is expected because less data will affect the accuracy of ads that Meta and other companies are able to sell, and thus their price.
Billions of online advertising
Google gave an indication of the timing of the announced changes, saying “we plan to support existing ad platform features for at least two years, and we intend to provide substantial notice before any future changes.”
Currently, the Internet search giant assigns an identity to Android devices, which allows advertisers to have a profile of people’s habits and thus send them ads that may interest them.
Google said it is working on ways to better protect users’ privacy, which would “limit sharing of user data with third parties and operate without cross-app identifiers, including advertising identification.”
He compared his plans to Apple’s moves, saying, “We realize that other platforms have taken a different approach to ad privacy, bluntly restricting existing technologies used by developers and advertisers.”
While Google argued that the changes would protect users’ anonymity, they could also further strengthen the stranglehold the tech giant already has over the digital advertising industry.
Google’s parent company Alphabet made more than $60 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021 in ad revenue alone, accounting for more than 80 percent of its revenue.
But new pressure to change is building at Big Tech due to the advancement of landmark European legislation that could establish unprecedented oversight, and similar efforts are underway in the United States.
Last year’s Facebook whistleblower scandal gave a boost to regulation efforts long stalled by sharp partisan divisions in Washington, but so far no major legislation has gained significant momentum.
In the absence of action by federal government legislation or regulations, states have launched their own lawsuits.
In one such complaint filed in January, multiple states accuse Google of tracking users’ location data even though consumers believe they can protect their privacy on its services.
Source Credit: TheGuardian
