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Every Major Advertising Group Is Blasting Apple for Blocking Cookies in Safari

adweek.com

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Re: Every Major Advertising Group Is Blasting Apple for Blocking Cookies in Safari

#51

Post by fron »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #18

> They argue it'll hurt user experience and campaign targeting Uh, it's the ads that are hurting the user experience. And I don't particularly care if your targeting suffers.

> Uh, it's the ads that are hurting the user experience

Amen to that. Not only do they slow down page loads by several orders of magnitude, they also frequently slow down the website after page loads. The shenanigans some of them try is really infuriating and blatantly disrespectful to the end user. Embedded cryptocoin mining, firing off HTTP requests rapidly and endlessly, changing the page's scrolling behavior, loading right in the middle of the page's main content, etc.

Any change to a web browser that interferes with or defeats online advertising is one that I welcome. Until online advertising becomes unobtrusive and malware-free again, I, along with millions of others, will keep the adblocker enabled.

Re: Every Major Advertising Group Is Blasting Apple for Blocking Cookies in Safari

#52

Post by alethiophile »

tinus_hn wrote: post #44
outsidetheparty wrote: post #12

What's especially infuriating about the advertisers' spin here is that Apple appears to have gone to a lot of effort to not destroy their business model. They're not simply blocking third-party tracking cookies, they're expiring or partitioning them more rapidly based on how infrequently the user interacts with a given website. https://webkit.org/blog/7675/intelligent-tracking-prevention...

Conveniently, some parties like mostly Google but also Facebook and Twitter have both a big presence in the tracker space and also a site users often visit directly. Their information is going to get much more valuable.

Do Google ad tracking cookies actually live on the google.com domain? Seems like an ethical violation of some kind if so.

Re: Every Major Advertising Group Is Blasting Apple for Blocking Cookies in Safari

#53

Post by msla »

submeta wrote: post #31

> When Apple first announced the limitations to cross-website tracking in June, the company said the changes are meant to improve trust with users, explaining that “users feel that trust is broken when they are being tracked and privacy-sensitive data about their web activity is acquired for purposes that they never agreed to.” This! I switched from Windows+Android to the Apple ecosystem in 2015. Because I love so ma…

I wonder if Apple is protecting its customers from everyone except Apple.

I really can't trust any closed-source OS, and very few closed-source applications.

Re: Every Major Advertising Group Is Blasting Apple for Blocking Cookies in Safari

#54

Post by urda »

mikemikemike wrote: post #42
submeta wrote: post #31

> When Apple first announced the limitations to cross-website tracking in June, the company said the changes are meant to improve trust with users, explaining that “users feel that trust is broken when they are being tracked and privacy-sensitive data about their web activity is acquired for purposes that they never agreed to.” This! I switched from Windows+Android to the Apple ecosystem in 2015. Because I love so ma…

Privacy is important, but breaking the functionality of cookies is the wrong way to address it. Not all cookies are used for tracking. Be prepared to start losing your settings in web apps or being logged out after 24 hours if you use Safari. What's more, the claim that Apple is doing this for the sake of user trust is a lie. The real reason they're breaking the functionality of cookies is the same reason they refuse…

... what the hell did I just read. Let me correct the record so those that end up here don't actually buy into this.

> Not all cookies are used for tracking.

No, but third-party cookies are basically used for tracking. A legitimate site does not depend on a third-party cookie to handle features or login. At all, full stop no ifs, ands, or buts.

> Be prepared to start losing your settings in web apps or being logged out after 24 hours if you use Safari.

Again, not going to happen because those are not associated with third-party cookies.

> They're deliberately trying to hold back web technology so that people will be forced to create and use native apps instead.

God no, or there would be no icloud.com, online shopping app, or their other web offerings. There is no conspiracy or holding back, this is purely to protect the user.

> I say this as a die-hard MacBook user.

Then you should be prepared with more research and have your homework done ahead of time on this matter. This is all nonsense and just false.

Re: Every Major Advertising Group Is Blasting Apple for Blocking Cookies in Safari

#55

Post by sogen »

mikemikemike wrote: post #42
submeta wrote: post #31

> When Apple first announced the limitations to cross-website tracking in June, the company said the changes are meant to improve trust with users, explaining that “users feel that trust is broken when they are being tracked and privacy-sensitive data about their web activity is acquired for purposes that they never agreed to.” This! I switched from Windows+Android to the Apple ecosystem in 2015. Because I love so ma…

Privacy is important, but breaking the functionality of cookies is the wrong way to address it. Not all cookies are used for tracking. Be prepared to start losing your settings in web apps or being logged out after 24 hours if you use Safari. What's more, the claim that Apple is doing this for the sake of user trust is a lie. The real reason they're breaking the functionality of cookies is the same reason they refuse…

3rd party cookies are not really required for most apps, they are mostly for ads.

Re: Every Major Advertising Group Is Blasting Apple for Blocking Cookies in Safari

#56

Post by Rumudiez »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #23
DannyB2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a better euphemism: > “Blocking cookies in this manner will drive a wedge between brands and their customers, . . ." How about: . . . will drive a wedge between brands the those who they want to exploit.

I don't think brands are the ones doing the exploitation. They just want me to buy their new doodad. AdTech is doing all the exploiting here, it seems to me, on both sides.

In house marketing can be just as aggressive as third party, so I don't think we can fault one more than other.

Re: Every Major Advertising Group Is Blasting Apple for Blocking Cookies in Safari

#57

Post by tradersam »

msla wrote: post #53
submeta wrote: post #31

> When Apple first announced the limitations to cross-website tracking in June, the company said the changes are meant to improve trust with users, explaining that “users feel that trust is broken when they are being tracked and privacy-sensitive data about their web activity is acquired for purposes that they never agreed to.” This! I switched from Windows+Android to the Apple ecosystem in 2015. Because I love so ma…

I wonder if Apple is protecting its customers from everyone except Apple. I really can't trust any closed-source OS, and very few closed-source applications.

A lot of macOS is open source.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15251891

https://developer.apple.com/opensource/

Re: Every Major Advertising Group Is Blasting Apple for Blocking Cookies in Safari

#58

Post by MBCook »

ceejayoz wrote: post #37
Jerry2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think that advertising company will block advertising? If you do, I have a slightly used bridge in NY City to sell you for cheap.

I think they'd happily block other providers' ads.

At that point between their dominance in ads and their dominance in browsers I could see other ad providers getting very upset and asking the government to intervene. And I think they may be right.

Will the government do anything? I doubt it.

Re: Every Major Advertising Group Is Blasting Apple for Blocking Cookies in Safari

#59

Post by MBCook »

chrisweekly wrote: post #40
15charlimit wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is exactly why most friends and colleagues have switched to uBlock Origin or similar plugins. Whitelisting is not the solution. Letting the entire industry die in the pit they've dug for themselves is the solution.

What happens to the freemium game industry? I think opt-in, rewarded advertising is the path forward for the minority of publishers wise enough to learn to align with the end-user's goals. App monetization platform providers like Tapjoy -- who have customers on both supply side (publishers) and demand side (advertisers) might view end-user UX as the 3rd leg of a stool.

They stop taking good games and hitting them with the micro-transaction stick until they're awful?

Bring back the OLD PopCap. Let me BUY good games. I pay. I'll be happy to buy more.

Instead people are trying to make Candy Crush look downright saintly.

Re: Every Major Advertising Group Is Blasting Apple for Blocking Cookies in Safari

#60

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

msla wrote: post #53
submeta wrote: post #31

> When Apple first announced the limitations to cross-website tracking in June, the company said the changes are meant to improve trust with users, explaining that “users feel that trust is broken when they are being tracked and privacy-sensitive data about their web activity is acquired for purposes that they never agreed to.” This! I switched from Windows+Android to the Apple ecosystem in 2015. Because I love so ma…

I wonder if Apple is protecting its customers from everyone except Apple. I really can't trust any closed-source OS, and very few closed-source applications.

That sounds like irrational threat-modeling based on paranoia: you're so focused on one concern (abuse by a closed-source vendor) that you're accepting routine abuse by other vendors to avoid the theoretical abuse.

Your concern seems like a security negative.

Also, Apple has demonstrated a great deal of care in the statistics we know they collect, eg by making it impossible to determine your actual input while collecting aggregate statistics.

So it is a theoretical concern, but in any practical threat model, it's also a better concern to have than the alternatives.

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