Android's privacy regulations are already in the works, at a time when the Google advertising ID will stay in effect for another two years.
With Google's recent announcement to expand its Privacy Sandbox to Android, all Android advertisers will be affected by the privacy restrictions. As a result of the privacy changes, Google will report zeros in the Advertising ID fields of all opted-out Android users, irrespective of their OS version.
While this was initially planned for Android 12 devices, the policy's expansion to all Android devices will significantly impact advertisers. Advertisers will have to rely on either Google Play Install Referrer or fingerprinting to attribute installs to opted-out users. Self-attributing networks (SANs) will be hit particularly hard.
The scale of negative ad performance on Android, however, is expected to be less, given that Android users must opt-out of targeting from settings, unlike iOS. But advertisers must incorporate the new permission levels into their apps to know the advertising IDs of Android 12 users regardless of opt-ins. Advertisers cannot access the advertising IDs of Android 12 users if specific SDK updates are not implemented by 1 April 2022.
[2 minute read]
