Apps such as Candy Crush and Tinder implicated in tracking user locations
Recent findings suggest that numerous popular applications on iPhone are being employed by advertisers to gather your location information, circumventing Apple’s App Tracking Transparency policies and often without the knowledge of app developers.
Apple rolled out its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature with the release of iOS 14 back in 2020. This initiative significantly curtailed the ability of advertisers to collect and sell personal data, leading to an estimated $12.8 billion decline in revenue for Facebook within a single year. Nevertheless, new investigations indicate that marketers have discovered alternative methods for tracking users’ data.
A selection of commonly used applications—such as Candy Crush, Tinder, and MyFitnessPal—are reportedly being exploited by unscrupulous elements within the advertising industry to amass sensitive location information at a massive scale. While there have been previous assertions about these practices, a recent investigation by 404 Media has uncovered evidence from a breach involving Gravy Analytics that highlights how thousands of apps are inadvertently facilitating this mass collection for advertisers.
Gravy Analytics, alongside its subsidiary Venntel, is primarily recognized for supplying global location intelligence to law enforcement agencies across the U.S. However, it now seems these organizations are acquiring this information through their affiliations with advertising networks.
The Underbelly of the Advertising Ecosystem
According to reports, advertisers aren’t necessarily attempting to violate Apple’s ATT rules directly; instead, they monitor ad placements within applications. This occurs through a method known as Real-Time Bidding (RTB), which allows them to bid for advertisement slots inside various apps.
Candy Crush Saga is one such application believed to be affected by this issue.
The RTB framework generates ongoing streams of data as marketers direct tailored advertisements towards users. Unlike conventional strategies where developers might explicitly integrate tracking codes into their applications themselves, this system enables brokers to aggregate vast amounts of user data without notifying either developers or users since it operates outside the app environment itself.
Privacy Challenges Posed by Bypassed Limits
Consequently, rather than relying on developer-inserted codes aimed at gathering user data covertly meant specifically for sale or analysis purposes—the fundamental structure underlying online advertisement exchanges is what gets manipulated here. Consequently effective privacy protocols intended by Apple or individual developers can then easily be sidestepped during operation.
While consumers should actively seek ways protect themselves—like employing ad blockers or selecting options designed with privacy considerations—they grapple against an overwhelming problem due both complexity & scale linked deeply ingrained into digital infrastructure ecosystem requiring systematic legislative efforts beyond mere individual precautionary measures.< / p >
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