Google Will Make It Harder For Android Apps To Track You, But Unlike Apple, It Still Holds Back

This is something we expected, and this is something that surely the likes of Facebook feared once Apple set the ball rolling. Later this year, when Google’s own iteration of the app tracking prevention comes into force, advertisers and apps that request access to advertising IDs on Android phones if a user has chosen to opt out of tracking, will instead get a string of zeros. There was expectation from Google to implement stronger data tracking prevention for Android, after Apple rolled out the App Tracking Transparency for iPhones, earlier this year. “As part of Google Play services update in late 2021, the advertising ID will be removed when a user opts out of personalization using advertising ID in Android Settings. All Google says at this time, is that the new Google Play services update will see a phased rollout that will impact apps running on Android 12 devices starting late 2021, before the policy expands to affect apps running on devices that support Google Play in early 2022.