Google is considering implementing a privacy policy similar to Apple's, which resulted in a $230 billion decrease in Facebook's market value.

• On Wednesday, Google announced new privacy restrictions that will limit tracking across apps on its Android devices.
• The company, owned by Alphabet, announced it is working on new privacy-centric alternatives to its advertising ID, which identifies users' devices through a unique string of characters.
• Apple's move last year disrupted advertising practices, as it did with advertising.

On Wednesday, it was announced that new privacy restrictions would be adopted, which will limit tracking across apps on Android devices. This move is similar to the one made by last year, which disrupted many firms' advertising practices.

Google is reportedly working on new privacy-centric alternatives to its advertising ID, which is a unique identifier assigned to a user's device for the purpose of tracking and sharing information about consumers in the digital advertising industry.

The recent privacy changes implemented by Apple have negatively impacted big companies that track users across apps, such as Meta, the parent company of Facebook. Meta announced earlier this month that these changes will decrease their sales this year by approximately $10 billion. This news caused a significant drop in the company's market cap, with $232 billion being wiped off in a single day. As a result, Meta's market cap fell below $600 billion, down from its value of over $1 trillion in June 2021.

Meta opposed Apple's modifications but backed Google's privacy adjustments.

Google's long-term, collaborative approach to privacy-protective personalized advertising is encouraging, according to Facebook vice president of product marketing, ads and business, Graham Mudd, who expressed excitement about continued work with the industry on privacy-enhancing technology through industry groups on Twitter.

Google has announced that it will maintain the current identifiers for the next two years, allowing other companies to make necessary changes.

Facebook and other companies criticized Apple for implementing its App Tracking Transparency feature, which restricted advertisers' ability to access an iPhone user identifier, thereby reducing their targeting capabilities. As a result, users received a pop-up window that allowed them to block apps from tracking their data for advertising purposes.

In its blog post, Google took issue with Apple's methodology without mentioning the company's name.

Google Android vice president of product management, security and privacy, Anthony Chavez, wrote in a blog post that other platforms have taken a different approach to ads privacy by bluntly restricting existing technologies used by developers and advertisers. However, Google believes that such approaches can be ineffective and lead to worse outcomes for user privacy and developer businesses, and that a privacy-preserving alternative path should be provided first.

The tech giant could gain a competitive advantage by prioritizing privacy practices as lawmakers and consumers become increasingly vigilant about protecting their personal data. The company stated that it would collaborate with regulators.