Procter & Gamble participated in testing an advertising technique being developed in China to gather iPhone data for targeted ads, a step intended to give companies a way around Apple’s new App Tracking Transparency privacy tools, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing “people familiar with the matter.”
Sharon Terlep, Tim Higgins, and Patience Haggin for The Wall Street Journal:
The move is part of a broader effort by the consumer-goods giant to prepare for an era in which new rules and consumer preferences limit the amount of data available to marketers. P&G —among the world’s largest advertisers, with brands such as Gillette razors and Charmin toilet paper—is the biggest Western company involved in the effort, the people said.
The company has joined forces with dozens of Chinese trade groups and tech firms working with the state-backed China Advertising Association to develop the new technique, which would use technology called device fingerprinting, the people said. Dubbed CAID, the advertising method is being tested through apps and gathers iPhone user data to serve up targeted ads.
MacDailyNews Take: Procter & Gamble et al. should know that device fingerprinting does not comply with Apple’s rules and that the company has already informed developers that it would ban any app that violates its policies form the App Store.
Apple’s App Tracking Transparency release will begin a nice game of whack-a-mole. — MacDailyNews, April 2, 2021