Social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram already allow users to prevent these platforms from tracking their activities in other sites to personalize ads for them. But there's no option to opt out of personalized ads based on in-app activities. Facebook, for its part, defended personalized ads last month and reiterated that these would help small businesses grow.
TikTok appears to be taking a similar stance. The Verge reported today that the video music service will make personalized ads based on your in-app activity mandatory beginning on April 15. This means you won't be able to avoid these types of ads from showing up on your screen when the new policy takes effect.
Currently, TikTok lets you choose whether you'd like to see general ads or personalized ones that are based on your in-app activities like the videos you've liked and ads you've interacted with on the platform. The goal is to help businesses reach more consumers.
Starting next month, these options may change "and the ads you'll see may start to be based on what you do on TikTok," according to a notice shown on the app. However, you can still prevent the service from tracking your activities in other apps and websites to tailor ads it serves you. That's the same policy change Google announced earlier this month, promising to phase out cookies next year and, instead, focus on privacy-preserving APIs that still give advertisers relevant results without compromising user privacy.
TikTok's upcoming change comes as Apple is set to roll out a new policy in the spring that would let you know if apps tried to track your activities on iOS. This has forced app developers to change how their ads operate.
Source: The Verge
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