Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
On Wednesday, Google announced the start of a multi-year process to overhaul ad tracking on Android phones, moving the mobile platform along a similar path to the one sketched out by Apple’s tracker blocking on iOS last year.
Currently, Android devices are each assigned a unique identifier known as an “advertising ID,” which is used to build a profile of an Android user that developers can use to target in-app ads. But when the new changes are implemented, the advertising ID will be phased out in favor of alternative targeting mechanisms that Google says will be more favorable to user privacy, according to a blog post published Wednesday.
“Today, we’re announcing a multi-year initiative to build the Privacy Sandbox on Android, with the…
