Google Explores Alternative to Apple’s New Anti-Tracking Feature

Feb 22,2024
2 min read
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It's still early, but Apple's new tracking restrictions on iOS sure seem to be causing headaches for the Internet ad industry. Just last week, Google told partners to expect a "significant impact" to ad revenue, while Facebook has launched an all-out war against Apple's tracking initiative and is reportedly considering legal action. Now, a new report from Bloomberg claims that Google, the world's largest Internet ad company... wants to do a similar thing on Android?

Internally, the search giant is discussing how it can limit data collection and cross-app tracking on the Android operating system in a way that is less stringent than Apple’s solution, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private plans.Google is trying to balance the rising demands of privacy-conscious consumers with the financial needs of developers and advertisers. The Alphabet Inc. unit is seeking input from these stakeholders, similar to how it’s slowly developing a new privacy standard for web browsing called the Privacy Sandbox.

It allows some ad targeting with less-specific data collection. As part of that solution, the company has developed a technology called Federated Learning of Cohorts that lets advertisers target groups of people with similar interests rather than individuals. Google is likely to take a similar approach with Android

The company said in 2020 that it intended to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome within two years. Google reaffirmed that plan earlier this year. Cookies are a way for websites to track users around the web to serve them more personalized ads.

To keep advertisers happy while improving privacy, the discussions around Google’s Android solution indicate that it could be similar to its planned Chrome web browser changes.