Twitter now tracks other apps you've installed

NEW YORK — Twitter said it is now tracking what other apps its users have installed on their mobile devices so it can target content and ads to them better.

Twitter Inc. said Wednesday that users will receive a notification when the setting is turned on and can opt out using settings on their phones. On iPhones, this setting is called “limit ad tracking.” On Android phones, it’s “opt out of interest-based ads.”

San Francisco-based Twitter said it is only collecting the list of apps that users have installed, not any data within the apps. It won’t collect the app lists from people who have previously turned off ad targeting on their phones.

Besides advertising, Twitter said knowing what apps people have downloaded can improve its suggestions on what accounts to follow and add relevant content to their feeds that isn’t advertising.

A recent Pew Research Center poll found that people sometimes have conflicting views on privacy. About 80 percent of Americans who use social networking sites are concerned about third parties, such as advertisers, accessing data that they share on the sites, according to the poll. At the same time, most are willing to share some information about themselves in exchange for using such services for free.