Twitter is now tracking the apps installed on your mobile device

Twitter just made an announcement that’s bound to make at least a few people suspicious in regards to their intentions. The company is now tracking all the apps installed on your mobile device in order to offer more specific content for each user while they’re using the microblogging platform. Twitter emphasizes the fact that it is only collecting the list of installed apps and not actual data from within these applications. “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,” Twitter announced.

The company says that the app list will help them offer you improved “who to follow” suggestions as well as showing you more relevant promoted content. Also, Twitter will analyze the list and your interests so that based on them, they can add Tweets, accounts, or other content of interest to your timeline. The company also says that it will notify you via a prompt when the feature is on for your account. The feature will be turned off until you see the prompt and apps will not be collected.

As you might imagine, the app list tracking is not mandatory and you can choose to turn the feature off at any time. If you’re an Android user, just tap the “overflow icon”, then tap “settings”, and then the account you want to adjust. Finally, under “other” you can turn on or off the setting to “tailor Twitter based on my apps”. As for iOS users, go to the “me” tab and tap the “gear icon” followed by “settings”. Then, tap the account you want to adjust and under “privacy” you can turn on or off the setting to “tailor Twitter based on my apps.”