Category: Privacy

About 1/5 of iOS Users Limit Ad Tracking

According to this story in Advertising Age, about one fifth of Apple iOS users have taken advantage of the Limit Ad Tracking setting, which opts them out of targeted advertising on their mobile devices.  “About 18 million iPhone and iPad users in the U.S., roughly 20% of the total, have used LAT to explicitly opt out of targeted advertising, according to a report released Wednesday by app marketing platform Adjust.”  It doesn’t turn off advertising, it just means you are more likely to see some random ad instead of one based on your past behavior.

How to do it

Ad Tracking privacy Settings
Settings > Privacy > Advertising

The article doesn’t show the readers how to find this option – which is understandable in a publication devoted to advertising. But if you would just as soon not to be tracked by advertising networks (you’ll still probably be tracked by the government), go to

Settings >Privacy> Advertising

and either turn on the option to “Limit Ad Tracking” or reset your advertising identifier, to start the tracking over again. (I guess if you’ve just been searching for something for which you don’t want to be seeing ads.)

Does Pokémon Go Create a Privacy Breach?

Yes, it does appear that initially Pokémon Go  could cause privacy problems, since it asks iOS for full access to a user’s Google account. (And Google has lots of information about you.) But independent tests seem to show that they only info that gets collected is your user ID and email address. The developer, Niantic, is changing the app so that it only asks for the basic information. So, it doesn’t appear that you have to worry about privacy issues – you only have to worry about stepping in front of a car or falling down an open manhole while walking down the street staring at your phone. Note that the Android version did not ask for all the privileges, so it doesn’t need fixed. See more details about this at Ars Technica.