Android could also get anti-tracking features

A week after Apple announced an important new iOS privacy feature, Bloomberg reports Google is looking into doing something similar. 

Bloomberg's sources claim Google is looking into limiting data collection by third-party apps on Android, but doing it in a way that's less rigorous for developers. 

Apple's solution to rampant user tracking for the purpose of serving ads is called App Tracking Transparency, and it boils down to a prompt asking the user to explicitly approve a third-party app's data collection. 

Bloomberg says Google's solution might not have an opt-in prompt like that. Instead, it could be similar to what Google did with Chrome. It announced in 2020 that it would phase out third-party cookies in the browser within two years, giving developers a lot of time to adapt. Bloomberg also mentioned the Privacy Sandbox — Google's project to combat cross-site tracking and replace it with more privacy-conscious methods — as a possible model for Android.  Read more...