“Various news outlets are now reporting that Apple has effectively killed location tracking or offline analytics for iPhones with a change in iOS 8 that conceals the phone’s correct MAC address,” Greg Sterling reports for Marketing Land. “That’s not exactly true, however.”
“Ad networks, WiFi hotspots and other third parties will no longer be able to grab an iOS 8 iPhone’s real MAC address. This is designed to thwart tracking that seeks to tie an individual to a specific location and potentially match that individual phone with other data for later retargeting,” Sterling reports. “It may also present a new challenge to ad networks and others that try to profile audiences using location or smartphone movement patterns. And it may present problems for networks seeking to track ad impressions to offline store visits in some cases.”
“However, this move doesn’t destroy indoor/offline analytics. Companies such as Euclid, RetailNext, iInside, Nomi and others can still see the presence of a device in a store or other venue for analytics purposes,” Sterling reports. “It’s ad networks and data vendors who seek to tie a specific phone to other data and behavior that will probably have trouble.”
Sterling reports, “Apple’s move broadly does two related things. It forces those who want to market to iPhone users to consider ways to get them to opt-in to share location and compels networks and marketers to be more transparent around location tracking… Data show that users will opt-in to location sharing when they see value in that exchange.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related article:
With iOS 8, Apple makes iOS even more secure ahead of smartphone security competition – June 10, 2014
Apple has killed unauthorized location tracking that most people where unaware of. That’s a very good start !
A feature that Google won’t copy. They live to track you!
But the actual competitor Samesung will definitely copy 🙂
I guess this means that the NSA and other units within the terrorist organization known as the USA will have to continue to use the “aim for Bin Ladin hit Saddam Hussein” guidance missile system. That should be lots of fun for the sequel Irock II, harder than Arock coming up soon but quite disappointing for the ones expecting to zero in on an iPhone user.
Still there is always Android, Google and speaker equipped drones that would be warning people to stay inside and order pizza from Kentucky Fried Chicken while a rain of bullets rains down over some area designate as a terrorist hot spot… or a school full of children. Ah no matter, it adds to the American touch of realism.
Warning: The following video contains the slaughter of innocent civilians by American terrorists who rationalize the killing by saying “Well it’s their fault for bringing their kids to a battle.”
I visit my mother every week on the same day, at the same time. I do not have this in my calendar, but one afternoon, about a half hour before heading to my Mom’s place I looked at the Notifications pulldown on my iPhone 5, and on the top of the list was a line of text informing me that it would take about 12 minutes to get her house. It did it every time I was about to go to her house, but not on another day of the week. It did the same thing when I was going over to a friends house for a regular visit. So the iPhone does keep track of where you go, and when you go there. Sure, it’s useful, the info has come in handy, but that sh#t is creepy as F@CK!