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Twitter’s app graph service, that went online earlier this month, has started to show up in the new Android and iOS app. The service allows advertisers to receive information about app installs, purchase, and even new sign-ups (not the actual credentials of course) directly from the Twitter app.
With the service, advertisers can now analyse and determine audience segments that they could approach. The service is primarily aimed at companies who have their own apps and would want to push it to new users. The app graph service will determine users’ preference, app usage, as well as determining high value users that the ads could target. The advertisers can then promote an app, from a particular service, to users who are not already using them. The advertisers could even target users who have already installed an app but have not started using it nor have made purchases from it.
The information collected from app graph will also help Twitter to provide a better service. These improvements include: providing better suggestions on ‘Who to follow’, adding content or tweets to the timeline that the user might find interesting, and to show a more relevant promoted content.
The new service does look like an invasion of privacy but Twitter assures that no personal data is being collected from within the apps. The app graph service has also been designed to exclude ‘sensitive’ apps that hold information regarding health, sexual orientation, or religious beliefs.
Twitter has confirmed that it would not collect any data for targeted ads from an iOS device if the user has enabled the ‘Limit ad tracking’ setting. On an Android device, the user would have had to select the ‘Opt out of interest based advertising’ option. If the user is still not comfortable with the existence of the service in the Twitter app, they can also disable the service entirely using the steps below:
On Twitter for Android:
- Tap the ‘Overflow’ icon (the three vertically stacked dots) on the top right.
- Tap on ‘Settings’.
- If you have more than one account, tap on the one you’d like to adjust.
- Under ‘OTHER’, look for the option called ‘Tailor Twitter based on my apps’. It should show that its been ‘Opted in’. Tap on the option to change it.
- In the next menu, uncheck the ‘Tailor Twitter based on my apps’ option and press the back button. It will still show that you’re ‘Opted in’.
- Just go back one more step, then go back into the account again. This time it will read ‘Opted out’.
On Twitter for iOS:
- From the ‘Me’ tab, tap the ‘Gear’ icon.
- Tap on ‘Settings’.
- Tap on the account you’d want to adjust.
- Under ‘Privacy’, adjust the setting to disable ‘Tailor Twitter based on my apps’.
Those instructions should do the trick and should keep Twitter from getting to know you better. In any case, this is a great service for Twitter to be able to generate revenue from its advertisers but unfortunately, it may not go down too well with its user base.
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