Advertising is how tech companies can offer so many cool, fun and useful apps and services to everyone. Your phone contains a lot of information that advertisers use to create a custom profile of your daily phone usage to deliver targeted ads. While you can’t completely disable Ad ID, both Android and iOS offer ways to reset it. Here’s how to reset your advertising identifier and opt out of some personalized advertising profile tracking.
Advertising is what pays the bills at Google, and Moonshot lets it run with plans, so no one will be surprised to learn that their Android handset tracks user habits and delivers targeted ads based on website visits, email mentions, searches, and more. Sources that Google’s algorithm gurus have deemed fit for the task.
Since your iPhone, iPad, and Windows phones both track your browsing and other habits, Google isn’t the only one doing this, and they can grab a piece of the advertising bag, not to mention the Facebook app. At this point you’re targeting ads to what people are actually looking at, the ad companies make some money, and everyone’s happy.
As long as the ad targeting is high, that is – try searching for sneakers for a few days and you’ll be bombarded with Converse discounts flashing everywhere you go in your browser, email and whatnot. But have you bought a pair? It doesn’t matter, if you’re lucky and forcefully moved to something else, the ad campaign will haunt you for a few more weeks or days. Here’s what to do if you want to stop all targeted ads, reset your ad ID, cut all previous links to your searches and browsing history, and start fresh.
Android
1. How to Reset Your Ads ID and Opt Out of Targeted Ad Tracking On Android, iOS and Windows phones, tap the Google Settings app icon — that’s the one with the “G” inside, and it’s different from your typical Settings app. Display and other menus are located;
2. In Google Settings, go to Services>Ads and mark the opt-out of preference-based ads;
3. Tap on the Reset advertising ID option at the top.
iOS
1. How to reset your ad ID and opt out of targeted ad tracking on Android, iOS and Windows phones Go to the Settings app;
2. Go to Privacy menu and enter;
3. Scroll down until you find the Ads menu;
4. In Ads, move the slider for Limit Ad Tracking to the On position;
5. Just like on Android, tap Reset Advertising Identifier below the Limit Ad Tracking option.