What Your Phone’s Advertising-ID Controls Actually Change

Your phone has more than one advertising control. Changing one of them can be useful without making the device anonymous or erasing data already held elsewhere. The clearest way to use these settings is to ask what each control changes: an identifier, an operating-system advertising feature, a permission, or a company's stored account data. Android: reset and delete are different actions Google describes the Android advertising ID as a unique, user-resettable, and user-deletable identifier supplied by Google Play services for advertising. On supported Android versions, Google documents these paths: Settings → Privacy → Ads → Reset advertising ID replaces the identifier. Settings → Privacy → Ads → Delete advertising ID removes it; attempts to retrieve it receive a string of zeros. Menu names can differ on an older Android version or a manufacturer's build. Search Settings for “Ads” or “advertising ID” if the documented path is absent. Resetting breaks the direct continuity of that identifier. Deleting prevents apps from retrieving that Google advertising ID. Neither action is a command to every company that previously received it to delete its records. Google also tells developers that persistent identifiers remain available for supported non-advertising uses, and that an app without an advertising ID may use a persistent or proprietary identifier for permitted non-advertising purposes under its policies. That is why “deleted the ad ID” should not be translated into “the phone has no other identifiers.” Android's newer ad-privacy settings are separate Android Help documents three additional controls under Settings → Google → All services → Ads → Ads privacy: Ad topics lets Android share selected interest topics with apps. App-suggested ads lets apps store suggestions with Android for use by other apps. Ad measurement allows limited sharing to measure ad performance. Turning one off does not automatically turn off the others. Google also notes that ads in an app can depend on the advertising-ID setting, these ad-privacy settings, and the app's own policies. For a focused review, check all four areas: the advertising ID, the three Android ad-privacy features, the app's permissions, and any ad or privacy option inside the app. iPhone and iPad: review tracking permission Apple's App Tracking Transparency guidance says apps must ask before tracking activity across other companies' apps and websites for advertising or sharing with data brokers. Go to Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking to review apps individually. Turning off Allow Apps to Request to Track stops new prompts and treats apps as if you selected Ask App Not to Track, according to Apple. This permission has a defined scope. It is not the same as location permission, access to photos, background activity, or information associated with an account you use to sign in. Review those separately in Privacy & Security and in the service's account settings. Why the identifier matters In its case against X-Mode Social and Outlogic, the Federal Trade Commission said raw location data sold by the companies was associated with mobile advertising IDs. The agency alleged that the data could connect a device with visits to sensitive locations and that the companies failed to obtain adequate informed consent and honor some Android opt-outs. That case documents one data pipeline; it does not prove that every app sells location data. It does show why a supposedly pseudonymous identifier can become sensitive when combined with precise, repeated location records. What these controls do not settle Changing a phone's advertising settings does not by itself: delete information already copied into an advertiser's or broker's system; revoke an app's location, contacts, microphone, or photo permission; sign you out of an account that links activity across devices; remove first-party recommendations inside a service; or guarantee that every app follows platform policy. After changing the setting, review apps with sensitive permissions and remove access that the app does not need. Use the company's privacy-request process if you want it to delete stored data. If a broker holds the record, the data-broker opt-out guide explains why the request must go to the relevant company rather than to the phone setting. The useful result is narrower and measurable: you can remove or rotate Android's advertising ID, reduce Android's operating-system ad signals, and deny Apple's defined cross-company tracking permission. Keep those outcomes distinct from the larger work of account, permission, and data-deletion review.