Can app not ask for App Tracking Transparency authorization?

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Created Feb ’21

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Is it possible (and how?) for an app to show only non-targeted ads and not include the new App Tracking Transparency authorization? Google's AdMob SDK page says, "If you decide to include App Tracking Transparency (ATT) in your app...", suggesting there's an option, and news articles say Google isn't including IDFA in their apps any longer ("Google apps will no longer use the Apple IDFA that falls under the new #privacy terms for #adtracking, which relieves it from having to present users with an opt-in pop-up.").

So how do I specify AdMob without IDFA, without the ATT prompt, and presumably without having to affirm that the app uses the IDFA in that App Store Connect prompt?

Thanks.

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Answer 1

khagan OP

Feb ’21

I'd really like to know the answer to this, as well. I'm really fuzzy on a few things around ATT, and I'm certainly not an expert, but some thoughts and other questions below (and I may well be wrong about some things or missing something):

For the IDFA itself, you can show non-personalized ads (the forums won't let me paste Google URLs, but you can search for how to pass consent/lack of consent to the request) and set the SKAdNetworkIdentifier (again, you should be able to search for this), and AdMob seems to work fine without accessing the IDFA and without the IDFA ATT prompt in iOS 14.5 betas.

What I'm a little less clear on is whether there needs to be any sort of ATT for the tracking AdMob does without using the IDFA. The Google documentation for AdMob and iOS 14 indicates that the App Store privacy disclosure should have Location, Identifiers, Usage Data, and Diagnostics as data used to track you. It also says that data is used for tracking even without sending the IDFA. There is a setting for User Metrics in AdMob that seems to indicate that some of this data can be set to not used (but is still sent?). Does turning off User Metrics mean that the ATT doesn't need to be shown? Does it mean that the disclosure doesn't need to include anything other than identifiers? Google's documentation doesn't seem entirely helpful here, and I'm a little confused after reading some of Apple's (I also know there's at least one popular app with a couple hundred thousand reviews on the App Store that is using AdMob and only disclosing Identifiers in data being used to track you. So maybe with these settings off it's all good?)

E.g., this page makes it seem like there should probably be an ATT even without using the IDFA: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/user-privacy-and-data-use/ This goes to some of the questions out there about whether Apple is really eliminated third party "analytics" also. There doesn't appear to be anything preventing the app from working without the ATT and no IDFA usage in iOS 14.5, so is this policy going to be enforced on App Review? Really not sure, and I may be misinterpreting something.

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