Google Plans Privacy Changes Similar to the Apple Policy that Cost Facebook Billions

Google announced this week that it’s planning to introduce new privacy restrictions that will reduce app tracking across its Android devices, similar to the system implemented by Apple that contributed to Facebook’s historic drop in market value due to its impact on Mark Zuckerberg’s invasive targeted advertising. Although Facebook has publicly fought a war of words with Apple over its privacy measures, it is publicly supporting Google’s change.

CNBC reports that Google announced this week that it will be adopting new privacy restrictions that will reduce tracking across apps on its Android devices. The move is similar to the App Tracking Transparency feature introduced by Apple which prevented apps like Facebook from tracking users across other apps and websites, resulting in a major blow to Facebook’s advertising business.

Google is reportedly developing a new privacy-focused replacement for its advertising ID which is a unique string of numbers and letters that identify a user’s device. These digital IDs are often used by ad-tech companies to track users’ habits and build profiles on them for targeted advertising.

The change could impact major companies that rely on tracking users across apps, like Facebook. Apple’s introduction of App Tracking Transparency resulted in the company’s advertising sales falling by around $10 billion, contributing to the $232 billion that was recently wiped from the company’s market cap in a single day.

Although Facebook (now Meta) has publicly fought Apple’s changes, the company has supported Google’s proposed privacy tweaks. Graham Mudd, the vice president of product marketing, ads and business at Facebook, said on Twitter: ″[It is] encouraging to see this long-term, collaborative approach to privacy-protective personalized advertising from Google. We look forward to continued work with them and the industry on privacy-enhancing tech through industry groups.”

Google plans to support the current device IDs for the next two years which should give companies like Facebook time to implement changes to their advertising systems. Google has also criticized Apple’s approach to user privacy without specifically naming the company.

Anthony Chavez, the Google Android vice president of product management, security and privacy, stated: ″​​We realize that other platforms have taken a different approach to ads privacy, bluntly restricting existing technologies used by developers and advertisers. We believe that — without first providing a privacy-preserving alternative path — such approaches can be ineffective and lead to worse outcomes for user privacy and developer businesses.”

Read more at CNBC here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com