[happyopossum]

FTA:

“Apple and Google have worked together to create an industry specification”

…

“Apple and Google will continue to work with the Internet Engineering Task Force via the Detecting Unwanted Location Trackers working group to develop the official standard for this technology.”

That’s what is happening here. I’m not sure why people are always quick to assume negatives without doing even the most cursory reading of linked articles.

[y04nn]

I should have made my point clear, but I'm referring to the tracking compatibility feature, that an airtag would be compatible for geolocation with the Android ecosystem and vice-versa toward building a global single tracking network instead of having 2 coexisting networks.

[talldayo]

I think the problem they're referring to is that we're being dragged through this brouhaha to stop an unintended side-effect from a proprietary network. In an ideal world Android users can detect unwanted Airtags because the protocol is documented and open. In the world we live in, Google has to go out of their way to solve problems Apple is inventing for them.

The only possible interpretation of this is that Apple knows their current system wouldn't survive antitrust inquiries. So they're making a pathetically marginal concession ("well we did let you track the hostile users!") to cement the rationale of a pointlessly insular system. Once again, Apple is refusing to fully solve a fixable problem in order to artificially create a market in which to sell their solution.

[Arch-TK]

"Apple and Google will continue to work with the Internet Engineering Task Force via the Detecting Unwanted Location Trackers working group to develop the official standard for this technology."

IOW:

"BigCorpA and BigCorpG will continue to work with Why Must This Task Force No Longer Focus On Progressing The Common Good And Instead Now Need To Focusing On Helping Try To Mitigate The Mess That Big Corps Are Causing via the Trying To Unfuck BigCorpA's Massive Privacy Oversight working group to develop an official standard which only BigCorpA and BigCorpG will have the resources to implement."