What does "New button to reset the Advertising Identifier" do?

[hakr100]

Haven't tripped across an explanation for this:

New button to reset the Advertising Identifier

??

 

[Adutrumque]

I brought this up before in the iOS 6.1 thread and one user "Batting" told me this:

It's the new UDID I'm pretty sure.

I don't know if that's the answer.

 

[r2shyyou]

Haven't tripped across an explanation for this:

New button to reset the Advertising Identifier

??

Looks to be a way to reset your device's "ID" that advertisers to identify it:

In iOS 6.1, a new Reset Advertising Identifier button has been added to Advertising Settings. This button resets the Advertising Identifier so that future requests will return a different value.

Source: Apple, via iDownloadBlog

 

[GoCubsGo]

But what is the purpose of needing to reset it? Does this give us more privacy control?

 

[r2shyyou]

I brought this up before in the iOS 6.1 thread and one user "Batting" told me this:

It's the new UDID I'm pretty sure.

I don't know if that's the answer.

That's essentially the answer.

Apple had previously used a Unique Device Identifier (UDID) for a number of things, including targeted advertising. I don't know the whole of it but my guess is that this UDID was being used for too many things to the point where it might've been possible for an ad service to find out more about you - or, rather, your device - than they were supposed to.

With iOS 6.1, Apple has stopped using the UDID for ad tracking and replaced it with non-personal ID that each user can reset, thereby essentially erasing their prior "footprint" across the web.

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But what is the purpose of needing to reset it? Does this give us more privacy control?

I don't know that there would ever be a need but it seems to me that yes, it does give us a bit more privacy control. As I mentioned above, resetting this ID should, at least in my mind, make your device appear to advertisers as a new device.

But I'm not totally clear on it myself, this is just how I'm understanding it at the moment.

 

[DMH3006]

While it doesn't appear as a new device per-se it basically erases the data they had on your device.

For example:instead of them alraedy knowing what kind of movies/books you like on any app based on your usage and can then tell you the movies/books that they "think" you might like,they start from scratch.