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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

#181

Post by vlovich123 »

Fernicia wrote: post #170
m12k wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If personalized ads meant ads that were actually good recommendations for products I could be interested in and would be grateful to be informed about the existence of - maybe. The reality of it is that personalized ads are mostly just ads from those with the money and demographics info to stalk me around the internet - e.g. webshops running after me, believing that I abandoned my shopping cart simply because I got d…

Criticism like this essentially boil down to the adverts not being targeted enough. Lumping you in the wrong group, not knowing enough about your intentions, etc.

An alternative interpretation is that the level of stalking, intrusion, & privacy you would have to give up to be targeted enough to make it useful isn't an acceptable trade off (& isn't even technically possible in the near future).

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

#182

Post by kube-system »

Yetanfou wrote: post #156
kube-system wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of vulnerabilities used for jailbreaks and for Android unlocks are not attacks on code running in ROM and can be fixed OTA.

Yes, although some can not, the vulnerability which Checkra1n [1] exploits being an example of such. In this case I consider this to be a good thing since it makes it possible to circumvent vendor-imposed restrictions. I like to be the one who gets to decide what runs on my hardware, I see no need to hand off this responsibility to any vendor no matter how virtuous they portray themselves (or are portrayed as such by…

It doesn’t really need to be a serious opponent. If you randomly drop a phone in a cab, chances are, it will end up in the hands of someone running one of these exploits on it.

Doing network security on-device is antipattern. Doing it at the network layer is easier and more portable. Not only do I block ads on my iPhone, I even run an IDS/IPS on all of the traffic, no exploits or jailbreak required.

Although, if you still prefer to block-ads on device, those solutions also exist for iOS.

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

#184

Post by jfk13 »

esrauch wrote: post #144
kin wrote: post #141

I have a serious question. Obviously if one were to choose between an ad-free experience and an ad-full experience, one would choose ad-free. But, if ads were needed for monetization, wouldn't you choose personalized vs non-personalized? Personally, I would go with personalized because a non-personalized experienced usually has no relevancy and frankly it is inefficient use of money in this world. From there, it real…

How would you imagine "tell them what you're in the market for" would work? I don't think it would work at scale; almost no user would take time to make a manually personalized ad profile instead of ... not doing that.

If I'm in the market for something, I'm likely to indicate that by doing a search for relevant terms. So the search engine could sell associated ad space to appropriate categories of advertizers.

If I'm reading reviews about a certain product category, it's a fair bet I might be in the market for such a product. So the site could show me relevant ads.

If I'm reading a site devoted to a particular topic or activity, the publisher might reasonably guess that I could be in the market for related products, and offer relevant ads.

None of this requires any privacy-invasive tracking.

If I'm reading a general news site, the site shouldn't have any more idea what I'm "in the market for" than the publisher of a print newspaper I might buy.

If I'm browsing used-car listings, the site shouldn't have any idea what genre of novels I like to read, what my grocery cart usually contains, where I go to work out, or how many pets I have. Why does anyone think it's OK for a company to surreptitiously gather that sort of personal information about everyone?

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

#185

Post by intopieces »

sleepinseattle wrote: post #163
kin wrote: post #141

I have a serious question. Obviously if one were to choose between an ad-free experience and an ad-full experience, one would choose ad-free. But, if ads were needed for monetization, wouldn't you choose personalized vs non-personalized? Personally, I would go with personalized because a non-personalized experienced usually has no relevancy and frankly it is inefficient use of money in this world. From there, it real…

No. Ads should be related to the content, not personalized to the person viewing the content.

While I agree in principle, I don't think this is manageable given how diverse the content is on the Internet. What sort of thing are you going to sell me when I'm reading a news article about wars in the Middle East?

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

#186

Post by gonehome »

kin wrote: post #141

I have a serious question. Obviously if one were to choose between an ad-free experience and an ad-full experience, one would choose ad-free. But, if ads were needed for monetization, wouldn't you choose personalized vs non-personalized? Personally, I would go with personalized because a non-personalized experienced usually has no relevancy and frankly it is inefficient use of money in this world. From there, it real…

I'd rather not have personalized ads because I'd rather there not be an incentive to harvest my data to leverage for personalization.

I may be an outlier since I generally try and turn this stuff off everywhere. I also pay for a lot of ad-free content that I like (Stratechery, Stay Tuned with Preet, Persuasion, etc.).

I think the incentives from ads are a corrupting influence in building stuff that users want. I think the 'personalization is good for users' argument is often just a rationalization.

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

#187

Post by ogre_codes »

selykg wrote: post #169
ogre_codes wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. Most Apple users use google maps. The stats I've seen don't back this up. Maybe in some countries? Certainly not "Most" overall, and Google doesn't even have a third of iOS users in the US. > Apple need to release a good search/maps product before complaining. Duck Duck Go does just fine 99% of the time. Apple Maps likewise in most regions at this point. Google Search has gotten worse over the years as they've c…

I'm far from representative of all users, but I can't be bothered to use Google Maps anymore. The various integrations that Apple Maps has with Apple Watch and all the improvements it has received over the years makes it just as good if not better than Google Maps for a vast majority of my usage.

You've likely given this far more thought than most people. The majority of people just use what's installed by default and don't ever even look at Google. Defaults are powerful. This is doubly true now that Apple Maps is as good as it's gotten.

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

#188

Post by chadlavi »

nerdjon wrote: post #143

This is the number one feature on iOS 14 that I cannot wait for. I am getting very tired of finding out that unrelated services know that I have used a specific app (like Facebook knows way too much). Somewhat related (even though this is focused on Apps). I have noticed an uptick in websites that don't support safari, likely due to how they handle cookies. I hope this does not become super common (but I can't imagin…

I'm on the dev beta, and it's pretty stable. There's a public beta available now. If you're itching to try it out, I'd recommend it!

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

#189

Post by trts »

kin wrote: post #141

I have a serious question. Obviously if one were to choose between an ad-free experience and an ad-full experience, one would choose ad-free. But, if ads were needed for monetization, wouldn't you choose personalized vs non-personalized? Personally, I would go with personalized because a non-personalized experienced usually has no relevancy and frankly it is inefficient use of money in this world. From there, it real…

The answer for me is no. As I have become increasingly aggressive about blocking ads, trackers, social media, using web containers, and setting up pihole, the ads I do see are hilariously untargeted.

It's been fascinating to get a glimpse of the bigger universe of ad content for women, doctors, lawyers, the infirmed... instead of just the $150 hoodies and baldness pills I used to see constantly.

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

#190

Post by kerkeslager »

kin wrote: post #141

I have a serious question. Obviously if one were to choose between an ad-free experience and an ad-full experience, one would choose ad-free. But, if ads were needed for monetization, wouldn't you choose personalized vs non-personalized? Personally, I would go with personalized because a non-personalized experienced usually has no relevancy and frankly it is inefficient use of money in this world. From there, it real…

> But, if ads were needed for monetization, wouldn't you choose personalized vs non-personalized?

Ads aren't needed for monetization of anything I care about.

Ads are only needed for businesses to scale quickly without having to actually provide a service worth paying for, and that's something we would be better off without.

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