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

uk.reuters.com

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

#71
post #2

“Increase the chance of user refusal” - imagine that applied to literally any other context, such as bank accounts, credit cards, buying cars, etc. to see how ridiculous that statement is.

The difference being agency. You intend to open a bank account, buy a car, etc. “you“ [for the majority definition of ‘you’] had no idea that you were being secretly tracked, and (clutches pearls) you might even object to that. This is lifting the stone that’s been lying in the grass for the last decade or so, and watching all the creepy-crawlers scurry away out of the light, desperate to find somewhere to hide thems…

Yes, by now everyone knows they are being "secretly" tracked since it's been in the news for the last decade.

And yet privacy isn't a strong selling point for most people. It sounds like they have spoken and they don't give a damn about it.

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

#72

> 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 tra…

If it is going to be utterly useless as easily as you claim, then it should be easy for the sixteen advertising agencies to prove that it will be utterly useless and that advertisers should push back against Apple and their new warning.

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

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they moving into ads as the hardware business dries up for them? In my personal experience, many people don't replace their phones as often as they did, say, 10 years ago. A similar story played out earlier with laptops. There's no obvious new hardware category for Apple to pivot into so maybe software is their next play.

They tried before from 2010-2016 [1]. I do think this is their long term play — getting credit card transaction data and shutting others out. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAd

They don’t have any way to access credit card data unless you have an Apple credit card. Even then, I don’t think Goldman Sachs share the data with them.

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

#74
> Sixteen marketing associations, some of which are backed by Facebook Inc (FB.O) and Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google, faulted Apple for not adhering to an ad-industry system for seeking user consent under European privacy rules. Apps will now need to ask for permission twice, increasing the risk users will refuse, the associations argued.

DuckerZ in the chat boys. Zero sympathy for ad networks, they're one of the largest channels for malware. We push adblock to all our devices as corporate policy.

The ad space needs more competitors. Currently it's Facebook for boomers, Google for everyone else, and also-rans. I'm fine with Apple forcing their way into this space since I trust them more than the other players.

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

#75

> Apple last week disclosed features in its forthcoming operating system for iPhones and iPads that will require apps to show a pop-up screen before they enable a form of tracking commonly needed to show personalized ads. Christ almighty I don't think I can take more pop-ups. They're just cancer. Cookies, newsletters, forced logins, individual folder permissions... how many bullshit popups do I have to deal with per…

https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10676/ at 29:50

You can choose not to be asked by any app in the settings.

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

#77
post #3

> The group of European marketing firms said the pop-up warning and the limited ability to customize it still carries “a high risk of user refusal.” If you’re doing something and you know users are going to refuse to let you do it if they have the choice, don’t do it. Apple will give them a choice soon enough.

> Apple will give them a choice soon enough.

And hopefully one not reliant on so many dark patterns.

The OneTrust opt-outs are the worst (and don't even work! which must be against the california consumer privacy act).

On my iphone in safari: say I'm cooking dinner and go to epicurious.com. Greeted with the now-standard opt-out banner at the bottom.

1. Click the "Do not sell my advertising"

2. Greeted with a giant Conde Nast wall-of-text full screen modal

3. Scroll through it (wait, we're now reading long legalise terms-of-service just to opt-out now?)

4. In the middle of the wall of text, there's a toggle button for "Sell my Personal Information". Okay, lets forget about the 2012-era debate around UI ambiguity of toggle buttons and accept this UI dark pattern. Try to tap it.

5. I tap it, and it doesn't do anything.

You read that right -- the Conde Nast OneTrust-powered opt-out, if you go through all the steps to find it -- doesn't even work on mobile. They're shipping a broken UI. Maybe you need to do something obscure like tap-and-hold-then-drag-in-a-tiny-hitbox-that-doesn't-trigger-horizontal-page-scrolling or something. I haven't figured it out.

I assume it's companies like OneTrust or Conde Nast that are complaining Apple's presumably-more-straightforward opt-out carries a "high risk of user refusal." Looking at how user-hostile what they're shipping now shows you what they're really fighting is giving consumers an effective choice.

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

#78

> 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 well known playbook

The playbook is much more broad and is basically "we are privileged on our platform _and_ we unavoidably restrict the lesser privileged". Many don't like this (myself included) and many do. Simply put, where you reasonably can, choose the platform that has the restrictions you can accept or work around.

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

#79

> 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…

Are they moving into ads as the hardware business dries up for them? In my personal experience, many people don't replace their phones as often as they did, say, 10 years ago. A similar story played out earlier with laptops. There's no obvious new hardware category for Apple to pivot into so maybe software is their next play.

>There's no obvious new hardware category for Apple to pivot into

Was it obvious that AirPods would become a $4Bn revenue stream, or that Watch would take the lion’s share of the watch market despite having battery life of Rumours of Apple TV and Apple Car and an Apple AR gadget have been around a long time.

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

#80

It's cool to conciously see the death of an industry and watch as marketing firms fail to migrate away from traditional ads. You can whinge and whine, but progress stops for nobody. It's also great to see Apple building this into iOS, definitely a highlight of WWDC, for me. I often see the location indicator come on and wonder what else I'm not seeing.

Progress ? There's money to be made and this looks like posturing and story telling to justify tapping in to another revenue stream on their platform.

This is merely a “strategy credit”. Apple makes almost all of its money by people giving them money directly and them giving you stuff. They can afford to be privacy focused.

If you’re okay with cheap, unpolished products where you are constantly being tracked and getting advertised to, buy a Google product. If you want products where you give the company money and they give you stuff - buy Apple.

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