Google announces changes in Android to protect users’ privacy – DNOTICIAS.PT

Google announced Wednesday that it will change the user ID for its Android operating system over the next few years, in order to protect greater privacy in the data that is shared with companies for advertising.

EFE remembers a similar decision made by Apple last year that drew much criticism from advertisers.

In a Google blog, Anthony Chavez, vice president of the multinational technology company for security and privacy in the Android system, revealed the beginning of the change, which he classified as a “multi-year initiative” to provide the operating system with new advertising tools that protect the privacy of Internet users more.

Specifically, Chavez wrote that the goal is to limit the shared use of user data with third parties (advertisers, for example) and to work without identifying tokens being shared between different applications.

Google also added that it is developing technologies that reduce the risk of apps that secretly collect user data.

Chavez guaranteed that the goal is to improve users’ privacy “without jeopardizing access to free content and services”, because in many cases the price that Internet users pay for accessing these services is precisely the conscious or unconscious transfer of their personal data.

Without citing competitors, namely Apple, Google criticized that “other platforms have chosen a different path that severely restricts the technologies currently used by creators and advertisers.”

“We believe that these methods may not have effective results and end up in worst-case scenarios for the privacy of users and creative companies.”

In April of last year, Apple released an update to its operating system for iPhone iOS 14.5, with a new privacy policy that gives the user greater control and makes the job of online advertisers difficult.

Since implementing this update, all mobile apps must request and receive permission from owners of iPhones with the new version installed if they want to get their data through third-party apps.

On the other hand, users can check at any time which apps are authorized to continue their online browsing.

If users wish, they can change these preferences and decide who they give permission to erase or even deny this operation in a public way.

Changes to the iPhone’s privacy policy have proven disastrous for a company that lives primarily on online ads like Meta (owner of social networks Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp), whose stock market value has plummeted by more than $300 billion in recent months as a result of these changes. .