Digital Advertising Alliance Launches Opt-Out App

The industry self-regulatory group Digital Advertising Alliance today will release a mobile app that enables consumers to opt out of behavioral advertising on smartphones and tablets. The organization also is releasing a mobile opt-out page, where consumers can opt out of receiving behaviorally targeted ads on the mobile Web.

The app, dubbed AppChoices, will be available for free from Google Play, the Apple App Store and Amazon Store.

The DAA said last year that it had developed an app that would allow people to avoid behavioral advertising on smartphones and tablets, but didn't release the app until today.

The app marks the DAA's most recent step to implement its mobile privacy code, which sets out rules for collecting data and serving ads on mobile devices. The organization requires ad networks and other companies to notify consumers about online behavioral advertising -- called cross-app advertising in the mobile environment -- and allow people to opt out.

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Privacy compliance companies TRUSTe and Ghostery also offer apps that allow mobile users to opt out of behaviorally targeted mobile ads.

It's not clear whether people will turn to apps to opt out of behavioral targeting, given that the largest mobile operating systems come with built-in controls that enable people to control cross-app targeting. 

Apple, for instance, offers a “limit ad tracking” setting, which conveys to ad networks that users don't want to be tracked. Apple requires developers to agree that they honor that setting -- meaning that they don't serve ads to users based on their activity across a variety of apps. Google also offers a comparable feature for Android devices.

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