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Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

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Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#191

Post by dev_tty01 »

AznHisoka wrote: post #158
faizanbhat wrote: post #151

As someone who worked in ad tech for half a decade, I fail to understand the fuss about cookie based targeting. We're speaking of databases mapping data to random numbers stored in a file that can easily be deleted. The real issue is ad targeting by a handful of large companies that have personally identifiable information. It's not like cookie based targeting is very effective either. It's very difficult to get cook…

What if I want to target women who recently bought Chanel perfume? How would I go about doing that unless I do cookie targeting?

Is this a serious question? Just because you want to target something doesn't mean it is ok to do it. Geez, the arrogance. You want to do X, so the rest of us have to give up our privacy? Technical feasibility is not the same thing as ethical, courteous, or just plain being respectful of other people. The whole industry seems to have done some sort of massive mob rationalization of inappropriate behavior. It's not ok.

If I am on a tech site reading about disk drive failure rates, feed me an ad about an SSD sale. If I am reading about mountain climbing, show me ads about climbing equipment. Fine. But don't start following me around the web with adds about ascenders for the rest of the afternoon. Or travel insurance. Or ... It is none of your business what I browsed half an hour earlier.

Thank goodness at least one business (Apple) has enough customer focus left to try to address some of this nonsense. All the better that it helps them against some of their competitors. That just makes them more motivated. Bully for that. At least we are still the customers rather than the products with Apple.

Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#192

Post by greggman2 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #5

How has this been so effective, when Panopticlick still says my Safari browser has "a nearly-unique fingerprint"? (And based on what I've read from other users's experience, this is normal.)

because pantoptclick is wrong!

you can be in California and using say an iPhoneX and it will tell you you're one in 500k. If you calculate the number of people with their iPhone set to English in the PST timezone (the only things there is to distinguish one iPhoneX from another) and then you divide that by the pantoptclick number you get it's claiming there are only 10-100 iPhoneXs in all of Seattle Metro Area, San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles Metro Area, and San Diego Metro Area combined. Clearly wrong

Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#193

Post by lilyball »

danaris wrote: post #165
snowwrestler wrote: post #150

> Only about 9% of Safari users on an iPhone allow outside companies to track where they go on the web > In comparison, 79% of people who use Google’s Chrome browser allow advertisers to track their browsing habits on mobile devices through cookies. Something to keep in mind the next time you see someone from Google complaining about how Apple won’t allow Google Chrome to run natively on the iPhone.

Apple will let whatever browsers want to run on iOS. Chrome is, in fact, on there. They just won't let them using any rendering engine but WebKit—and this restriction long predates Google's current level of draconian dominance in that sphere. I don't believe the tracking settings are tied to the rendering engine, so I would be surprised if Chrome on iOS has settings that different to Chrome on macOS in that regard.

The rendering engine also includes the entire network infrastructure. I can't think of how I would plug my own network infrastructure into WKWebView on iOS, which means I can't block any built-in tracking prevention.

Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#194

Post by lifthrasiir »

dxf wrote: post #190
surround wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple won’t let Firefox run either.

I'm not sure what you mean by "run"? I use Firefox as my browser on my iPhone.

iOS Firefox uses Webkit, not Gecko as intended. It does link to your Firefox accounts and so on but otherwise it is much harder to distinguish against other iOS browsers.

Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#195

Post by matheusmoreira »

dev_tty01 wrote: post #191
AznHisoka wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I want to target women who recently bought Chanel perfume? How would I go about doing that unless I do cookie targeting?

Is this a serious question? Just because you want to target something doesn't mean it is ok to do it. Geez, the arrogance. You want to do X, so the rest of us have to give up our privacy? Technical feasibility is not the same thing as ethical, courteous, or just plain being respectful of other people. The whole industry seems to have done some sort of massive mob rationalization of inappropriate behavior. It's not ok…

Couldn't agree more. I hate it when people respond to concerns with "I make money that way, how could I possibly go on otherwise" as if it somehow legitimitized their unscrupulous activity. Their profits are nobody's problem but theirs and there is absolutely nothing wrong with putting them out of business if that's what it takes to stop their abusive surveillance capitalism. If people's use of privacy-focused software and products reduces their revenue, so be it.

Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#196

Post by alwillis »

lilyball wrote: post #193
danaris wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple will let whatever browsers want to run on iOS. Chrome is, in fact, on there. They just won't let them using any rendering engine but WebKit—and this restriction long predates Google's current level of draconian dominance in that sphere. I don't believe the tracking settings are tied to the rendering engine, so I would be surprised if Chrome on iOS has settings that different to Chrome on macOS in that regard.

The rendering engine also includes the entire network infrastructure. I can't think of how I would plug my own network infrastructure into WKWebView on iOS, which means I can't block any built-in tracking prevention.

Right, there'd be no way Chrome on iOS could do the same things Chrome on macOS does when it comes to cookies, etc.

Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#197

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

turdnagel wrote: post #30
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #28

> The cost of reaching Safari users has fallen over 60% in the past two years, according to data from ad tech firm Rubicon Project. Meanwhile ad prices on Google’s Chrome browser have risen slightly. This is a great metric for privacy.

I’m confused by this. If Safari users are harder to target, and demand for targeting Safari users hasn’t changed, shouldn’t the price go up?

Imagine you have two users. One who likes apples and one who likes bananas. Both like oranges. I sell apples and am willing to pay $1 per conversion. You sell bananas and are willing to spend the same. OP sells oranges and is willing to spend $0.75 per conversion.

If we can't tell which user is which, we know 50% of our views will lead to a conversion, so you and I will both spend $0.50 per view. The orange seller beats us and the price is $0.75 per user (assuming an old fashioned auction).

If we can tell which user's which, I can spend my $1 on the apple eater, and you can spend yours on the banana eater. Both of us will spend more than the orange seller, who is still only willing to spend $0.75 per view. The price rises to $1 per user.

Dollar per conversion is the constant, and the pile of converting users doesn't change. With less targeting, there's just more hay in the haystack. Dollars per viewer goes up as the number of viewers goes down.

Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#198

Post by 1propionyl »

faizanbhat wrote: post #151

As someone who worked in ad tech for half a decade, I fail to understand the fuss about cookie based targeting. We're speaking of databases mapping data to random numbers stored in a file that can easily be deleted. The real issue is ad targeting by a handful of large companies that have personally identifiable information. It's not like cookie based targeting is very effective either. It's very difficult to get cook…

Consider this: the vast majority of people you targeted more than likely didn't understand the terms of the deal (buried in ToS, hidden behind flowery language like "personalization", didn't understand the scope of such cookies, etc).

That is not informed consent.

What you were doing was exploiting people by going beyond the scope of their knowledge of the world and rationalizing it by working backwards from "well, they must understand what's going on" to "they must like it or get something out of it."

Problem is that's not true.

The reality is, even today barely any of them likely have the faintest clue what you did to them.

If they knew they would likely be far less than thrilled.

~ another ex-adtech worker

Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#199

Post by TeMPOraL »

_eht wrote: post #182
ramphastidae wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Genuinely curious so would appreciate calm, non-aggressive responses. My browser history is none of your business. That’s it. I don’t take care if violating my privacy by stealing my browser history is less effective than the newest way of violating my privacy. Doesn’t make it any better.

>My browser history is none of your business. That’s it. Your browser was made to handle cookie data. It is publicly known. If it bothers you, you can turn it off. I do not see what all this sort of huffing is about.

And cookies were meant to be used to provide value to the visitor, not to extract value from the visitor (especially without their consent).

Re: Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market

#200

Post by TeMPOraL »

mertd wrote: post #186
briandear wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those women gave you permission to contact them, that’s how. If someone bought Chanel, you don’t have a right to that information unless they explicitly gave you that right.

What about the retailer that sold the perfume? They'll usually auto sign up the customer to their product emails and/or adapt their landing page to customer's interests (like Amazon).

> They'll usually auto sign up the customer to their product emails

Fortunately, at least in the EU that's illegal.

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