“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.
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