The privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo called out rival Google for “spying” on users after the search giant updated its flagship app to specify the exact types of information it collects for personalization and marketing purposes.
“After months of inactivity, Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome and the Google app. No wonder they wanted to hide it,” the company said. said in a tweet. “Spying on users has nothing to do with building a great web browser or search engine.”
The “privacy food labels” are part of a new policy that went into effect on December 8, 2020, requiring app developers to disclose their data collection practices and help users understand how their personal information is used.
DuckDuckGo’s innuendo comes because Google has been steadily adding app privacy labels to its iOS apps over the past few weeks in accordance with Apple’s App Store rules, but not before a three-month delay affecting most of its apps caused. to go without being updated, lending credence to theories that the company had discontinued iOS app updates as a result of Apple’s enforcement.
An analysis of app data collection by cloud storage company pCloud, released earlier this month, showed that 52% of apps share user data with third parties, with 80% of apps using the collected data to “ put their own products in the market ”. app ‘and display advertisements on other platforms.
For its part, Apple last week updated its privacy website with a new ‘Labels’ section that highlights the privacy labels for all of Apple’s apps in one place, making it easier for users to learn how Apple apps handle their personal data.
App tracking transparency explained
Additionally, an upcoming privacy update for iOS 14.5 will also require apps to ask for users’ consent before tracking them across other apps and websites using the device’s advertising ID (aka IDFA) as part of a new framework called App Tracking Transparency (ATT).
The IDFA (or IDFA for Advertisers) – created by Apple in 2012 – has been traditionally used by businesses and marketers to keep tabs on individuals between different apps to show tailored ads and track how their ad campaigns performed.
Imagine scrolling through your Instagram feed and you see an ad for a smartphone. You don’t tap on the ad, instead you go on Google, search for the same smartphone you saw on Instagram and buy them.
Once this purchase is made, the merchant will register the IDFA of the user who bought the phone and shared it with Facebook, which can then determine if the ID matches the user who saw an ad for the smartphone.
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With the new changes, it is no longer possible for apps and third-party partners to accurately measure the effectiveness of their ads without asking explicit permission from users to sign up to be tracked using the ID while they are from one app Jump to the other, a move that has spooked Facebook and others who sell mobile ads, which rely heavily on this identifier, to target ads to users.
In other words, while companies can still track users through their own first-party services, they cannot share that information with third parties without users’ consent.
In what could be a sign of things to come, an analysis by the mobile advertising agency AppsFlyer found that 99% of users chose not to allow tracking, after several third-party developers integrated Apple’s ATT into their apps.
“Technology doesn’t need a huge wealth of personal data aggregated across dozens of websites and apps to succeed. Advertising existed and thrived for decades without it,” Apple CEO Tim Cook explained the change in a Jan. 28 speech at the Computers. , Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) conference. “If a business is built on deceptive users, on data exploitation, on choices that aren’t choices at all, then it doesn’t deserve our credit. It deserves reform.”
The development is because technology giants, including Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook, are under increased regulatory and privacy scrutiny in the US and Europe for having amassed massive market power and for their collection of personal information, which has resulted in to the formation of new data protection. laws aimed at protecting the privacy of users.
On Wednesday, the French competition regulator rejected calls from advertising companies and publishers to block ATT on antitrust grounds, stating that the privacy initiative “does not appear to reflect abuse of a dominant position by Apple,” but added that it would persist. examine the changes to ensure that “Apple has not applied less restrictive rules” to its own apps, indicating how measures designed to protect users’ privacy could run counter to regulating online competition.
It’s worth noting that Google separately announced plans to stop supporting third-party cookies in its Chrome browser by early 2022, while stressing that it wouldn’t build alternative identifiers or tools to track users around the web.
Advertisers are testing a new tool to bypass ATT
But that hasn’t stopped advertisers from trying workarounds to bypass iOS privacy protections, putting them back on a collision course with Apple.
According to the Financial Times, the Chinese Advertising Association (CAA) has developed an ID called the China Anonymization ID (or CAID) that is intended to bypass Apple’s new privacy rules and allow companies to continue to track users without becoming dependent. are from IDFA.
“CAID has the characteristics of anonymity and decentralization, does not collect private data, only transmits the encrypted result, and the encrypted result is irreversible, which can effectively protect the privacy and data security of the end user; the decentralized design allows developers to have more flexible access to business needs, ” explained a Guangzhou-based ad technology company called TrackingIO in a now-deleted article.
“Because CAID is not dependent on Apple IDFA and can generate a device identification ID independently of IDFA, it can be used as an alternative to device identification in iOS 14 and as an additional solution when IDFA is not available,” it added.
While CAID has yet to be formally implemented, the tool is reportedly being tested by some of China’s largest technology companies, including ByteDance and Tencent, with “several foreign advertising companies have already signed up on behalf of their Chinese divisions,” the report said.
It remains to be seen whether Apple will give the green light to this proposal from the CAA, which is reportedly “currently actively communicating” with the Cupertino-based company, with the report claiming that “Apple is aware of the tool and appears to have so far turned a blind eye to using it. “
“The App Store terms and conditions and guidelines apply equally to all developers around the world, including Apple,” the iPhone maker told FT. “We believe that users should be asked for their consent before being tracked. Apps found to be overriding the user’s choice will be rejected.”