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Google-backed groups criticize Apple's new warnings on user tracking

uk.reuters.com

51–60 of 229 posts

Re: Google-backed groups criticize Apple's new warnings on user tracking

#51
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. And I love the fact that with Apple that agency slowly moves back to me - the ad industry can disappear overnight, and I don’t think life would get worse without it.

No, your confused. The agency has just shifted closer to Apple. Which happens to align better with your interests, at least in this-five-minute-period.

User choice is always good. I’m sure Apple is doing this not out of the goodness of their heart, but it does give customers more control, which is a positive.

Re: Google-backed groups criticize Apple's new warnings on user tracking

#52

I see a resurgence in marketing similar to Mad Men: where firms don’t have access to highly personalized data, and eventually, will actually have to be creative, instead of just using algorithms parameterized with user tracking/profile data

i can't imagine how somebody could see the creative process in Mad Men and think that's something to be emulated. It's a bunch of privileged rich people (ad execs) coming up with ideas that they think are clever, and the only criteria for whether or not those ideas are good is if other privileged rich people (client company execs) agree.

There's no objective measures of success, just a bunch of people patting each other on the back because they all see the world the same way.

Re: Google-backed groups criticize Apple's new warnings on user tracking

#53

> Apple engineers also said last week the company will bolster a free Apple-made tool that uses anonymous, aggregated data to measure whether advertising campaigns are working and that will not trigger the pop-up. > “Because it’s engineered to not track users, there’s no need to request permission to track,” Brandon Van Ryswyk, an Apple privacy engineer, said in a video session explaining the measurement tool to deve…

Forcing themselves into the identity business? By giving it away for free? What kind of business it that?

I guess it’s the same as trying to get in the ads business by making ads less valuable?

Re: Google-backed groups criticize Apple's new warnings on user tracking

#55

It is interesting. Apple is trying to position itself as more privacy friendly suggesting that the tide may be finally turning. It is difficult for me to believe that they would do it without customer demographic suggesting their user base places some value on it.

Apple has been “more privacy friendly” for at least a decade.

Re: Google-backed groups criticize Apple's new warnings on user tracking

#56

> Apple engineers also said last week the company will bolster a free Apple-made tool that uses anonymous, aggregated data to measure whether advertising campaigns are working and that will not trigger the pop-up. > “Because it’s engineered to not track users, there’s no need to request permission to track,” Brandon Van Ryswyk, an Apple privacy engineer, said in a video session explaining the measurement tool to deve…

Forcing themselves into the identity business? By giving it away for free? What kind of business it that? I guess it’s the same as trying to get in the ads business by making ads less valuable?

We are way past the argument that “free” => “no value to business”

Re: Google-backed groups criticize Apple's new warnings on user tracking

#57

Can tracking be useful, if used correctly?

It isn't even usefull for advertising. Google keeps giving me french ads even when I speak dutch, live in the dutch half of Belgium, and have a http request header saying i speak dutch or english. I get ads for all kinds of stuff I don't care about. In fact, I get ads for things I can't even buy in my country or continent if I wanted it. If google would tune their ads to the language i ask them, based on the query I…

Your issue is ad targeting, and most of it is done manually by advertisers. Ironically, this shows why ad targeting can be done much better at the hands of Google and Facebook because they can track the user behaviors more accurate than advertisers.

Re: Google-backed groups criticize Apple's new warnings on user tracking

#58
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Google search is infinitely more useful when mildly personalised rather than based on sheer popularity. If I search for drainage companies, I don't care who the most popular drainage company in the world is, ad it's highly likely to be weighted towards somewhere more populous. When I look at reviews for services, tracking can be used by Google and co to attempt to verify that the person who left a 5* review actu…

> Google search is infinitely more useful I can definitely see how it could be more useful, but I don’t agree that the actual factor of this increase in productivity is infinite. Maybe a factor of 3 to 5.

Having used duckduckgo for a few years, which does not personalize results by default, I don't think it's even that much. More like, a factor of 3-5 on select searches and not at all (occasionally even negative) on others.

Re: Google-backed groups criticize Apple's new warnings on user tracking

#59

> Apple engineers also said last week the company will bolster a free Apple-made tool that uses anonymous, aggregated data to measure whether advertising campaigns are working and that will not trigger the pop-up. > “Because it’s engineered to not track users, there’s no need to request permission to track,” Brandon Van Ryswyk, an Apple privacy engineer, said in a video session explaining the measurement tool to deve…

It’s funny too because any ad attribution methodology that’s not tracking users is going to suffer so much confounding to render it utterly useless. Of course it will show you Big Lift! but the reality is you could have negative lift and the attribution methodology won’t be capable of detecting it or accounting for necessary confounders to isolate the effect of the ad from other effects.

In essence, if you’re not tracking user-level behavior, then you should not be caring about any statistical attribution methodology at all, just use something different entirely, based on simple aggregates or top line metrics like revenue without modeling return on ad spend at all.

Anything that tries to do attribution on different cohorts, like demographic slices, etc., without controlling for individual level confounders, is complete misleading hot garbage.

So these customers of Apple’s sexy new ad attribution are probably paying a big premium to get ripped off with useless data. Such a system categorically can’t exist (and shouldn’t be desired) in cases where you don’t want to permit individual level tracking.

Re: Google-backed groups criticize Apple's new warnings on user tracking

#60

I see a resurgence in marketing similar to Mad Men: where firms don’t have access to highly personalized data, and eventually, will actually have to be creative, instead of just using algorithms parameterized with user tracking/profile data

i can't imagine how somebody could see the creative process in Mad Men and think that's something to be emulated. It's a bunch of privileged rich people (ad execs) coming up with ideas that they think are clever, and the only criteria for whether or not those ideas are good is if other privileged rich people (client company execs) agree. There's no objective measures of success, just a bunch of people patting each ot…

I'm pretty sure there is an "objective measure of success" in the most plainly obvious way possible -- sales. Versus the bullshitty stats like impressions or accidental click-throughs that dominate online advertising.
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