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New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

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Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#51

Post by Freak_NL »

raverbashing wrote: post #30
square_usual wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or on apps about snowboarding, or on fora related to snowboarding, or by paying snowboarding content creators, there's a wealth of opportunities out there. I don't give a damn about snowboarding when I'm browsing, say, twitter. (Which, incidentally, for some reason has borked itself into thinking I like rowing.)

Exactly Instead of that they want to shove their new snowboard ads on every blog not connected to snowboarding you see because you searched "snow" once on Google

Or because you just bought a new snowboard on-line (and won't need another for years), so now you've got snowboard ads everywhere, despite being in the group of people least likely to need a new snowboard anytime soon.

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#52

Post by sirn »

captn3m0 wrote: post #42
occamschainsaw wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been using adblockers[1,2] on mobile as well as desktop safari for quite some time now. 1. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wipr/id1030595027 2. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quiet-content-blocker/id144152...

Do any of these content blockers work outside of Safari? (I use Firefox on iOS)

WKWebView cannot use any of Safari extensions, unfortunately. I just use DNSCloak connecting to my private VPS instance to do adblocking over DNS which kinda works fine, but leaves out a lot of blank canvas in the page.

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#53

Post by Yetanfou »

raxxorrax wrote: post #9

Maybe the open source promise of Android was indeed a lie. To me this industry has no value to society at all. Not a fan of Apple, but they seem to be serious about privacy showing other companies how it is done. Microsoft could have really established itself as an alternative to Google on the same front, but they utterly failed by mirroring the worst aspects of the disastrous landscape we see on mobile devices. I ho…

In what way is open source Android a lie? I never used any other version, I do not have a Google account, nor do I have any Google-proprietary software on my devices yet they still run all software - including the Swedish "BankID" electronic ID app which is needed for just about any interaction with anything official nowadays. That "BankID" is, together with Firefox Preview, the only software which I got from the play store repository (using "Aurora Store", an alternative play store front end hosted on FDroid), the rest is all free software.

Of course that means I do not use things like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Whatsapp, Snapchat, Instagram, Skype, Zoom, Google Maps etc. I have replacements for the useful ones (Zoom->Jitsi Meet, Whatsapp->XMPP + Telegram, Skype->Nextcloud Talk, Instagram->Pixelfed (experimental for now), GMaps->~OsmAnd + Nextcloud Maps etc) and don't need the rest.

I never see advertising on any of my devices.

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#54

Post by t0mas88 »

SllX wrote: post #20

If an entire industry dies because users were given an explicit upfront choice, because of one popup like the article says, then it wasn’t a productive industry. We’ll see what really happens.

While I agree that the ad industry has taken it too far, I also disagree with your statement. Because users pay for free apps with their data, Apple isn't asking them "do you want to pay $ 0.99 or accept ad tracking?" Apple asks "Do you want to use this app without ad tracking" of course the user will choose to disable ad tracking because there is no downside to them. But if all users do that it will be the end of a lot of free apps. Data and ads are just a form of indirect payment.

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#55

Post by [deleted] »

captn3m0 wrote: post #42
occamschainsaw wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been using adblockers[1,2] on mobile as well as desktop safari for quite some time now. 1. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wipr/id1030595027 2. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quiet-content-blocker/id144152...

Do any of these content blockers work outside of Safari? (I use Firefox on iOS)

[deleted]

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#56

Post by kohtatsu »

t0mas88 wrote: post #54
SllX wrote: post #20

If an entire industry dies because users were given an explicit upfront choice, because of one popup like the article says, then it wasn’t a productive industry. We’ll see what really happens.

While I agree that the ad industry has taken it too far, I also disagree with your statement. Because users pay for free apps with their data, Apple isn't asking them "do you want to pay $ 0.99 or accept ad tracking?" Apple asks "Do you want to use this app without ad tracking" of course the user will choose to disable ad tracking because there is no downside to them. But if all users do that it will be the end of a…

The downside is not having personalized ads. They will still see ads.

I'm vehemently against invasive tracking for personalized ads, but more than happy to see clearly marked, clean context-based ads.

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#57

Post by Freak_NL »

aenario wrote: post #34
jariel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These conversations are always so one-sided on HN. Not only is 're-targeting' immensely useful, it absolutely increases conversions. Targeting in general helps quite a lot. Ad targeting is the opposite of evil, it actually increases relevance by a significant degree, and increases market efficiency, wherein surpluses go to both sides. There's a huge market for products and services out there and it's getting harder t…

The pro-targeting argument always seems to forget the middle-ground of context-based ads. This new snowboard company can advertise on snowboard-related websites, on snowboard-related google search The magic "IA assisted silver bullet retargeting" that this snowboard company will be sold by yet another VC-founded adtech company almost always amount to "Oh this guy just bought a new snowboard, he probably needs another…

I wonder if those ads are counted as leading to a sale because they are shown right after someone buys one.

Someone goes to the online store of an outdoor shop:

* buys a snowboard (perhaps they were recommended it by someone, or the reviews look good),

* tracking leads to them being shown ads for snowboards in period X,

* tracking also adds the fact that they bought a snowboard in period X (albeit before the ads came),

* ad brokers algorithms, naively or maliciously, conclude that their ads led to the sale,

* companies buying ads conclude that targetted advertising is the most effective way to advertise.

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#58

Post by t0mas88 »

d--b wrote: post #2

At long last! And now I'll know why I pay more for an iPhone.

That's not a reason to pay more for an iPhone. Android allows you to install any browser you want (as opposed to Apple still not allowing real third party browsers), including Firefox with uBlock, which is much much better at privacy than Safari on Apple and as a bonus makes the internet 3x faster by blocking ads.

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#59

Post by mvanbaak »

omnifischer wrote: post #23
raxxorrax wrote: post #9

Maybe the open source promise of Android was indeed a lie. To me this industry has no value to society at all. Not a fan of Apple, but they seem to be serious about privacy showing other companies how it is done. Microsoft could have really established itself as an alternative to Google on the same front, but they utterly failed by mirroring the worst aspects of the disastrous landscape we see on mobile devices. I ho…

At the end of the day, 1. Apple users are the ones that cannot browse without adblocker. Safari is not as good as ublock-origin 2. Most Apple users use google maps. > Not a fan of Apple, but they seem to be serious about privacy If they are honest then they can remove the default search engine from Google to DDG or whatever. They get billions from Google for default search engine. https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/1/21…

> They do not care about >80 % world popln? They too need smartphones.

nobody needs a smartphone. It's a gadget.

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