AdTech Bytes #15 - Will there be an ATT for Android?

I might be wrong but this is what I think - When the AdTech ecosystem was built, it was about getting the right data sets into place and ensuring that both advertisers and publishers are happy. But as and when technologies have evolved, more and more people are concerned about their privacy. And this is where AdTech is now taking the responsibility - be it Google’s Privacy Sandbox experiments or Apple’s latest ATT framework.

Let’s understand what’s ATT. In simple terms, App Tracking Transparency (ATT) is a new framework that developers now need to follow while designing apps for iOS and iPadOS which will enable users to opt-out of app tracking. This is a big step taken by Apple and not everyone (read as Facebook) is happy about this.

It has been about 2 weeks now that Apple has rolled out ATT and here are the results. Initial results clearly show that when given an option, users will obviously choose privacy over what kind of ads are shown to them. These reports are updated every day.

Flurry Analytics, from Verizon Media, is used in over 1 million mobile applications, providing aggregated insights across 2 billion mobile devices per month.

Talking of ATT, there is this article by Bloomberg, published way back in Feb 2021, that hints at Google developing something similar to ATT. According to this, Google will be creating a new safety feature that will let Android users see what data is being collected about them and how it’s shared. But unlike Apple, it is believed that Google will take a measured approach towards this.

Google might work on restricting the amount of data that will be collected and limit cross-app sharing. For all we know, Google might just follow their Privacy Sandbox way and extend it to Android as well. The entire industry is going through an overhaul and these are still early days for us to decide whether we will be able to build a privacy-first web.