Comment by bix6
2 months ago
They have various fingerprints including email logins and device ids. So then Google says tekmolAtGmail likes cars and lines up the perfect advertiser for you!
2 months ago
They have various fingerprints including email logins and device ids. So then Google says tekmolAtGmail likes cars and lines up the perfect advertiser for you!
How would the email end up in the ad system? Isn't it just a library the app developer includes and that runs in the background? Does it interact with the user and ask for their email?
And fingerprinting? Even if the fingerprint is unique - now what? They still could only target the user while the user is using apps that are complicit in this advertising scheme, right?
I am not an expert in these systems but it seems some have tremendous ability to link disparate data. At the simplest they have things like device IDs and emails from logged in users that make it easy; many users don’t or can’t opt out of the baseline tracking. If you do well now you’re special so they have to use other fingerprinting techniques. You can try and obfuscate which might change your ad package but they still know everything about you.
I think your belief that they can only target while using the app is naive. They can sell the data to aggregators for more sophisticated use.
Most(?) apps require a login now, so they have the users email address.