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WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

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Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#61

Post by cthaeh »

braythwayt wrote: post #31
anaisbetts wrote: post #18

If this tweet is accurate, Apple's choices here are pretty hard to explain as anything but "leverage / abuse mobile phone monopoly to kneecap competitors", especially because nowhere in this document does it actually describe how this makes users' lives better in any concrete, specific way https://mobile.twitter.com/Carnage4Life/status/1161779661644...

I find it easy to explain that Apple is not using a mobile phone monopoly to X, for any X, by virtue of the fact that Apple does not have a mobile phone monopoly, not even close. If I want Google ad tracking on my phone, I have a bewilderingly large selection of Android phones to choose from, all of which run on the same mobile networks as my iPhone, work with the same Internet, and all of the apps I consider part of…

I find it very easy to use "Apple" and "monopoly" in the same sentence.

Apple has been consistently making it harder to make money off iOS users without sharing that revenue with apple. Furthermore, they don't allow side loading of apps, their own apps have special api's that their competitors can't use, etc.

I could go on and on.

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#62

Post by downandout »

kibwen wrote: post #57
downandout wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to say exactly this. Most profits for online ventures come from retargeted ads, and most businesses lose money on cold audiences just so that they can build retargeting audiences. As a result, when tracking dies, so does most online ad spend. I am really curious what the web itself (outside of apps) will look like in a world where the quality of content and services implodes because of the inability of pu…

Not to suggest offense, but I wonder how old you are? I may not quite be a greybeard just yet, but I remember being enraptured by the content on the internet long before it was caught in the stranglehold of advertisers. Big-budget affairs would be more scarce, but there would be no dearth of content.

I am old enough to have seen the Internet emerge. You were enraptured by content and services provided by companies that lost billions of dollars, courtesy of investors, during the dot com era. Those investors provided that capital in large part because they knew how lucrative it could be if online advertising became as efficient and effective as it is today. You will not see that kind of subsidy in the post-ad world.

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#63

Post by onemoresoop »

kibwen wrote: post #57
downandout wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to say exactly this. Most profits for online ventures come from retargeted ads, and most businesses lose money on cold audiences just so that they can build retargeting audiences. As a result, when tracking dies, so does most online ad spend. I am really curious what the web itself (outside of apps) will look like in a world where the quality of content and services implodes because of the inability of pu…

Not to suggest offense, but I wonder how old you are? I may not quite be a greybeard just yet, but I remember being enraptured by the content on the internet long before it was caught in the stranglehold of advertisers. Big-budget affairs would be more scarce, but there would be no dearth of content.

Same here. Internet felt like a benevolent community where wonderful things florished. Now it’s becoming a giant tracking apparatus flooded with competing addictive garbage.

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#64

Post by rale00 »

geofft wrote: post #47
rale00 wrote: post #40

So what is going to happen when Apple succeeds in making it impossible to make any money off advertisements shown to iOS users on the web? I'm currently imagining a future where publishers start to just redirect iOS traffic to install their app, where they can actually make money. Good news for the walled garden, I guess?

Didn't people make money off internet advertising before the modern surveillance-marketing complex? What happened to it? I mean, maybe the answer is that those ads were only profitable because of the novelty factor and now that we have metrics we know they don't work, or at least don't work anywhere close to how much they cost. But I do miss things like the webcomics running their own ad network, Google's textual ads…

> Didn't people make money off internet advertising before the modern surveillance-marketing complex? What happened to it?

Non-contextual advertising still exists, but it's perceived as less effective, so there's a lot less money in it. I don't know if that perception is correct, but I do remember back when a common complaint from people was that the ads they saw weren't relevant to them.

It's also not just targeted advertising that will be affected. Without any sort of user tracking, it will be even harder to prevent fraud. No one wants to spend money showing ads to bots.

> Also I assume / hope that iOS ads aren't tracking people either; third-party cookies simply have no equivalent in the iOS app sandbox design.

You might want to look into the Apple Advertising Identifier.

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#65

Post by dillondoyle »

eridius wrote: post #20
anaisbetts wrote: post #18

If this tweet is accurate, Apple's choices here are pretty hard to explain as anything but "leverage / abuse mobile phone monopoly to kneecap competitors", especially because nowhere in this document does it actually describe how this makes users' lives better in any concrete, specific way https://mobile.twitter.com/Carnage4Life/status/1161779661644...

> Google Analytics Website analytics should not rely on cross-site tracking. Breaking any cross-site tracking ability of GA is unambiguously good for users. > Google Ads conversion tracking Apple already proposed a mechanism of privacy-protecting click attribution. If Google doesn't want to use that, it's because they don't respect your privacy. Again, unambiguously good for users. > Using same login across different…

That click tracking spec is useless for advertising at scale. It only supports up to 64 campaigns is what I remember as the worst offender, somewhere in my comment history is a bit more when I first read the spec.

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#66

Post by saagarjha »

rale00 wrote: post #64
geofft wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't people make money off internet advertising before the modern surveillance-marketing complex? What happened to it? I mean, maybe the answer is that those ads were only profitable because of the novelty factor and now that we have metrics we know they don't work, or at least don't work anywhere close to how much they cost. But I do miss things like the webcomics running their own ad network, Google's textual ads…

> Didn't people make money off internet advertising before the modern surveillance-marketing complex? What happened to it? Non-contextual advertising still exists, but it's perceived as less effective, so there's a lot less money in it. I don't know if that perception is correct, but I do remember back when a common complaint from people was that the ads they saw weren't relevant to them. It's also not just targeted…

> Non-contextual advertising still exists, but it's perceived as less effective, so there's a lot less money in it. I don't know if that perception is correct, but I do remember back when a common complaint from people was that the ads they saw weren't relevant to them.

As far as I’m aware, the current state of advertising is people either being too creeped out by ad suggestions to buy anything or still feeling like they’re getting bad recommendations.

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#67

Post by saagarjha »

downandout wrote: post #62
kibwen wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to suggest offense, but I wonder how old you are? I may not quite be a greybeard just yet, but I remember being enraptured by the content on the internet long before it was caught in the stranglehold of advertisers. Big-budget affairs would be more scarce, but there would be no dearth of content.

I am old enough to have seen the Internet emerge. You were enraptured by content and services provided by companies that lost billions of dollars, courtesy of investors, during the dot com era. Those investors provided that capital in large part because they knew how lucrative it could be if online advertising became as efficient and effective as it is today. You will not see that kind of subsidy in the post-ad world…

> You were enraptured by content and services provided by companies that lost billions of dollars, courtesy of investors, during the dot com era.

What about the independent blogs?

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#68

Post by saagarjha »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #43
rale00 wrote: post #40

So what is going to happen when Apple succeeds in making it impossible to make any money off advertisements shown to iOS users on the web? I'm currently imagining a future where publishers start to just redirect iOS traffic to install their app, where they can actually make money. Good news for the walled garden, I guess?

Yes. The walled garden of AAPL. Spend money in an app, Apple gets a cut. As it is, Google and Facebook get the revenue instead.

Apple gets no money from in-app advertisements.

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#69

Post by saagarjha »

geofft wrote: post #50
eridius wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you mean by this; WebKit Tracking Prevention doesn't break third-party login. Third-party login works by handing a token back to the first party, who then stores it directly and validates it on the backend. After the initial login with the third party, the third party isn't involved anywhere that the browser can see. And the initial login happens in a browser window that's navigated directly to the…

TBH a browser prevents Medium from showing a Google iframe in the top-right corner with "Hi geofft, I know your name is geofft, please click the login button geofft," that would be delightful....

I’m not quite sure about this, but I think Safari will prevent cross-site tracking in this case until you interact with the thing.

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#70

Post by Waterluvian »

rale00 wrote: post #40

So what is going to happen when Apple succeeds in making it impossible to make any money off advertisements shown to iOS users on the web? I'm currently imagining a future where publishers start to just redirect iOS traffic to install their app, where they can actually make money. Good news for the walled garden, I guess?

Such a high dependency on tracking is, if anything, advertisers being complacent, sloppy, or generally bad at their job. You absolutely don't need all these data to advertise to people.
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