AD BATTLE BREWING

Silicon Valley giants are drawing battle lines over personal data collection practices and targeted ads as the threat of regulation looms.

Apple is pressing forward plants to launch an anti-tracking feature. The impending update has drawn criticism from Facebook over the significant impact it could have on the social media giant’s revenue.

Meanwhile, Facebook and Google have aligned themselves over the latter’s more measured approach to scaling back tracking features that was announced last week.

Google said it would not replace its tracking features used for personalized ads once it phases out its existing method. But experts and pro-privacy advocates say that while Google’s update may be a small step toward giving users more control over their data protection, the change may hurt Google’s rivals more than the company itself.