By means of a petition, the Firefox makers want to persuade the company to change the tracking IDs of iOS devices and Apple TV at least once a month.

Apple is offensive in its claim to protect the privacy of users in the advertisement. And CEO Tim Cook never tires of emphasizing their importance. The Mozilla Foundation, the foundation behind projects such as the browser Firefox, has now asked the iPhone manufacturer to increase the privacy in the area of advertising tracking: The company should rotate the integrated in iOS and tvOS Advertiser ID at least once a month ” “, so renewed, it says in a petition in the framework of a project of the Foundation “for a healthy Internet “.

Interest-based advertising

The tracking ID (“ad-tracking”) is used by Apple for playing interest-based advertising , which is based among other things on the search history. Furthermore, there are location-based advertising that the Group uses, among other things, in the App Store; There is also an advertisement in connection with Apple News.

The Mozilla Foundation sees this as a problem. Although Apple encodes end-to-end iMessage messages and uses anti-tracking in Safari, the tracking ID is a unique number that allows advertisers to watch user actions in apps. “That’s not private at all.” It would be as if a salesman is constantly looking over your shoulder while visiting a store, writes Mozilla.

Shutdown works – but not automatically

However, it makes Apple users comparatively easy to prevent this tracking. So you can turn off the ID completely with a keystroke on the one hand – it is then nullified. Alternatively, they can manually reset the ID, as is known from browser cookies. This works on iOS (iPad, iPhone, iPod touch) as well as on tvOS (Apple TV).

However, the Mozilla Foundation does not find this sufficient and therefore calls for a “real limit” with an automatic monthly tracking ID reset “to make it harder for companies to profile themselves over time”. If Apple made that change, it would not only improve privacy but send a “signal to Silicon Valley that users wanted companies to protect their privacy by default,” said Ashley Boyd, vice president of advocacy for the Mozilla Foundation. Many users simply would not know that an opt-out is possible.