But YouTube may still be tracking people who visit its iOS app, raising questions about whether the company is complying with industry privacy-focused efforts to give people more control over their data.
By observing over 300 clicks to ads, Adalytics found YouTube never asked consent to be tracked, with that tracker following each click to a website, said head researcher Krzysztof Franaszek.
The research found that YouTube’s iOS app appends an identifier called WBraid to people who watch and click on an ad and then land on the brand’s website. (WBraid is a parameter designed specifically to attribute conversions back to ad campaigns, according to Google documentation). WBraid is then available to other trackers and data brokers that communicate with the website. In the research, each WBraid appeared to be unique to each click on the ad, with the code changing significantly each time.
“There are serious doubts whether some ad click parameters such as WBraid are [App Tracking Transparency] compliant,” given that WBraid appears to track users without their consent, said Thomas Petit, a mobile ad-tech consultant.
Perloff, C. (2023, August 25). YouTube’s Latest Ding Raises Questions Over Its Compliance With Apple’s Privacy Policies. AdWeek. https://www.adweek.com/programmatic/youtubes-latest-ding-raises-questions-over-its-compliance-with-apples-privacy-policies/