Some of China’s biggest technology companies, including ByteDance and Tencent, are testing a tool to bypass Apple’s new privacy rules and continue tracking iPhone users without their consent to serve them targeted mobile advertisements.
Apple is expected to update its smartphones in the coming weeks so that applications that want to gather tracking data will have to ask users for permission. Until now apps have been able to use Apple’s IDFA system to see when users click on ads and which apps they download.
The change is likely to be a multibillion-dollar bombshell to the online advertising industry, and has been fought by Facebook, since most users are expected to decline to be tracked.