Your iPhone Is Tracking You Again

Rebecca Greenfield | Atlantic Wire | October 11, 2012

The iPhone 5 and any phone running iOS 6 not only by default tracks users for advertising purposes, but also makes it difficult to opt out. After Apple told developers to stop tracking users with the UDID system, basically eliminating this privacy breach completely, it has implemented a new targeting system. It's called IFA and is "more effective than ever" multiple mobile advertising executives told Business Insider's Jim Edwards. 

Apsalar, a mobile advertising company compares it to a "persistent cookie," that gives more accurate user-habits than before. The privacy world says the new system isn't as tricky as the old one, which wouldn't let users opt out at all. But Apple kind of negates that by making it so complicated to turn the tracking off.

The biggest difference between the UDID and IFA is that users can choose to opt out completely and also choose to erase some of the tracking after it has been implemented. Both those processes, however, take many more steps than most people will want to do. [...]