A co-ordinated attempt by Chinese tech companies to circumvent Apple’s privacy policies has been nipped in the bud, a significant victory for the iPhone-maker in what was seen as a threat to its global privacy push.
Tech groups led by Baidu, Tencent and TikTok parent ByteDance had worked with two Beijing-affiliated groups to create a new way of tracking iPhones for advertising, called CAID, that would let them identify users even if they refused to let apps use Apple’s official ID, called IDFA.
CAID was developed last year and had been openly tested for months before a planned release in late March. After the Financial Times reported on its existence in mid-March, ad technology experts considered the attempt a grave risk to Apple’s global privacy rules and its $50bn business in China.