Twitter looks to the apps on your phone for better ad targeting

Twitter
Make sure you let Twitter know if you don't want it tracking your apps

Twitter has announced that it's about to start paying very close attention to the apps you have installed on your phone.

Why would it care? To serve you more target advertisements, of course. Why else?

"To help build a more personal Twitter experience for you, we are collecting and occasionally updating the list of apps installed on your mobile device so we can deliver tailored content that you might be interested in," reads Twitter's support site.

It notes that Twitter won't collect any data from within other apps, though - just lists of what those apps are.

Don't worry, you can turn it off

The data Twitter collects on your installed apps might affect the "who to follow" suggestions, promoted tweets and more unsolicited items your feed shows you.

Thankfully you can turn Twitter's "app graph" off in your Twitter app's settings menu, and it's off by default if you previously told the app to "limit ad tracking" or opted out of internet-based ads, depending what OS you're on.

A prompt within the app will let you know if Twitter switches it on for your account, and until then the company says you have nothing to worry about.

Michael Rougeau

Michael Rougeau is a former freelance news writer for TechRadar. Studying at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Northeastern University, Michael has bylines at Kotaku, 1UP, G4, Complex Magazine, Digital Trends, GamesRadar, GameSpot, IFC, Animal New York, @Gamer, Inside the Magic, Comic Book Resources, Zap2It, TabTimes, GameZone, Cheat Code Central, Gameshark, Gameranx, The Industry, Debonair Mag, Kombo, and others.

Micheal also spent time as the Games Editor for Playboy.com, and was the managing editor at GameSpot before becoming an Animal Care Manager for Wags and Walks.