Alexa Advertising ID Policy

The Alexa Advertising ID (Ad ID) is a user-resettable, unique identifier that is available to third-party skill developers and content providers for analytics and advertising. Third-party Alexa skills that are from the same developer and are on the same device receive the same Ad ID. Third-party Alexa skills on different devices or from different developers receive different Ad IDs. For more details, see About Alexa Advertising ID.

All skills that use the Alexa advertising ID must comply with the Alexa advertising ID policy.

Using the Ad ID

Developers may only use the Ad ID for analytics and advertising and may not use any other identifier for advertising or analytics. Once developers start using the Ad ID, they must verify the user’s preference relating to advertising and honor it as described below.

Examples of activity for which no other identifier may be used include:

  • Displaying interest-based ads;
  • Collecting data for advertising analytics; and
  • Collecting data to build user profiles for advertising purposes.

Honoring user preferences

Before retrieving the Ad ID, displaying interest-based advertising, or building profiles for the purposes of advertising, you must verify whether the user has opted out of your ability to display interest-based advertising or build profiles for the purposes of advertising.

The user’s Ad ID and the opt-out choice will be included as part of the Alexa request sent to you. The location of the advertising object within the request will vary depending on the type of your skill and the API of the request (refer to your respective skill type’s developer documentation). The two values will be present together, wrapped under the advertising object:

“advertising”: {
    “advertisingId”: “3A233D2-B22E-12D0-A112-DE6B9C49A2DE”,
    “limitAdTracking”: false
}

For radio providers that use Alexa content integration, the user’s Ad ID and the opt-out choice will be included as part of base streaming URI:

https://example.com/base-streaming-uri&advertisingId=3A233D2-B22E-12D0-A112-DE6B9C49A2DE&limitAdTracking=false

Verify the user’s opt-out choice at the start of each session. User preference is represented by the ad tracking value:

  • If the value for limitAdTracking is false, you can display interest-based advertising or build profiles for the purposes of advertising. As a reminder, only the Ad ID may be used for such purposes.
  • If the value for limitAdTracking is true, you may not display interest-based advertising or build profiles for the purposes of advertising. You may still use the Ad ID for purposes including contextual advertising, frequency capping, conversion tracking, reporting, and security and fraud detection, in each case to the extent permitted by applicable law.

Retrieving the Ad ID

The Ad ID is stored in the advertisingId property. If the Ad ID is available, an Ad ID will be returned. An example showing the format of the Ad ID is as follows: 3A233D2-B22E-12D0-A112-DE6B9C49A2DE. There are circumstances in which the Ad ID will be available but returned as a string of zeros (00000000-0000-0000-0000-00000000000), including in geographies in which Ad ID is not yet available or when a customer accesses your skill through the Alexa Smart Properties program. If you receive an Ad ID that has been zeroed out, it will be accompanied by the value for limitAdTracking as true. In these circumstances, follow the guidance above and do not display interest-based advertising or build advertising profiles.

As a best practice, don’t store the Advertising ID value; access the advertising object instead upon each Alexa request.

Using other persistent identifiers

You may not associate the Ad ID with personal data unless the user has provided explicit consent for you to do so.

Handling reset Ad IDs

If an Ad ID is reset, you may not associate a new Ad ID with a previous Ad ID or data tied to a previous Ad ID unless the user has provided explicit consent for you to do so.

Using third-party Ad services

If you use a third-party ad service in your app, you must ensure the ad service follows this Advertising ID policy.

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Last updated: Aug 08, 2024