Facebook introduces new location controls for Android, letting users limit location data collection, and will prompt iOS and Android users to check settings
Android and iOS are by far the two most popular mobile operating systems, but their location settings work differently. Tweets: @shiraovide Tweets: Shira Ovide / @shiraovide : Also, ADVERTISING. Smartphone location data is used for ADVERTISING. Why can't Facebook say this out loud? https://newsroom.fb.com/... pic.twitter.com/TvJQyLFk35
Context & Ripple Effects
This February 2019 move is the opening beat of a multi-year arc in which Facebook's location-data practices get dragged into the open. The company frames the new Android controls as user empowerment, but as reporter Shira Ovide's contemporaneous commentary points out, smartphone location data feeds advertising — the use Facebook declines to state outright.
What follows validates the skepticism: by December, [[a:948912|lawmakers are pressing Facebook on how it monetizes location even when app-level tracking is switched off]], and ahead of iOS 13's background-location warnings Facebook publishes an explainer on its location use — the first of several defensive disclosures.
First-order effects
- Android users gain in-app controls to limit how much location data Facebook collects, and both iOS and Android users will be prompted to audit their existing settings — a prompt that, given what the settings reveal, risks users tightening collection.
Second-order effects
- Apple's parallel move — iOS 13 warning users about background location collection — turns Facebook's self-serve controls into table stakes; once the warnings ship, marketers' background location collection drops sharply, per the study finding 68% less background data gathered after iOS 13.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, platform-level privacy switches rather than app-level settings become the real gatekeepers of ad targeting — culminating in Apple's iOS 14 tracking prompts, which leave so few iOS users opted in that [[a:968439|Facebook's advertisers report measurable damage to tracking campaigns and new-customer targeting]].
The trend: Mobile operating systems, not the apps running on them, are becoming the decisive arbiters of how much location data reaches advertisers — forcing platforms like Facebook to disclose and defend practices they once left implicit.