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Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

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Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#71

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

echelon wrote: post #63
cma wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people gladly opt in to use their webcam for Zoom.

That's the key feature. That's why they're using the product. I opt-in to using my car to drive, and I opt-in to using my laptop to write code. I don't opt-in for tracking, advertising, or other negative externalities.

I think that was the parent commenter's point. That is, "opt-in never works" is only true if the thing you want the user to opt in to is something someone would never want in the first place.

And I don't even think it has to be the primary feature. As someone else mentioned about maps, map apps are still plenty useful without location tracking (indeed, analog maps worked well for millennia without it), but I know if I opt in to location tracking while using a map app that I'm going to get a lot of additional useful features, so I do it.

Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#72

Post by thehappypm »

asutekku wrote: post #50
jokoon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think it will survive? If one is optimistic, this could be the the downfall of facebook. If FB is scummy it doesn't increase its chances of survival. To be honest I'm sure there will be millions of other opportunities to gather data, by other companies. Facebook does it the easy way. Data gathering is a business now, I'm sure there are people who specialize in data gathering operations, a little like oil p…

Why would it not survive? Facebook is a huge advertsing platform. Only thing that changes is that they can’t target iOS users as well as before, but that’s it. People will still pay fb to show ads.

If anything, the entire advertising industry takes a hit, and Facebook being Facebook, is still going to have the best targeting of iOS users out there.

Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#73

Post by nottorp »

mk4 wrote: post #70
nottorp wrote: post #66

It just occured to me that we're looking at Facebook wrong. Why do people come to FB? For the content that other people post. There would be no eyeballs for the ads if the users didn't post content. Shouldn't Facebook give us a piece of that ad revenue then?

That sounds like youtube

Oh, so there is a precedent :)

Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#74

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

cortesoft wrote: post #35
tmhrtly wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in some situations if users see value in the opt-in then it can be ok. E.g. your phone asking you if you're happy to share your location with an app. I sure as hell want my mapping app to know where I am, but I also feel very comforted that I still get a say in the process. The thing about this tracking opt-in is that no user would ever want it because it's solely there to exploit them. So in this case I thin…

Wouldn't the value in this situation be "you get to use Facebook"? If they didn't make money off their users, Facebook wouldn't exist. Would you be ok if they did it that way? A warning that says "by using Facebook, you are agreeing to be tracked", at which point the user could either continue or uninstall the app?

This is a bullshit tradeoff. Facebook still knows a ton about you by your friends and activity on Facebook, and they can still show you a ton of ads on Facebook that are highly targeted to your demographic profile, and make a shit ton of money doing it. They could also make a ton of money showing you ads on a partner app if, for example, you logged in with FB to another app.

The only thing Apple is preventing them from doing is making an even larger shit ton of money by essentially knowing every app you ever use for anything that includes the Facebook SDK.

Note the same thing is true of Google. Google can (and did, and does) make shit tons of money by showing you targeted, relevant ads just based on your search keywords, or alternatively on a partner site by showing you ads just based on that site's content. But no, they need to make even more gargantuan shit tons of money by tracking your every move in Chrome and Android.

Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#75

Post by [deleted] »

aowerijwaerj wrote: post #37

Facebook is 21st-century cigarettes. Thousands of brilliant scientists and engineers testing and optimizing their product to be as addictive as possible. No concern for the effects on their users or on society. The only concern is making money. Just like with cigarettes, at first it was cool, then it became mainstream, then the dangers became better known, then the CEO was ordered to appear before Congress and gave a…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#76

Post by johnday »

jariel wrote: post #44
cheeze wrote: post #2

... And nothing of value was lost. If it's detremental to your business to not be able to track users on such a granular level, it's a bad business. I'm sure Facebook will survive here. 100% biased, can't stand that company.

"... And nothing of value was lost." This is definitely not true. There is considerable value in advertising, it's just not apparent to you. In fact - advertising that is 'well targeted' is considerably less annoying than ads that are poorly targetted. The economic value of a well targeted ad is probably 10x otherwise. Ergo - unless you are willing to pay for apps - you might now see 10x more ads appearing on pages t…

> The economic value of a well targeted ad is probably 10x otherwise.

> Ergo - unless you are willing to pay for apps - you might now see 10x more ads appearing on pages than otherwise.

I'm afraid that this is nonsense. If the economic value of selling bread went down by 10x, do you think people would start offering you 10x as much bread?

Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#77

Post by giantrobot »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #21
cheeze wrote: post #2

... And nothing of value was lost. If it's detremental to your business to not be able to track users on such a granular level, it's a bad business. I'm sure Facebook will survive here. 100% biased, can't stand that company.

> If it's detremental to your business to not be able to track users on such a granular level, it's a bad business. Except that Apple still allows tracking on this granular level, it's just that now they have to explicitly ask users to allow this. Says a lot about Facebook's (and others) business model if it only works when the vast majority of users are mostly unaware of the amount of tracking they do, but the minut…

It's not even just the amount of tracking that Facebook et al do but the pervasive scope of it all. It's also a serious abuse of language.

Facebook and others use the word "ad" hoping people assume the definition is the old school television or print ad; "here's our thing buy it and it'll make you happier". Beyond whatever massage it had that advertisement only affected you if you turned to that page or watched it during your show. The content creator got paid to use some of their space/time to let an advertiser reach their audience.

For Facebook (and Google and others) and "ad" means a content creator is not just selling their own space or time but they're selling their audience. To them an "ad" is a means to hoover up a vast amount of data on people. Because of their reach and the fact they run a social network the data amounts to tons of PII. There's little regulatory control over the collection, storage, or dissemination of this data. The person being surveilled has no meaningful way to control what data is collected or what's done with it. Even opt-ins don't provide meaningful data to someone to make an informed choice about "ads".

Apple making some of the scope of their tracking clear is a step in the right direction for users. People shouldn't have to participate in a dystopian panopticon just to use an app or a website. If the apps or website somehow can't survive without surveillance that would give Stasi agents a boner they can fuck right off alongside Facebook.

Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#78

Post by FridgeSeal »

jariel wrote: post #44
cheeze wrote: post #2

... And nothing of value was lost. If it's detremental to your business to not be able to track users on such a granular level, it's a bad business. I'm sure Facebook will survive here. 100% biased, can't stand that company.

"... And nothing of value was lost." This is definitely not true. There is considerable value in advertising, it's just not apparent to you. In fact - advertising that is 'well targeted' is considerably less annoying than ads that are poorly targetted. The economic value of a well targeted ad is probably 10x otherwise. Ergo - unless you are willing to pay for apps - you might now see 10x more ads appearing on pages t…

> In fact - advertising that is 'well targeted' is considerably less annoying than ads that are poorly targetted.

And better than targeted ads are ads that only need contextual information to work. If I'm on a page for a bit of sports equipment, I'm probably interested in sports equipment, or at the very least sports. Didn't need a complex data collection and analysis pipeline there.

> unless you are willing to pay for apps - you might now see 10x more ads appearing on pages than otherwise.

I do in fact pay for apps, and I'd very interested in seeing the data collection + sale markets collapse, so that apps are not tempted to double-dip and sell my data anyway.

> The better we are able to connect people with the things they want, the better we all are.

I'd suggest that the more efficiently we are able to let people find what they need, the better. Advertising exists to sell you a product, totally regardless of whether it's the actual best product for your needs.

> Of course, privacy matters as well If advertising can be done even 50-60% as well without scooping every piece of user data it can get its hands on, then it should be.

Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#79

Post by marmaduke »

Dahoon wrote: post #51
aowerijwaerj wrote: post #37

Facebook is 21st-century cigarettes. Thousands of brilliant scientists and engineers testing and optimizing their product to be as addictive as possible. No concern for the effects on their users or on society. The only concern is making money. Just like with cigarettes, at first it was cool, then it became mainstream, then the dangers became better known, then the CEO was ordered to appear before Congress and gave a…

Too bad you had to ruin an otherwise good post with >now it's used primarily by laggards and poorly-educated demographics I dislike Facebook too (and don't use it) but the above statement is a clear lie. Normal people are who use Facebook, like it or not.

I agree with this: closest family, well educated, use Facebook though I ask them not to.

Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#80

Post by wolco »

snazz wrote: post #59
jariel wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"... And nothing of value was lost." This is definitely not true. There is considerable value in advertising, it's just not apparent to you. In fact - advertising that is 'well targeted' is considerably less annoying than ads that are poorly targetted. The economic value of a well targeted ad is probably 10x otherwise. Ergo - unless you are willing to pay for apps - you might now see 10x more ads appearing on pages t…

I agree that relevant ads are better than completely random ones for everyone involved. But there is a significant middle ground between “show this user a random ad” and “show this user an ad based on data collected through tracking”. There’s also “show this user an ad similar to what they’re currently looking at”, like the search ads on DuckDuckGo. I find that these kinds of ads are just as relevant as targeted ads.…

A random ad would be strange. An ad based on the content of the page or type of site would actually fit in better.
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