There's going to be constant tug-o-war over between Apple and the industry over UDID replacement, says Kiip's Eamonn Carey

With Apple finally acting on its long stated goal of deprecating UDIDs as a method of tracking users, this week has seen many of the key players in the mobile advertising and monetisation space rolling out their responses to the situation.

We caught up with Eamon Carey of real rewards network Kiip for his view.

Pocket Gamer: Why do you think Apple has deprecated UDIDs?

Eamonn Carey: UDIDs have traditionally been used by the industry to track people without their permission.

Naturally, Apple wants to be sensitive to privacy and has taken a stance against this. It's not a big surprise for us, as it announced almost a year ago that it was going to sunset the UDID as a method of identification.

What impact do you think the deprecation of UDIDs will have?

I think the companies that rely on tracking people without their permission will be affected. This means ad networks, game networks, offer walls, incentivised action networks, video ad networks, retargeting, etc.

On the other hand, companies will have to find different ways to identify users beyond the UDID including IP and MAC addresses.

What plans do you have to work around the issue?

We don't really need to work around it per se as we mainly serve folks rewards when they explicitly give permission (aka through an email address or phone number for SMS).

We've always been very permissions-based, which is core to the rewards model. Reciprocity only happens when there's permission.

Do you think there will be an industry-wise solution everyone can agree on?

Probably not. Everyone will want to have something for themselves, so that there's an asymmetry around identification.

I think someone is going to come up with something clever, and Apple will make moves to combat it - and there will be a constant tug-o-war between the industry and Apple's need to protect privacy.

Thanks to Eamonn for his time.