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

uk.reuters.com

161–170 of 229 posts

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

#161

> 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…

Agreed. We need a standard that forbid websites from making popups and setting cookies if the do not track flag is set - alternatively we need all cookies to be marked as optional or required (per the GDPR) and then browsers can handle what to do with them, including just ignoring them completely.

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

#162
post #26
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.

>the ad industry can disappear overnight, and I don’t think life would get worse without it If you're concerned about extreme materialism and the effect it has on the environment and mental health, then it seems life would not get worse, it would get better.

I'd love to believe we would all be better if there was no advertising but it looks like our entire civilization is based on always producing and selling more stuff. What happens when we stop that ?

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

#163

> 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. I was taken aback when I read that sixteen(!) agencies had banded together, in…

The crazy thing is some people will use this passage to justify not having regulations at all, because "regulating them will only make them conspire together against everyone!", when in fact the main reason Smith connects the two is that without regulation, the competitors (who are described as local artisans, not giant international corporations) might otherwise not know of one another's existence and would never talk to each other about shared concerns. Which was true when it was written, not so much now. Now that they can trivially find each other and conspire against consumers all they like, it's no longer an argument against regulation. Nowadays it's more useful as an argument against industry consortiums, standards bodies, professional organizations, and certifications, but I don't think of any of those things as being net negatives.

If we ever find ourselves in a situation where humanity collectively is frightened to tell some industry that it can't do something for fear that that industry would retaliate by conspiring to do something even worse to us behind our backs, that's not an argument against regulation, that's an argument against the whole industry.

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

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

cheap, unpolished products where you are constantly being tracked and getting advertised to This is a bit of an old meme, it reminds me of the PC vs Mac wars back in the pre-Jobs-return era. Or Ford vs Chevy. It's really impressive how strongly companies have convinces us to associate our identities with their brands.

Android is still a mess of an ecosystem where most OEMs bundle their own crapware, most don’t provide updates for more than a couple of years if at all.

I had the displeasure of using Google Search without an ad block for the first time in awhile. God it’s awful. Not to mention AMP pages being the default for many popular new sites when linking from Google on mobile.

GoogleTV/Android TV/Chromecast are all worse than Apple TV and Roku

Give me Office 365 over GSuite any day on either mobile or desktop.

No one had to convince me about Google’d brands. Google’s entire reason for existing is an advertising operation. 90% of their profit comes from advertising.

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

#165

> 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.

That "Limit Ad Tracking" setting is already available in iOS, just not enabled by default, and not easily discoverable. People who have already set it will not be bothered, and I suspect a number will set "Limit Ad Tracking" just to avoid the popups.

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

#166
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 Co…

I have installed Firefox Sync as my default browser. It clears all cookies, and everything else except things you have downloaded when you close a tab.

So I just click allow on those popups and let the user agent do its job.

I highly recommend it to everybody. You can still keep a chrome tab open for those sites you need to login to.

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

#167
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Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very dishonest. Trying to make this into Apple vs Google creates this false reality that only movies get away with. Nearly two times the size so we can make up a story of selected truths?

Should the headline have disclosed every single tie every person associated with each organization has? No that would be absurd - you can’t disclose the nuance of a story in a headline so you disclose the most interesting thing. Nothing in the headline was false or misleading - just because the groups have other ties too doesn’t mean the headline has to list every one of them.

[deleted]

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

#168
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're only running one campaign in one channel, and your product hasn't improved, and the competition's product and marketing hasn't changed, and there are no external events that will trigger a change in demand, then i suppose you could take sales as a measure of success.

The only true metric that motivates marketing companies is ad sales. As another commenter mentions, the creative department in Mad Men existed mostly to help sell ads rather than the the products in the ads. I think advertising metrics and targeting serve a similar role today.

Marketing departments want metrics that justify ad budgets and thus the Marketing department's budget. Ad metrics that show ads are ineffective, while valuable to the business, run counter to the Marketing department's incentives, and are thus suppressed.

In a rational company, ad attribution, or aggregate-level analysis using techniques like Vector Autoregression (VAR) should be owned by the CFO to avoid that conflict of interest, as shown in this article:

https://thecorrespondent.com/100/the-new-dot-com-bubble-is-h...

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

#169

> 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. I was taken aback when I read that sixteen(!) agencies had banded together, in…

> collusion from Google and Facebook Is there a good reason to believe that Google or Facebook are involved? Seems like it may be a tenuous connection given the article's vagueness: "some" of 16 unnamed "associations" are "backed" by Google/Facebook, according to a source we know nothing about.

Yes, the good reasons to believe this are (1) the article states it (news reports tend to be awful, but in my opinion we should at least give prima facie credence to their claims unless a knowledgeable party disputes them) and (2) it entirely aligns with Facebook's/Google's interests to engage in this kind of support/collusion.

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

#170

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

In the second episode the show, one of the copy writers literally states that all the firm's value is in its ad-placement team (radio, print, billboards, soon television), and the copy is just thrown in as gift-wrapping.

See Computer Shopper of the mid 90s.
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