app tracking transparency

Apple may expand its advertising to more of its apps and services, including pre-installed iPhone apps like Maps, Books, and Podcasts.

Bloomberg’s reliable Mark Gurman detailed in a recent newsletter that the Cupertino, California-based company has internally tested some expanded ad ideas, including search ads in Maps. These search ads would work similarly to the App Store, where developers can pay to have their apps show up in higher rankings for certain search terms.

It’s less clear how Apple would serve ads in Podcasts or Books, but it may work similarly to search ads in the App Store. For example, publishers could pay to have their podcast or book placed higher in search results, or there could be dedicated places in these apps to place ads.

Apple TV+ could also see expanded advertising. Gurman notes that Apple put ads for its ‘Friday Night Baseball‘ deal with Major League Baseball (MLB) on TV+ — that could be the first of many ads on the platform. Gurman goes so far as to suggest Apple could launch an ad-supported tier of TV+, similar to Disney+ and Netflix.

Currently, Apple shows ads inside of the App Store, News app, and Stocks app across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The majority of Apple’s apps and services remain ad-free, which has long been a point in Apple’s favour compared to other companies. Notably, Samsung eventually caved and removed ads from its pre-installed apps after tons of complaints from users and the media.

Expanding ads at odds with Apple’s privacy message

However, expanding its ads business could drum up issues for Apple. Users could complain about how Apple, generally considered a ‘premium’ brand, is filling its $1,000+ devices with ads. However, a more difficult thing for the company to navigate will be its self-imposed reputation for privacy, features like App Tracking Transparency (ATT), and how to reconcile all of that with expanding its own advertising network.

ATT, for those unfamiliar with the feature, forces apps to ask for users’ permission to collect and sell data tied to their personal advertising identity. Typically the first time someone launches an app, they’ll see a pop-up asking if they’re okay being tracked. Social networks like Facebook (Meta) claimed ATT cost them billions in advertising. While most people probably don’t care if Meta loses money over ATT, it’s worth noting that the feature could also hurt smaller developers and companies.

But, this all ignores the fact that ATT doesn’t actually do much for user privacy, since tapping the ‘Ask app not to track’ button only stops it from using the Apple-supplied advertising ID for tracking users across apps and websites. But this doesn’t stop companies from tracking stuff in their app, or across a suite of apps they control — for example, Meta can use data collected from Instagram to target ads in Facebook. Moreover, it doesn’t stop apps from tracking users with other metrics, with studies finding that some apps collect a ton of information about users’ devices to create a digital fingerprint of them and track them that way.

Apple’s apps don’t need to ask for permission to track users

ATT issues aside, critics have noted Apple doesn’t show the ATT pop-up in its own apps. The company claims this is because its system doesn’t follow users across apps and websites, which is what ATT is intended to prevent.

However, Gurman pointed out that Apple uses data collected from its other services and from users’ Apple accounts to help decide which ads to serve. Technically, users can opt out of this by going to the Settings app > Privacy & Security > and disabling ad personalization, but Apple will still collect some data about users for ads.

It’ll be interesting to see how this advertising push plays out for Apple. There may be pushback from customers who buy Apple devices expecting a premium or privacy-respecting experience, but will now have to deal with ads. I could also see companies like Meta raising potential anti-trust issues with Apple implementing a system that effectively reduces the effectiveness of competing advertisers while simultaneously ramping up its own ads network.

Source: Bloomberg

Blocking IDFA access doesn’t matter because apps can fingerprint users with other data

Here’s the thing — blocking an app’s access to your IDFA actually works, in the most barebones, basic way. The apps studied in the investigation didn’t have access to users’ IDFA and didn’t use it for tracking. Instead, they effectively created their own IDFA for devices by gathering various other metrics.

Going back to the Subway Surfers example, the investigation found it sent 29 data points about users’ devices to an ad company called ‘Chartboost.’ Some of the data points included users’ IP address, remaining free storage, current volume level, accessibility settings, device name, time zone, country, carrier and more.

Gathering a bunch of device data like this is actually a common tracking tactic called fingerprinting. By gathering a large amount of seemingly innocuous data about a users’ device, companies can effectively track that device (and, by extension, the user) across various apps and platforms.

Few of the developers behind the apps responded to requests for comment from The Washington Post. However, Subway Surfers developer Sybo did, and claimed it gathered the data “for the game to function properly.” While maybe some of the data points could help the game work — for example, getting accessibility settings could help the game accommodate users who rely on those options — most of the data should have no impact on the function of the game.

Apple needs to do more if it wants to be a privacy-first company

More than anything, the investigation demonstrates that Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature is, ultimately, not that helpful. Worse, it may even be detrimental by lending users a false sense of security. Apple’s effectively telling users that they don’t have to worry about being tracked if they enable the feature. App Tracking Transparency also bolsters the company’s privacy-first image — I’ve seen plenty of social media posts about how App Tracking Transparency convinced people to switch from Android to iPhone to improve their privacy.

If Apple were really serious about privacy, it would add fingerprinting protection to iOS to reduce or hopefully stop tracking practices like this. In its current form, App Tracking Transparency is, at best, shallow marketing. At worse, it’s detrimental to user privacy by tricking people into thinking they’re protected when they aren’t.