What to know where Google’s going next? It’s simple: just look where Apple was a few years ago.
Apple skates to where the puck will be, and Google follows Apple’s skate marks. Apple paints original masterpieces, and Google paints by Apple’s numbers.
Adam Smith for The Independent:
Google will be introducing the same privacy labels that Apple brought to the iPhone and iPad this year.
Apple’s “nutrition labels” are aimed at giving users more information about what data an app collects. Google will now inform users of the same thing: whether an app collects data on a user’s location, contacts, personal information, photo and videos, audio files, or storage files.
All apps on the Google Play store, including the company’s own, will be required to share this information and provide a privacy policy. The feature will roll out in 2022.
Google might be following Apple’s footsteps in providing “nutrition labels,” but it has not gone as far as the Cupertino smartphone manufacturer. Apple’s iOS 14.5 update brought with it App Tracking Transparency, which forces developers to ask permission to see the unique identifier that tracks usage between apps.
This identifier is used by companies to show people ads, and as such has put it in battle with advertising giants such as Facebook. Google also makes a huge amount of money from advertising, reportedly netting $29.95 billion in revenue in 2019.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple creates whole new barrels, and Google scrapes their bottoms.
