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| Apple reached a truce on privacy changes in iPhone |
Apple is letting app developers collect data from one billion iPhone users for targeted advertising, a little-known change that allows the company to be more flexible about its controversial privacy policy.
In May, the company announced to the public its changes to data protection. I posted an ad that if you choose iPhone, you will choose Privacy.
But after seven months, companies like Snap and Meta were allowed to continue collecting user-level data from the iPhone. As long as the data is anonymised, aggregated, and not tied to a specific user account.
For example, Snap announced to investors that it plans to share the data of 306 million users, including those who requested not to be tracked.
Likewise, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg (Sheryl Sandberg), said Meta is part of a multi-year effort to rebuild the advertising infrastructure with more aggregated or anonymized data.
These companies pointed out that Apple told developers that it cannot extract any data from the device to uniquely identify the device.
This means that they can hear iPhone prompts at the group level. This makes it possible to tailor ads to groups consistent with certain behaviours. But it is not associated with a unique identifier.
This type of tracking has become the norm. It is not clear whether Apple will accept such a solution.
But the company appears to have to abandon the strict reading of its rules. In fact, the damage to the mobile advertising ecosystem is quite significant.
Apple App Tracking Transparency Isn't an Instant Privacy Button
For anyone who carefully interprets the company's rules, these solutions violate the privacy rules for iOS users.
Company policy does not prevent third party tracking. He did many tests with the best apps and found that in almost all cases personal data and device information are still sent to the tracker.
The company that collects data at the user level claims that apps keep sending information because some apps need this kind of information to function properly.
Advertisers need to understand certain content, such as: b. User language or device screen size, otherwise the application experience is insufficient.
The danger is that non-transparent third parties are allowed to use user-level data as long as they promise not to misuse it. Apple trusts the same group that CEO Tim Cook has criticized.
These companies promise that once the data is anonymised, it will be shown at the user level. But there is no access to the data or the algorithms that work behind the scenes. Users do not know if their data has been treated confidentially.