New setting goes into effect today, can be reversed

Nov 27, 2014 13:09 GMT  ·  By

Twitter is rolling out a new setting for iOS customers today that will allow the service to peek into the devices and see what other apps they have installed. The reason? Advertising.

Twitter is neither the first nor the last service doing this, so we shouldn’t be too surprised that this is happening. With a user base in the hundreds of millions, it’s really hard to resist not monetizing. However, that’s not all it’s for.

A more personal experience

Twitter says in a support article that its primary reason is to “help build a more personal Twitter experience for you.” It states its intentions loud and clear – “we are collecting and occasionally updating the list of apps installed on your mobile device so we can deliver tailored content that you might be interested in” – and reveals that users can opt out.

In fact, users who have Limit Ad Tracking enabled in their iDevices’ Settings panel will not even be included in the service until they flip that switch back on.

Users will be notified before the feature is turned on, showing them a prompt that says something about helping Twitter tailor their experience: “Until you see this prompt, this setting is turned off and we are not collecting a list of your apps,” says the microblogging service.

Will not peek into apps

Twitter promises only to obtain the list of apps installed on your device and claims it will not look inside the apps themselves for additional data. In fact, there’s a good chance it can’t even do that (technically speaking), but it has to be said so that people aren’t concerned.

“We are only collecting the list of applications you have installed. We are not collecting any data within the applications,” reads the support document.

According to people familiar with the matter, if a user chooses to opt out, Twitter will purge its servers of any data previously collected from that user’s phone.

While Android users still have a few weeks to wait before the update rolls out (though something tells us they’re not waiting for it too anxiously), iOS customers will be greeted by the new build today.

To manually disable the function, visit the Me tab, tap the gear icon, tap Settings, choose the account you’d like to adjust, and adjust the setting to Tailor Twitter based on my apps under Privacy.

Twitter currently requires iOS 7.0 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are supported natively.

Twitter screenshots (7 Images)

Twitter timeline
Twitter "tailor" promptTwitter example #1
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