Apple to crack down on tracking iPhone users in early spring
SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) — Apple says it will roll out a new privacy control in the spring to prevent iPhone apps from secretly shadowing people. The delay in its anticipated rollout aims to placate Facebook and other digital services that depend on such data surveillance to help sell ads.
Although Apple didn't provide a specific date, the general timetable disclosed Thursday means a long-awaited feature known as App Tracking Transparency will be part of an iPhone software update likely to arrive in late March or some point in April.
After delaying the planned September introduction of the safeguard amid a Facebook-led outcry, Apple had previously said it would come out early this year. Apple released the latest update as part of Data Privacy Day, which CEO Tim Cook will salute during a speech scheduled Thursday at a technology conference in Europe.
Apple has been holding off to give Facebook and other app makers more time to adjust to a feature that will require iPhone users to give their explicit consent to being tracked. Analysts expect a significant number of users to deny that permission once it requires their assent. Currently, iPhone users are frequently tracked by apps they install unless they take the extra step of going into iPhone settings to prevent it.
Facebook stepped up its attacks on Apple’s new privacy control last month in a series of full-page ads in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other national newspapers. That campaign suggested some free digital services will be hobbled if they can’t compile personal information to customize ads. On Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg questioned Apple's motives with the changes, saying the iPhone maker “has every incentive” to use its own mobile platform to interfere with rivals to its own messaging app.
“Apple may say that they are doing...
