* Of course, location could have been inferred alternatively, e.g., WIFI, IP etc. The links can be found here:
[1] www.wired.com/story/gravy-...
[2] bsky.app/profile/fs0c...

Interestingly, the Play Store privacy labels of these apps reveal that only 3 in 4 apps state they share data with third parties and less than half disclose the sharing of location (i.e. GPS) data*.

As headlines already suggested, the list contains renowned apps with many users – predominantly belonging to the games category. It is apparent that all are ad-based and thus many pinpoint to the ad ecosystem being the origin of the user’s location info.

Fully agree, there are many challenges and my impression is that it is getting worse over time (e.g., restrictions, outages, and removals). Let’s keep in touch!

You're absolutely correct and I do observe additional targeting parameters to go down a lot. It is just interesting to observe that lesser personalization and/or profiling doesn't seem to affect the amount of ads targeted to that group. Looking forward to your analysis!

Tagging some DSA folks to look out for: @alhohlfeld.bsky.social @hutko.bsky.social
@daphnek.bsky.social @wavesblog.bsky.social

If and how to regulate digital platforms. Quite some interesting policy shocks going on/coming up.