By 
Google plans to adopt new privacy restrictions to curtail tracking across apps on Android smartphones, following Apple Inc.
AAPL,
-1.16%
in putting restraints on an advertising industry that has covertly collected data across billions of mobile devices.
Google’s plans for Android could hasten an end to more than a decade of advertising practices across smartphones in which companies including Meta Platforms Inc.’s
FB,
-3.43%
Facebook layered their code into hundreds of thousands of apps to track consumer behavior.
Apple’s changes, which went into effect last year, have already upended the digital-ad industry and contributed to a wipeout of more than $300 billion from Meta’s market value.
Google
GOOG,
-0.22%
said Wednesday that it plans to develop more privacy-focused replacements for the alphanumeric identifiers associated with individual smartphones that some apps use to gather and share information about users.
An expanded version of this article appears on WSJ.com.
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