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Yesterday it was reported that Google is exploring a privacy policy on Android as an analogue to Apple's ATT. This has been expected since Apple announced ATT. A few thoughts on how this might take shape in a thread (1/X) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-04/google-explores-alternative-to-apple-s-new-anti-tracking-feature
2/ First, Google has mostly stayed in lockstep -- just more slowly and with more restraint -- with Apple around privacy, as I wrote in this article from Feb 2020. This mirroring behavior helps to illuminate a potential ATT counterpart policy on Android https://mobiledevmemo.com/apocalypse-soon-what-happens-when-the-idfa-is-deprecated/
3/ What would GAID "deprecation" look like on Android? Well, Google is an advertising company -- it cant sell the idea that personalized advertising is de facto unhealthy or harmful. In this post, I lay out a possible approach https://mobiledevmemo.com/what-will-googles-deprecation-of-gaid-look-like/
4/ The post is from September & this subject evolves on a weekly basis. But I think Google could use Firebase, its analytics (and attribution!) platform, as an intermediary to establish targeting groups and measure campaign-specific ROI while withholding the GAID from advertisers
5/ In the post I posit that Google could simply post back GAID-indexed events to ad networks while blocking GAID access to advertisers. But they could also implement a FLoC type interest-clustering mechanism on the device through Firebase https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/2021-01-privacy-sandbox/
6/ Google's position is challenging. It operates Android, so it cant conspicuously eschew platform-led privacy policies like ATT so as to unfavorably highlight a distinction with iOS. But it also cant betray its core commercial interests. https://twitter.com/eric_seufert/status/1343915800684601344
7/ Google viscerally cares about advertising performance whereas Apple is actively hostile to advertising. Google must navigate a path that delivers privacy to Android users while also preserving the efficiency of mobile advertising. Clearly thats done with more finesse than ATT
