Feb 17, 2022: According to a report by AFP, Google announced plans to limit advertising tracking on its Android operating system, which runs on billions of devices, a sensitive privacy issue that rival Apple has already moved to address on its iPhones.

Tech companies are under increasing pressure to better balance privacy and ad targeting, with consumers complaining and regulators threatening tougher rules, but companies themselves try to maintain access to the data key to their many billions in ad revenue.

Google’s Android software is used on roughly 85% of smartphones globally, thus any changes have the potential to impact the data from billions of users.

“Our goal… is to develop effective and privacy enhancing advertising solutions, where users know their information is protected, and developers and businesses have the tools to succeed on mobile,” Google said in a statement.

“We plan to support existing ads platform features for at least two years, and we intend to provide substantial notice ahead of any future changes.”

Google said it is working on ways to better protect users’ privacy, which would “limit sharing of user data with third parties and operate without cross-app identifiers, including advertising ID.”

Apple meanwhile announced last year that users of its one billion iPhones in circulation can decide whether to allow their online activity to be tracked for the purpose of targeting ads. Apple’s adaptation has sent waves into the tech world, with Facebook’s parent Meta saying it expects the policy to cost the social media giant 10 billion this year. A huge impact is expected because less data meta and other companies will affect the accuracy of seller ads, and thus their price.

Although Google argues that the changes will protect consumer anonymity, it could further strengthen the existing tech company’s dominance in the digital advertising industry. Google’s parent alphabet generated more than $60 billion in advertising revenue alone in the fourth quarter of 2021, accounting for more than 80 percent of its revenue.

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