Plus, the end of ad targeting in kid-friendly apps
Spend any amount of time on the internet, and someone somewhere will build an advertising profile for you—even your phone does it. Google has long let you reset the advertising ID on Android, but last year it started allowing those on Android 12 to delete it entirely. You won’t have to be on the latest OS much longer. In April of this year, Google will make the same option available to all phones via Google Play Services update.
This option is available under the Google entry in system settings. The “Ads” sub-menu includes the option to reset your ID or delete it entirely, which just replaces it with a string of zeros. That way, anyone targeting ads using Google’s tools will no longer see you as a unique individual who loves ankle socks, ceramic clowns, and churros (or whatever you’re into). Of course, this will make the ads you see on your device less relevant. Apps that need a unique ID for something other than advertising can still do so with the app set ID.
Along with the expanded deletion option, Google is changing how apps have to declare permissions. Unfortunately, the permission change only applies to Android 12 and later, but the gist is apps have to list the com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID permission. This will not be allowed in apps intended for children. That essentially means no more Google-authorized ad targeting of kids. We don’t have an exact date for this, but as a GMS tweak, it will probably roll out gradually over the course of weeks. Permission enforcement for kid-friendly apps begins on April 1.
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