Google does not want to be left behind in the privacy trends that Apple started with its App Transparency Tracking on iOS 14. That is why it announced new functions for Android users to decide whether or not the applications installed on their devices can track their activity.
According to an entry in its, Google announced that as part of an update to Google Play Services, the advertising ID will be removed if the user decides to exclude the personalization of the ads from the Settings of their Android device.
This new feature will be available “from the end of 2021”, according to the company, which highlighted that “interest-based advertising or ad personalization” will be excluded, which means that people will not stop receiving advertising , but it will no longer be contextualized according to your tastes.
“Any attempt to access the identifier will receive a string of zeros instead of the identifier,” detailed Google. “To assist developers and advertising / analytics service providers with compliance efforts and to respect user choice, they may receive notifications about opt-out preferences.”
To activate the new option, users will have to go to the “Settings” of their device. Later, they should look for the “Google” section and in that place select “Services”. At that point, it will only be necessary to go to “Ads”, where you must check the “Disable ad personalization” box.
It is worth mentioning that initially, the deployment of this new update will impact Android 12 users and then it will be extended to other versions of the operating system in early 2022. However, the approach seems different from Apple, since Google’s configuration it would be global and not an individual deactivation of each application.
While the measure implemented by Apple upset companies like Facebook, arguing that the provision would affect businesses that use these tracking features to target their ads to their customers, the impact (and annoyance) within Mark Zuckerberg’s company could be older.
And it is that the impact on your advertising business will be more relevant, since the number of iOS users is minimal compared to those of Android globally. According to Sameer Samar, vice president of product management at Google, in the world there are 3 billion devices that work with this operating system.
On the other hand, this decision is related to the one announced at the beginning of May by Google, in relation to the fact that they will also show labels in the applications with the information that they track about their users.
According to Suzanne Frey, vice president of product, security and privacy at Google, this action was taken with the purpose of “helping people to understand the data that an application collects or shares, if that data is protected and additional details that affect privacy and security ”.
He also said that they are also aimed at improving the transparency of the applications and allowing users to exercise greater control over their data, such as location, contacts or even personal information such as an email address.
Even these initiatives tie in with mountain View tech’s efforts to find replacements for cookies, which are the trackers through which the online search giant sells highly personalized ad space, and which may soon come to an end.
