‘Anonymous’ Mobile Advertising IDs Aren’t So Anonymous, And They Are Everywhere

guest · Jul 15, 2021

‘Anonymous’ Mobile Advertising IDs Aren’t So Anonymous, And They Are Everywhere
Phones assign individual users IDs so that advertisers can better sell to them
July 14, 2021
https://gizmodo.com/anonymous-mobile-advertising-ids-aren-t-so-anonymous-1847292216

A new investigation from Motherboard shows that the anonymous marketing IDs assigned to smartphone users are not nearly as anonymous as they seem.

Most mobile operating systems are basically built to help serve you ads: whether you’re using Android or iOS, phone companies have historically assigned specific identifiers to devices, called (MAIDs), or mobile advertising IDs, that are supposed to help app developers better customize the commercials they shove in your face.
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However, as you might have guessed, those IDs don’t really stay anonymous. In fact, there’s an entire niche within the data brokerage industry devoted to “unmasking” the specific users of MAIDs and selling that information to advertisers.

Aside from ravaging the privacy of just your casual phone user, this industry practice of MAID “unmasking” could prove especially dangerous for those in sensitive vocations, some experts have warned.

“Anyone and everyone who has a phone and has installed an app that has ads, currently, is at risk of being de-anonymized via unscrupulous companies,” Zach Edwards, a researcher in the area, told Motherboard.
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