Hi there,
Today I received the following e-mail from Google Play:
Hello Google Play Developer,
Last July, we announced Advertising policy changes to help bolster security and privacy. We added new restrictions on identifiers used by apps that target children.
When users choose to delete their advertising ID in order to opt out of personalization advertising, developers will receive a string of zeros instead of the identifier if they attempt to access the identifier. This behavior will extend to phones, tablets, and Android TV starting April 1, 2022.
We also announced that you need to declare an AD_ID permission when you update your app targeting API level to 31 (Android 12). Today, we are sharing that we will give developers more time to ease the transition. We will require this permission declaration when your apps are able to target Android 13 instead of starting with Android 12.
Action Items
If you use an advertising ID, you must declare the AD_ID Permission when your app targets Android 13 or above. Apps that don’t declare the permission will get a string of zeros. Note: You’ll be able to target Android 13 later this year. If your app uses an SDK that has declared the Ad ID permission, it will acquire the permission declaration through manifest merge. If your app’s target audience includes children, you must not transmit Android Advertising ID (AAID) from children or users of unknown age. Learn more.Thank you,
The Google Play team
So, I wanted to ask if this bears any meaning for Thunkable apps? As things have been somewhat problematic with Apple’s efforts on this front for us, I’d very much like to raise this issue (if it potentially is an issue) beforehand, i.e. before we might suddenly run into any issues. Would be nice to hear the teams’s input on this if possible. Thank you!
Ping @jared @wei @domhnallohanlon etc.