Mozilla calls on Apple to change how it lets marketers track customers’ iPhones to serve up targeted ads. Critics claim Mozilla’s petition is unnecessary.
Is Apple doing enough to stop ad trackers? Mozilla has concerns.
On Monday, Mozilla launched a petition calling on Apple to change how it lets marketers track customer iPhones to serve up relevant ads. At issue is the unique ID Apple creates for iPhones and iPads; the so-called “identifier for advertisers” (IDFA) can let a marketing firm track your phone’s activity on the Apple App Store and Apple News, by recording which ads you tap or which apps you download.
Tracking is intended to help companies serve up customized ads to potential buyers. However, the IDFA itself doesn’t reveal any personal information about who owns which iPhone.
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Still, if you find the tracking creepy, you can turn it off via Settings > Privacy > Advertising and toggle “Limit Ad Tracking” to off. Here, you can also reset that identifier in case you’ve been tapping on or downloading some weird stuff.
“When Limit Ad Tracking is enabled on iOS 10 or greater, this Advertising Identifier will be replaced with a non-unique value of all zeros to prevent the serving of targeted ads,” Apple says in its support page.
