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SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) – Apple says it will roll out new privacy controls in the spring to prevent iPhone apps from covertly watching people. The delay in its planned rollout is aimed at appeasing Facebook and other digital services that rely on this data monitoring to help sell ads.
Although Apple didn’t provide a specific date, the general timeline leaked Thursday means a long-awaited feature known as Application Tracking Transparency. will be part of an iPhone software update that may arrive in late March or at some point in April.
After delaying the planned introduction of the safeguard in September amid an outcry by Facebook, Apple had previously announced that it would be released early this year. Apple released the latest update as part of Data Privacy Day, which CEO Tim Cook will greet in a speech scheduled for Thursday at a technology conference in Europe.
Apple has been reluctant to give Facebook and other app makers more time to adjust to a feature that will require iPhone users to give explicit consent to tracking. Analysts expect a significant number of users to deny this permission once it needs their consent. Currently, iPhone users are frequently tracked by the apps they install unless they take an extra step by going to iPhone settings to prevent it.
Facebook has stepped up its attacks on Apple’s new privacy control last month in a series of full-page ads in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other national newspapers. This campaign suggested that some free digital services would be hampered if they could not compile personal information to personalize ads. CEO Mark Zuckerberg questioned Apple’s motives for the changes on Wednesday, saying the iPhone maker “has every interest” in using its own mobile platform to interfere with rivals in its own messaging app. .
“Apple can say they are doing this to help people, but the movements are clearly following their competitive interests,” Zuckerberg said.
Google, which also relies on personal data to power the Internet’s largest advertising network, has not joined Facebook in its criticism of Apple’s upcoming controls on tracking. Google benefits from being the default search engine on the iPhone, a prized position for which it pays Apple between $ 9 billion and $ 12 billion a year.
But Google warned in a blog post on Wednesday that Apple’s new controls will have a significant impact on the advertising revenue generated by iPhones in its digital network. Google said a “handful” of its iPhone apps would be affected by the new requirement, but did not identify which ones.
“We remain committed to preserving a dynamic and open application ecosystem in which users can access a wide range of ad-supported content with the confidence that their privacy and choices are respected,” wrote Christophe Combette, Head of product of the Google Ads group.
Apple also released an 11-page report to illustrate how much apps can learn about their users in everyday life.
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Barbara Ortutay, AP technology writer, contributed to this story from Oakland, California.
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