Google, Apple are banning tech that tracked you for years

While Apple is giving developers a time period of two months to comply with the order, Google is giving developers a month with the ability to apply for an extension for up to 30 days.

The Apple logo is seen at an Apple Store, as Apple's new 5G iPhone 12 went on sale in Brooklyn, New York, U.S. October 23, 2020. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo (REUTERS)

Tech companies often use users' location data to provide them with more accurate information on their platforms. But it doesn't happen often that they piggyback on other platforms to track and sell your location data. But a company called X-Mode Social does exactly that. And now Apple and Google are working to put a stop to its operations.

As per a report by The Wall Street Journal (via The Verge), Apple and Google are banning data broker firm X-Mode Social from collecting location data from the smartphones running on their respective mobile operating systems, that is, iOS and Android.

To give you a quick brief about the data broker firm, X-Mode Social works by giving developers a piece of code, an SDK, to embed in their apps. This SDK tracks users' location and then sends it to the company, which it then sells. In this arrangement, while X-Mode gets the location data, developers get paid a certain amount that is based on how many users the app has. As per a report by Motherboard, it has over 400 apps and it gathers information from 60 million users across the globe every month.

Now, both Apple and Google have announced that they are asking developers to remove X-Mode's SDK from their apps on their respective platforms. While Apple is giving developers a time period of two months to comply with the order, Google is giving developers a month with the ability to apply for an extension for up to 30 days. Both the companies have warned developers that if they fail to comply with the order, their apps could be removed from the App Store and the Play Store.