Apple's iOS 10 privacy settings to hinder mobile advertising

Users will be able to limit what location and behavioural data advertisers can see, thanks to Apple's iOS 10 update. Users who activate the 'Limit Ad Tracking' will now find the Identifier for Advertising flags which are sent back to marketers and developers are a "completely anonymised set of zeroed-out values." According to Fiksu, 14% of iOS users have activated Limit Ad Tracking.

Dive Brief:

Apple's iOS 10 update will give users more control over how much of their data advertisers can see and use, according to Fiksu.

Currently, users who turn on “Limit Ad Tracking” in iOS9 will send their " Identifier for Advertising” (IDFA) with flags to let advertisers know they don't want to be targeted by location or behavior. But the IDFA currently allows data to be used for “frequency capping, attribution, conversion events, estimating the number of unique users, advertising fraud detection, and debugging.”

“frequency capping, attribution, conversion events, estimating the number of unique users, advertising fraud detection, and debugging.” The iOS 10 update significantly changes what IDFA flags send back to advertisers and developers. The new version sends back a completely anonymized set of zeroed-out values, giving users a much higher level of privacy.

​ Dive Insight:

The new iOS update's ability to significantly limit ad tracking on mobile won't block ads, but it will remove the ability for advertisers to target ads based on data like location or user behavior. The current exceptions to the IDFA are "critical," according to Fiksu, "since most mobile advertisers are paid based upon this type of ad-level attribution."

“Users tend to conflate privacy and ads, and many may assume that this setting is an “Apple made” ad blocker. But this is incorrect," Ben Shannon wrote in the blog post. "Instead of reducing the number of ads a user is shown, it will result in generic and poorly targeted ads — say promoting a concert at a venue located across the country. It also removes advertisers’ ability to limit the number of times an ad is shown to a particular user, so users may find themselves seeing the same ads again and again.”

Fiksu data shows that 14% of iOS users have turned on Limit Ad Tracking.