The privacy-focused search engine, DuckDuckGo, called on rival Google to “spy” on users after the search giant updated its flagship app to explain the exact type of information it collects for personalization and marketing purposes. .
“After months of downtime, Google finally revealed how much personal data they collected in Chrome and the Google app. It’s not uncommon for them to want to hide it,” the company said. dit in a tweet. “Spying on users has nothing to do with creating a great web browser or search engine.”
“Privacy Nutrition Labels” are part of a new policy that went into effect on December 8, 2020, forcing app developers to disclose their data collection practices and help users understand how ‘uses your personal information.
DuckDuckGo’s hint comes as Google has been constantly adding app privacy tags to its iOS apps over the past few weeks according to Apple’s App Store rules, but not before ‘a three-month delay that caused most of its applications. go without updating, giving confidence to the theories that the company had stopped updating the iOS app as a result of the Apple app.
An analysis of the data collection practices of the cloud storage company pCloud published earlier this month found that 52% of applications share user data with third parties, and 80% of applications use the data collected to “market their own products in the app” and run ads on other platforms.
For its part, Apple updated its privacy website last week with a new “Tags” section that highlights the privacy tags of all Apple apps together in one place, making it easier for users to access information. about how Apple applications manage your personal data.
The transparency of application tracking has been explained
In addition, an upcoming privacy update to iOS 14.5 will also require apps to seek user consent before tracking through other apps and websites using the device’s ad identifier (also called IDFA) as part of a new framework called Application Tracking Transparency).
The IDFA (or identifier for advertisers), created by Apple in 2012, has traditionally been used by businesses and marketers to monitor people across different applications in order to run personalized ads and monitor the performance of their advertising campaigns.
For example, imagine scrolling through your Instagram feed and see an ad for a smartphone. Don’t touch your ad, just go to Google, search for the same smartphone you saw on Instagram, and buy them.
Once this purchase is made, the retailer records the IDFA of the user who purchased the phone and shared it with Facebook, which can determine if the identifier corresponds to the user who saw an ad for the smartphone. · Ligent.
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With new changes, third-party apps and partners can no longer accurately measure the effectiveness of their ads without explicitly asking users for permission to track using their identifier as they jump from one app to another. a measure that has annoyed Facebook and others who sell mobile ads who rely heavily on this identifier to help target ads to users.
In other words, while companies can still track users through their own services autonomously, they cannot share this information with third parties without the users ’permission.
In what could be a sign of things to come, an analysis by mobile advertising firm AppsFlyer found that after several third-party developers integrated Apple’s ATT into their apps, 99% of users opted out. to not allow tracking.
“Technology does not need large amounts of personal data, grouped in dozens of websites and applications, to be successful. Advertising existed and thrived for decades without it,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a speech. January 28 at Computers, Conference on Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP). “If a company relies on misleading users, on data mining, on options that are no choice, it doesn’t deserve praise. It deserves reform.”
The development comes as technology giants such as Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook have been subjected to intense regulatory and privacy scrutiny in the US and Europe for accumulating immense market power and for their collection of personal information, which led to the formation of new data protections. laws designed to safeguard user privacy.
On Wednesday, France’s competition regulator rejected calls from advertising companies and publishers to block the ATT on antitrust grounds, saying the privacy initiative “does not appear to reflect an abuse of a dominant position by Apple.” , but added that it would continue to investigate the changes to make sure “Apple has not applied less restrictive rules” to its own applications, indicating that measures designed to protect users’ privacy may counter online competition regulation .
It is worth noting that Google has separately announced plans to stop supporting third-party cookies in its Chrome browser in early 2022, stressing that it would not build identifiers or alternative tools to track users across the web.
Advertisers are testing a new tool to circumvent ATT
But that hasn’t stopped advertisers from trying alternative solutions to avoid iOS privacy protections, setting them up once again in a collision course with Apple.
According to the Financial Times, the Chinese Advertising Association (CAA) has developed an identifier called China Anonymization ID (or CAID) that seeks to circumvent Apple’s new privacy rules and allow companies to continue tracking users without having to trust 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 design Decentralized allows developers more flexible access to meet business needs, ”explained a Guangzhou-based advertising technology company called TrackingIO, in a writing that has already been removed.
“Because CAID is not dependent on Apple IDFA and can generate a device ID identifier independently of IDFA, it can be used as an alternative to device identification in iOS 14 and as an add-on when IDFA is unavailable. “, added.
Although CAID has yet to be formally implemented, some of China’s largest technology companies, including ByteDance and Tencent, say the tool is currently being tested, as “several foreign advertising companies have already On behalf of its Chinese divisions, “according to the report.
It remains to be seen whether Apple will give the green light to this CAA proposal, which is said to be “currently actively communicating” with the Cupertino-based company, with the report stating that “Apple is aware of the tool and it looks like he has so far turned a blind eye to his use. “
“The terms and guidelines of the App Store apply equally to all developers around the world, including Apple,” the iPhone maker told FT. “We firmly believe that users should be asked for their permission before tracking them. Applications that they consider do not take into account the user’s choice will be rejected.”