Google plans to add privacy labels across its iOS app catalog this week or next, after a report claimed none of Google's iOS apps have been updated since Dec. 7
Contrary to reports, Google is not delaying updates to its iOS apps because it doesn't want to comply with Apple's recently announced App Store Privacy Labels policy.
TechCrunchSarah Perez
Context & Ripple Effects
The immediate backdrop was [[a:961702|the report that Google's iOS apps had stopped updating just before Apple's label requirement]], which made ordinary release timing look like a compliance issue. Google’s response matters because it ties its large iOS catalog directly to Apple’s new disclosure regime.
Google commits to supplying privacy disclosures across its iOS catalog, while Apple gains a public, standardized view of Google’s declared app data practices.
Google’s update cadence on iPhone and iPad becomes more closely scrutinized because the pause reported before the commitment is now linked in public discussion to label compliance.
Second-order effects
Apple’s privacy-label policy makes disclosure readiness an operational dependency for developers with large app portfolios: delayed submissions or updates become visible signals rather than back-office work.
Google’s delayed follow-through, documented in related coverage, increases pressure on Apple to apply its disclosure rules consistently while giving users a clearer basis to compare app disclosures.
Third-order effects
App-store governance is shifting from review of individual releases toward ongoing, standardized disclosure obligations that can affect release operations across an entire catalog.
As platform-required labels become a durable comparison layer, developers’ data practices—including those mediated by third-party software components—face more public scrutiny.
The trend: Mobile platforms are using mandatory privacy disclosures to make app data practices and compliance execution visible at catalog scale.
@DaveWoodX Yeah, when I was going through the questions for my own app, I kept thinking that some of the answers imply others. Shouldn't Apple be reporting the closure?
Google appears to have stopped updating their iOS apps because doing so would force them to reveal all the data they're collecting on users to them. https://www.fastcompany.com/ ...
@mjtsai Re: Privacy Labels. I think the Signal labels just show that developers don't know how to answer the questions, or that at least they're using different measuring sticks. How is it possible that ‘Contact Info’ is collected, but not ‘Linked to you’. It is you.
The impact of Apple's upcoming privacy changes: - Facebook and Snap face the biggest impact - Twitter + Pinterest face a moderate impact - Pinterest, Google, Amazon face the least impact https://www.cnbc.com/...
Funny how american work culture seeps through these - Google has a production freeze over most of December because everyone is on vacation with their families. Yes somehow american writers expect everyone to keep working and giving them updates. https://twitter.com/...
Google also tends to go into code freeze mid-Dec until first full week of Jan (at least when i was there), but sure, let's assume it's all a plot to not conform to Apple's privacy labels https://twitter.com/...
Honestly I wouldn't assume this is nefarious - they're obviously going to have to update them eventually anyway, they may just be waiting for 27 levels of long-vacation-taking corporate legal people to come up with an official company framework for dealing with privacy labels. ht…
Google just literally not updating any of its apps so it doesn't have to disclose privacy details now required by Apple in the App Store is certainly... a strategy https://twitter.com/...