Google revamps Android ad tracking

17 February 2022

Google revamps to limit ad tracking on its Android operating system, which is used by billions of devices, a sensitive privacy issue that rival Apple has already addressed on its iPhones.

As users complain and regulators threaten tougher rules, tech behemoths are under increasing pressure to better balance privacy and ad targeting — but the companies themselves are attempting to maintain access to the valuable data that helps them earn billions in ad revenue.

Apple controls roughly half of the US smartphone market, while Google’s Android software is installed on roughly 85 percent of smartphones worldwide.

Any changes to Android may thus have an impact on the data of billions of users.

At the moment, the internet search giant assigns an identity to Android-powered devices, allowing advertisers to build a profile of people’s online habits and send them ads that they might be interested in.

“Our goal… is to develop effective and privacy-enhancing advertising solutions, where users know their information is secure and developers and businesses have the tools they need to succeed on mobile,” Google said in a statement.

It was a change that Apple claimed demonstrates its commitment to privacy, but critics pointed out that it does not prevent the company from tracking its users.

Apple’s change has sent shockwaves through the tech world, with Facebook parent Meta estimating that the policy will cost the social media giant $10 billion in revenue this year.

There will be a significant impact because less data will affect the precision of the ads Meta and other companies can sell, and thus their price.

Google stated that “we plan to support existing ads platform features for at least two years, and we intend to provide substantial notice ahead of any future changes.”

The company stated that it is working on ways to better protect users’ privacy, including “limiting user data sharing with third parties and operating without cross-app identifiers, including advertising ID.”

It compared its plans to those of Apple, saying, “we recognize that other platforms have taken a different approach to ad privacy, bluntly restricting existing technologies used by developers and advertisers.”

While Google revamps claims that the changes will protect users’ anonymity, they may also strengthen the tech giant’s already dominant position in the digital advertising industry.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, earned more than $60 billion in ad revenue alone in the fourth quarter of 2021, accounting for more than 80% of its total revenue.

“Google has a number of ways around (tracking), because they monitor so much of what you do and control so much of what happens in the web search environment,” analyst Rob Enderle said.

“Tracking is much more important to Facebook than it is to Google,” he added, referring to the search giant’s numerous online services, which provide a more diverse set of user data.