Apple starts to track its users again with its IFA/IDFA technology

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November 27, 2012

Apple has left no stone unturned in making a grand release of its Apple iPhone 5. There was promotion for the iPhone 5 almost everywhere. However, they haven’t made that much noise about its IFA/IDFA identifier for advertisers’ technology which is included in its new operating system iOS 6. With this technology, Apple can now track their customers who are using Apple products such as the iPad, iPhone and so on. Once tracked, the customers and their details can be used by marketers for targeting and promoting other products and services as well.

Apple used to track their customers in the past with their UDID, a unique and permanent serial number that previously identified every Apple device. Good news for consumers, they disabled it a few months ago and the users were able to live an easy life far away from the continuous bombardment of advertisers. However, with the IFA/IDFA technology in iOS 6, Apple started to track their customers again. The advertisers love it since IFA is more accurate and effective compared to UDID. Unless you appreciate all those advertisements, this is not good news for the typical Apple customer.

With IFA in their phone, whenever users will browse the web or look at an app, their presence will generate a call for an advertisement. This will inform the advertisers about the interest of the users and after this, the users will start to get relevant advertisements in their phone. This is how IFA works. If you do not like ads, you will probably not like this in your Apple device since it comes as a default.

What you may not know is that this tracking is an option. If you want, you can disable the ad tracking. This can be a little bit tricky for the users that do not know where to look. To turn it off, you will need to go to the “Advertising” section which is found under the “About” command in the “General” settings. Over there, you will find the Limit Ad Tracking, the tracking control which you will need to turn On, not Off. Many people get confused about this and keep it on Off mode which actually activates the tracking feature. Do not make the same mistake.

We believe you won’t have any problem now that you know how to disable tracking in your iPhone or any Apple device running on iOS 6.

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