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Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

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Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

#301

Post by inetknght »

damnyou wrote: post #293
airstrike wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very likely, less funding for the service hurts you as a consumer Define "hurt". I'd rather make a decision to pay $5/month for a service than to be the product and get spied on

In general I'm not a fan of advertising, but one of the most important things it does is level the playing field across income levels and countries. $5/month would be outrageously expensive for a very large number of people, most of whom are not on Hacker News , and any discussion of replacing advertising with a subscription model has to start from that basic fact.

You're justifying the abuse of people's privacy because they can't afford to buy out of it.

That might be legal for the moment but it is in no way moral.

Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

#302

Post by egsmi »

jefftk wrote: post #179
wil421 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain how Apple’s anti tracking measures are going to hurt small business and make fraud easier?

Most of the time, privacy and fraud both benefit from the same changes. To prevent tracking online, you want your device to look just like everybody else's devices. To prevent fraud, you want devices to look different so you can tell when a device does not represent a real user. At the extreme, imagine if every person has a unique identifier that was automatically sent whenever they used any device: preventing ad fra…

> To prevent fraud

Honest question, I am not trying to be obtuse, but in this context can you more specifically define fraud? Is it just "ad fraud" as defined here: https://www.clickcease.com/blog/what-is-ad-fraud/

I get why businesses should care about ad fraud, but why should I, as a consumer care about it? Frankly I don't even want to know about my traffic, let alone yours.

Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

#303

Post by malandrew »

wil421 wrote: post #120
bartread wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what the GP is saying. They're saying that only Facebook and the like have the resources to catch fraud, and smaller players won't. Yes, it's harder, but that hardness is almost an irrelevance to Facebook and other FAANG-alikes, whereas it could be much more of a problem for smaller businesses who will struggle to bear the costs both of fraud, and to develop anti-fraud solutions (or pay for anti-fraud serv…

Can you explain how Apple’s anti tracking measures are going to hurt small business and make fraud easier?

The cost of a phone becomes a barrier to scaling fraud because once you use a phone for fraud it can be blacklisted.

Advertiser fraud is hardly the only type of fraud. It happens with services you directly pay for like ridesharing and food delivery as well. The cost of fraud becomes another cost for a service provider and prices for all users need to be raised to offset losses from fraud.

For smaller businesses without the brain power to combat fraud, their margins will be greatly hurt by fraud, making it harder to compete.

I'm in favor of what Apple is doing myself, but it's definitely a legitimate unintended consequence of this measure.

What would be useful is if Apple became the gatekeeper for tracking fraud and companies could report ephemeral identifiers for fraud that only Apple can de-anonymize and then Apple provides fraud scores for ephemeral identifiers on account signup.

Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

#304

Post by malandrew »

elefanten wrote: post #257
jefftk wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the time, privacy and fraud both benefit from the same changes. To prevent tracking online, you want your device to look just like everybody else's devices. To prevent fraud, you want devices to look different so you can tell when a device does not represent a real user. At the extreme, imagine if every person has a unique identifier that was automatically sent whenever they used any device: preventing ad fra…

Google’s inability to protect its core revenue stream is squarely in the “not my problem” category. In fact, making internet advertising less desirable for businesses sounds like a benefit to me. So, Apple’s decision is looking even better to me now.

For Google yes, I agree. But for services you pay for directly it is your problem because it raises the cost of that service for you.

Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

#305

Post by airstrike »

damnyou wrote: post #293
airstrike wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very likely, less funding for the service hurts you as a consumer Define "hurt". I'd rather make a decision to pay $5/month for a service than to be the product and get spied on

In general I'm not a fan of advertising, but one of the most important things it does is level the playing field across income levels and countries. $5/month would be outrageously expensive for a very large number of people, most of whom are not on Hacker News , and any discussion of replacing advertising with a subscription model has to start from that basic fact.

There's no reason Facebook can't charge Brazilians 5 BRL instead of 5 USD.

Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

#306

Post by t-writescode »

fbelzile wrote: post #296
pwinnski wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple revenue for the last year was $275 billion. So you've listed 3.5%, 7%, and probably-rounds-to-0% of their revenue, which doesn't seem like it actually counters the original point.

As you correctly point out, those are revenue figures, not profit. $10 billion from Google out of $60 billion in profit is significant. Apple saying they 'care' about privacy while making +15% of its profits from Google alone is hypocritical.

You just spun terms in your own comment.

> those are revenue figures, not profit

> $10 billion from Google out of $60 billion in profit is significant

Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

#307

Post by zepto »

fbelzile wrote: post #296
pwinnski wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple revenue for the last year was $275 billion. So you've listed 3.5%, 7%, and probably-rounds-to-0% of their revenue, which doesn't seem like it actually counters the original point.

As you correctly point out, those are revenue figures, not profit. $10 billion from Google out of $60 billion in profit is significant. Apple saying they 'care' about privacy while making +15% of its profits from Google alone is hypocritical.

Why? Are you saying they shouldn’t have Google as the default search engine?

Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

#308

Post by zepto »

elliekelly wrote: post #164
TruthSHIFT wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One important implication of not using full encryption is that it protects users from themselves. If a user forgets their password, Apple can still unlock their data. From a security perspective, this obviously isn't ideal. But, from the perspective of the average user who has lost all of their data, this is great.

I should be given the choice to turn it on though. I understand Apple not wanting to deal with the annoying customer who forgets their password, loses everything, and blames Apple. I’ve seen enough forgotten password people while waiting at the Genius Bar to sympathize with Apple. But just because some of their customers can’t handle the responsibility doesn’t mean none of their customers should have the option. I en…

I entirely agree with this, and I expect this is what will happen over time.

But, just like with FileVault, the roll out will most likely be relatively slow and progressive.

Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

#309

Post by notRobot »

robin_reala wrote: post #96
notRobot wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They absolutely do, and it sucks that there's no way to view it or request deletion.

Sure there is. If they’re holding personal data on you, they legally have to provide it (and optionally delete it) when issued with a Subject Access Request under GDPR.

I do not live in a place subject to the GDPR.

Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

#310

Post by zepto »

caddywompus wrote: post #156
LC_ALL wrote: post #50

Say what you want about Apple but they are by far the most privacy focused big company. Their income is from selling physical devices. Typical megacorps in 2020 are leveraging economies of scale to sell their users' attention. Apple has a unique value add in that when their users benefit they benefit. Sent from my Thinkpad.

It's odd though, they have these contradictory actions. For the iPhone, they are pushing for privacy, but on MacOS, we are now dealing with things like excessive telemetry to the point of phoning a authorization server for running local binaries. Not to mention the new firewall issues, where Apple utilities are able to bypass local firewall rules.

Surely you know this ‘telemetry’ statement isn’t really true. They use badly designed open protocol to do certificate revocation. It’s not like they designed this as a way to collect user data.
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