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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

#71

Post by AdrianB1 »

jariel wrote: post #8
raverbashing wrote: post #5

To anyone that took GDPR seriously and not as a reason to shove another popup in everybody's face this doesn't come as a surprise It will be even better when advertisers (that is, the ones that pay for ads, not the ad networks) realize that "over tracking" and retargeting are just ways of parting them with their money but doesn't increase conversions. You have basic info about your user, you don't need to track them…

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…

A few weeks ago my TV set died, so I bought a new one. At the same time I looked for a new motorcycle helmet.

Since then I get tons of adds for TV's and motorcycle helmets that are not available to buy in my country. Useless like a nail in the foot. I never buy something suggested by an ad even if I need such a product, so the ad industry is a huge waste of time, money and neurons.

Oh, and for some stupid reason Google is spamming me with dating ads for seniors. Lol, I'm not in that age group and I'm not having any fetish for old women. Google, you sick bastard.

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

#72

Post by omnifischer »

mvanbaak wrote: post #59
omnifischer wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is a lifeline for many - especially in poor world. Work, school and everything is arranged in WhatsApp or FB

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

#73

Post by Joe8Bit »

In a previous life I worked in ad-tech, and I don't think it's as black and white as the OP makes it out to be. I think that's actually a Bad Thing™️ as this industry needs to profoundly change or die.

This isn't a new, unexpected thing for sell or demand side ad-tech platforms, they've seen the death of IDFA coming for a few years. The reality is that this will likely stop more 'above board' players (a good thing) but the gray area and outright malicious, scummy ad and data companies will still attempt to generate unique identifiers through things like native fingerprinting. I think Apple will also stop them incerementally, but this sadly isn't an outright victory.

I don't understand it myself, but people DO opt-in to personalised ads in pretty decent numbers, it's anecdata, but I've seen data from very large control trials (testing for exactly this scenario) where ~50% of users opt-in. The devil is in the detail with these things: what will the copy be? will alternatives be presented? how will users be able to link 'value' to what they're being asked for?

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

#74

Post by dan1234 »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #13

Apple didn't solve that the ad industry is an alternative for paying to see a website's content. So what will happen is that: - Safari/iOS users will be required to pay for a ad-supported website - Safari/iOS users will be denied access to the website

>Safari/iOS users will be required to pay for a ad-supported website

That's fine, just give me a convenient way to pay (and cancel) and subscription and I'll decide if the content justifies the price. If I'm not willing to pay for it, I'm probably not going to miss it. Sometimes I wonder how much copy is written as filler to wrap ads around.

>Safari/iOS users will be denied access to the website

And they'll move on to somewhere else (or fire up some temporary workaround if they really want access).

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

#75

Post by Sephiroth87 »

omnifischer wrote: post #70
kohtatsu wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPhones have longevity. The iPhone 5s from September 2013 has been receiving regular security updates, the latest being iOS 12.4.8 on Wednesday. It was the first 64-bit phone, and first iPhone (first phone?) with a Secure Enclave. They can be had for <$100 in good condition.

BTW, every one says this - but nobody uses it like a daily driver. Yes, it will work as a spare - with just one app - like whatsapp - but for many poor - they need 1. Uber or Ola 2. Facebook or WhatsApp 3. linkedin to whatever local app 4. youtube Why dont you try to use it for a week with all your existing apps? If it works as good - why would anyone buy newer?

My partner used a freshly cleaned 6 for a month due to a cracked screen on their usual phone, and it was perfectly fine.

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

#77

Post by fwn »

harpratap wrote: post #48
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.

What will really happen is ads get more sinister and hidden. Product placements in movies will seem childish in comparison. Astro-turfing is already huge on Reddit, it will spread to all parts of media now, blurring the lines between genuine opinions and forced narrative. Ads, marketing and branding are integral part of capitalism, it's never going to go away from consumption focused societies.

I don't think that there is currently any evidence that adding consent to ad tracking will have a significant impact on "sinister and hidden" advertisement. ..and it does not seem intuitive to me either, as it's a completely new set of companies launching those dubious ad formats and strategies. It's not likely that Google will start crafting a hard to scale astro turfing API or something, just because their ad network got less profitable.

> Ads, marketing and branding are integral part of capitalism, it's never going to go away from consumption focused societies.

Just to highlight: "Capitalism" and "consumption focused societies" aren't equivalent. ..or at least not in any common definition of the term capitalism. Historic examples of self-determined non-capitalistic societal models were highly "consumption focused" as well.

I think that maybe post- or de-growth ideas are the only contemporary family of ideas I know that makes it a point not to be "consumption focused". But their ideas are, while interesting, still pretty loose on their edges.

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

#78

Post by rasz »

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…

Microsoft already tried, very hard even. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scroogled Problem is nobody likes Microsoft, its not sexy. Just look at all the dislikes under those videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI1ominSL_c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63u-RG-31B0

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

#79

Post by simiones »

jariel wrote: post #8
raverbashing wrote: post #5

To anyone that took GDPR seriously and not as a reason to shove another popup in everybody's face this doesn't come as a surprise It will be even better when advertisers (that is, the ones that pay for ads, not the ad networks) realize that "over tracking" and retargeting are just ways of parting them with their money but doesn't increase conversions. You have basic info about your user, you don't need to track them…

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…

> increases market efficiency

This is manifestly false. An efficient market based on rational consumers doesn't require advertising. Advertising serves to skew consumer opinion away from rational behavior (in the economic sense of maximizing utility divided by price), so in fact it can be argued that it will always make the market LESS efficient.

An ideal consumer would browse the market and read non-paid reviews, and choose the product they need. No use for advertising.

An ad-converted consumer will see advertising, and think that the advertised product is necessary even if it isn't, or think it's better than the competition even if isn't.

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

#80

Post by captn3m0 »

fwn wrote: post #65
sirn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Biggest drawback is that DNS based content blocking has no way to apply cosmetic filters. Ads on platforms that deliver their ads embedded and from their first party domains (think google, facebook, reddit, youtube, instagram, linkedin, amazon, etc.) can not be blocked this way.

The only two places I see ads on my phone (currently using NextDNS, earlier DNSCloak) are Amazon sponsored listings inside the Amazon app, and Twitter sponsored content in Firefox.
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