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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

#321

Post by jes5199 »

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…

oh gosh what was that article claiming that pre-internet, ads functioned as a monetary sacrifice that companies could make as a demonstration of their solvency. if you saw an ad frequently, that meant it was a big, stable company, that was preferable to have an ongoing relationship with. Personalized ads don't have that property. I think the author compared personalized ads to direct-mailers - those junk grocery store flyers that show up in your snailmail. They don't signal anything other than "this product exists"

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

#322

Post by Yetanfou »

kohtatsu wrote: post #275
Yetanfou wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do Android devices, I'm using a Samsung SIII from 2012 as 'work phone' when doing rough work on the farm etc. The device runs Android 9 (LineageOS 16), I have not felt the need to update it to 10 yet. It has a user-replaceable battery but since it still lasts for about 2 days of normal use (playing around 8 hours of audio per day) I have not yet replaced it. I did put in a larger microSD card to support a larger o…

That's cool, but I doubt the people in need of a cheap phone have the wherewithal to install and maintain Lineage.

It more or less maintains itself with OTA updates, just like a stock distribution. The initial (slight) hurdle is installing the thing but once that is done these devices can be maintained by anyone who can maintain a stock Android or iOS distribution.

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

#323

Post by triceratops »

s1k3s wrote: post #304
jchook wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely see some questionable privacy practices by Apple... - While "10x less", iPhone still sends your private information (such as location) to Apple on a regular basis[1]. - Apple encrypts iCloud backups with a key they control, not end-to-end[2]. This means that Apple can decrypt and inspect your phone and computer backups. - According to the article, iOS developers can use their "new privacy-focused ad fram…

Isn’t point 2 a consequence of the law that they have to follow? Don’t know about rest of the world but I think in EU they are forced to disclose your personal information to the government if asked to do so. This is also in their privacy policy.

Then they could offer that feature just in those jurisdictions.

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

#324

Post by lern_too_spel »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #157
pantaloony wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much like Flash, not allowing third-party browsers could be explained as a cynical control mechanism on Apple’s part... or as their not wanting to see tech support volume shoot up as Chrome and Firefox users complain their battery life is terrible. Or some combination of the two.

I understand their have their reasons.. But I don't like them taking that choice away from me. The problem is, right now we have only 2 choices. Living in the open world but getting all our information sucked dry by advertisers. Or live in Apple's protected little garden but not be allowed to leave it. And pay much more for hardware specs. Neither are very appealing.

In the open world, you have less information sucked from you because you can block ads across apps, and you don't have to tell big brother Apple which apps you've installed or where you've used GPS.

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

#325

Post by sevencolors »

m12k wrote: post #162
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…

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…

I'm 100% with this thought. Most "targeted" ads are garbage. I think this is also a chicken and egg problem. I don't want to give up more personal information so the the data set is limited on what i "like".

Instagram has an interesting model. Maybe because of the visual medium that it works well for me. I'll purposely do searches for a thing I'm interested in and click on related posts. After a couple days I'll start getting ads for companies selling things I'm looking for. Recently, new bedding & sheets. I'd imagine it's the same model Facebook uses but i rarely login there.

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

#326

Post by lern_too_spel »

stmL wrote: post #247
dylan604 wrote: post #217

>But being the most popular mobile ecosystem I keep seeing quote similar to this about Apple's iOS being so popular, yet the numbers clearly show that Android devices/users out number iOS. Are they saying that even with those numbers, Android is unpopular and people would rather be an iOS user? Is the price point whats preventing them?

I believe so. In my country, having an iPhone was a sign of higher income. An average Android phone with a known brand is about 1K local currency, iPhone SE is around 5K and iPhone 11 Pro is around 11K. Average junior developer earns around 5K monthly. Nowadays, even people that can't afford proper food buy them second hand or with installments. I, as an Android user, keep reading stories about how iPhone respects pr…

If you get an iPhone, you will get Apple's compulsory apps. The difference is that on Android, you can replace Google's apps with other apps.

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

#327

Post by ogre_codes »

soared wrote: post #298
ogre_codes wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tracking based advertising hasn't delivered on its promises. As a user, we're seeing more advertising than ever, and it turns out that seeing advertising for a thing which you shopped for and bought last week just isn't any better than seeing advertising that relates to the article I'm reading at the time. I'm also very skeptical that tracking based advertising actually works better for publishes either. Since the nu…

>it turns out that seeing advertising for a thing which you shopped for and bought last week just isn't any better than seeing advertising that relates to the article I'm reading at the time. This is due to (1) not having enough data to build good algorithms and (2) advertising campaigns being set up poorly (its not only technically challenging but also expensive). This issue can actually be fixed and likely will in…

> This is due to (1) not having enough data to build good algorithms

Fundamentally advertising serves the needs of advertisers and not the needs of the viewer. No amount of additional data will make advertising less frustrating because ultimately neither the publisher, nor the advertiser cares if my experience is more or less frustrating.

More data won't result in less frustrating advertising, it will result in more effective advertising for the advertiser and more revenue flowing to the big ad companies as a result.

> The majority of publishers make more money from personalized ads. NYT and premium publishers don't necessarily since ads on NYT are valuable by itself, but ads on my blog are worthless by themselves. Add some user data, and ads on my blog are worth much more.

This is neither proven, nor entirely true. Advertising existed and was profitable before targeted advertising was created. Publishers made more money before Google/ Facebook took over and dominated the industry.

I've seen very few blogs which are worth a damn which have big advertising from Google/ Facebook on them. Mostly because good bloggers don't want to debase their otherwise good content.

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

#328

Post by theferalrobot »

Silhouette wrote: post #276
deeblering4 wrote: post #266

This is a big reason why I continue to use apple devices. They seem to be one of the few large tech companies that aligns themselves with users rights to privacy. Apple isn’t perfect. But they build very good privacy and security into their products. And they structure their UI and defaults in such a way that the average user benefits with no effort or specialized knowledge.

But they build very good privacy and security into their products. And they structure their UI and defaults in such a way that the average user benefits with no effort or specialized knowledge. Sometimes they do, and I agree that they're much better than a lot of big tech companies. Still, their insistence on tying almost everything to iCloud and then not encrypting iCloud properly is a major black mark against them,…

Most app backups in icloud are end to end encrypted. If you choose to backup your entire device in icloud (rather than automatically on your local mac) that backup is not end to end encrypted.

I agree it should be but that doesn’t seem like a huge deal especially considering the alternative platform (android) doesn’t even have a comprehensive backup solution (only individual apps via gdrive etc).

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

#329

Post by lopmotr »

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…

This was the bold new idea of Google, back in the day. At that time, the internet was plastered with banner ads for cars and shoes and other lowest common denominator crap. Personalized ads were a good thing!

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

#330

Post by lern_too_spel »

RKearney wrote: post #105
t0mas88 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, we should all flock to an operating system developed by an advertising company in an effort to escape advertisements.

If that operating system does a better job of escaping ads, why not?
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