Apple

I’m talking about blocking cross app tracking, not “restricting” it. Still, Google does not even restrict cross app tracking. They’ve announced a planned muli-year (their words) initiative to restrict cross app tracking- but, importantly, they’ve very clearly expressed that they’re going to work with advertisers to make sure that what they plan isn’t too disruptive. Which should be obvious anyway, because advertisers are literally their only real paying customers.

All that Google is interested in doing is finding the absolute minimum that they can do to give the illusion that they care about privacy, all without having to do anything that meaningfully protects user data. And only after Apple makes a huge change that devours even more of Google’s market share.

If you’re thinking about the current feature in android that allows users to “disable” cross app tracking, it actually doesn’t. It just disable Google’s advertising ID, but still let’s any app who wants to fingerprint your device using IP address and device serial.