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Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

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Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume the button will prompt a system alert of some kind, no?

The article has precisely that prompt in one of the images. The thing is, just like certain apps require certain permissions (camera app wants to access the camera, device files, etc..) I believe a lot of people will just accept these conditions without realizing they are completely optional.

A lot of people will.

But there's also strong education regarding system prompts. Users know when an app is asking for extra permissions (which this is basically the same of). Those people who care about what permissions apps have will know what to click.

Those who don't care, that's the most you can do. Besides even Facebook estimate that only 10-30% will click allow. I'm not sure if you can ask for more at this point.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#142
post #51
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that the ads are more personalized. I know this sounds weird, but if I'm going to get ads anyway, I'd like them to potentially be products I'm going to maybe have a use for and might make my life easier. I get the privacy implications, but asking "why would anyone agree to this" is kind of narrow-minded.

Long, long time ago, when last.fm radio was still a thing on it's own, I loved it: instead of pre-arranging a playlist, it kept adding the next song by searching for similar ones based on the one currently playing. It kept crawling away, sometimes into terrible direction, but more often into an area I'd like to refer to as "satellite". "Satellite" would be friends-of-friends or even friends-of-friends-of-friends in s…

I feel the exact same way about sampling 'alien' ad culture. It's fun to switch on the local TV station in a new city and see what ads are being shown to people there. It's like a form of social calibration that shows what 'is available.' Same thing with reading the ads in the back of Popular Science or The Economist. I don't get that online unless I VPN+incognito, and I absolutely cannot get it on my phone, which is locked down much tighter.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#143

Wow, those encouragements are very weak. "Get ads that are more personalized", "Support businesses that rely on ads to reach customers": why would I support businesses relying on that when only 1 out of 5 ads in my feed is not garbage? These encouragements make me think that Facebook seems to believe that their ads are useful, which is a bit insane from a user perspective.

Agreed that a lot of ads are useless, but I've personally seen a few that I wouldn't have otherwise known about. For instance, there's a really cool used technical bookstore near me that I only discovered because I saw an ad for it. Also I would have missed a Humble Bundle that I really liked without an ad.

Don't get me wrong, I probably hate the average ad more than most people (any Liberty Mutual ad just makes me angry), but to say that ads are not useful from a user perspective is a bit too absolute a position; for me, the good ones definitely are useful.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually is. A while ago, someone (i think fb) produced an article that showed that to avoid the issue, they find it is best to show user their own similar screen, and only if the user clicks "yes", show the OS screen (cause for that one you only get one chance). I suspect you're seeing the apps' first "app-made" screen and not the OS one. Look carefully. If so, click yes there, and NO on the OS screen.

Similar theory behind those “do you like this app” prompts that come from the app itself. If you tap “yes” they’ll give you the prompt to rate on the AppStore. If you tap “no” they won’t. This can seriously inflate an app’s rating and help prevent low ratings. Nice, underhanded and effective dark pattern!

The funny thing is when they do that, you leave a bad review, they delete your review, and then keep begging you to leave a review.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#146
post #54

Wow, those encouragements are very weak. "Get ads that are more personalized", "Support businesses that rely on ads to reach customers": why would I support businesses relying on that when only 1 out of 5 ads in my feed is not garbage? These encouragements make me think that Facebook seems to believe that their ads are useful, which is a bit insane from a user perspective.

Have you ever talked to someone who works in adtech? They do sincerely believe that ads are helpful to people.

I worked in ad-tech for years, ultimately the convincing data is that people actually do click on ads. They do buy the products, and they do this more often than they would have had we not shown the ads at all (for some market segments).

I've often wondered if there is a population of users who simply hate ads to the extent that any impression will be net negative value to the advertiser, and what mechanisms could be used to stop showing them ads. There used to be services which let you purchase all of your own ads, but I think people want something more transparent which outright removes them from the services they use.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#147
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar theory behind those “do you like this app” prompts that come from the app itself. If you tap “yes” they’ll give you the prompt to rate on the AppStore. If you tap “no” they won’t. This can seriously inflate an app’s rating and help prevent low ratings. Nice, underhanded and effective dark pattern!

This is called review gating and isn't allowed: https://appradar.com/blog/ask-users-leave-review-in-app-stor...

Interesting! It’s obviously been a while since I was in the 3rd party app business because in my day, the use of these was widespread! Nice to see the vulnerability was closed.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#148
post #45
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that the ads are more personalized. I know this sounds weird, but if I'm going to get ads anyway, I'd like them to potentially be products I'm going to maybe have a use for and might make my life easier. I get the privacy implications, but asking "why would anyone agree to this" is kind of narrow-minded.

Does that actually work though? I've been buying things on Amazon for over a decade. For a while I got my groceries through them, I watch a lot of stuff on Prime Video. You would think they, of all people, know what I like. I can't think of more than a couple times where anything suggested to me was actually something I wanted. Even when I used FB, the ads were so off target from things I am interested in as to be la…

Perhaps a small cohort of targeted-ad-susceptible users skew the targeting efficacy stats so far it looks like targeted ads work overall.

Perhaps this cohort doesn’t overlap much with, say, New York Times readers, which might be why NYT and every other brand that tried first party non-retargeted ads saw an uptick in ROI.

For most of us, perhaps these ads don’t work or are negative, while this cohort are more like Candy Crush in-app-purchase whales — for them they really really work, so they spend enough that most players think the game is “free to play” while griping about the endless in-app-upsells.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a different idea other than banning: make companies pay a tax on each bit of user information they hold.

Tax, how about royalties to the user. They use that data to advertise to other users within a family or circle. It’s data about us, why shouldn’t they have to pay a royalty to users and get our permissions beforehand when they want to utilize the data in different ways. We have different licenses for code and projects. Why not have something similar for user data / metadata

You could argue that they do pay a royalty to users, and that royalty gets put toward free access to software and services. Whether or not that royalty is sufficient is fine to debate, but at the end of the day someone is footing the bill.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#150
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever talked to someone who works in adtech? They do sincerely believe that ads are helpful to people.

Complaining about advertising is like complaining about money. Advertising is inevitable in any economy.

I'm OK with advertising existing, it's just the way in which it's being conducted that's objectionable.
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