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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

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Overall advertising budgets are not dominated by the effectiveness of advertising, but by adversarial spending by their competitors. This is absolutely not the case. Google’s biggest ad clients achieve pretty incredible ROI (called ROAS) on each dollar they spend. And they track these obsessively—I supported a large travel client that had a small (but highly skilled) engineering team dedicated exclusively to their…

At least someone in this thread gets it. Ad tracking really is about attribution, personalized ads are secondary nice-to-have. This is how small businesses figure out their advertising budget. Where are our customers coming from, or more importantly, where are they not coming from, so we know where to spend or not spend our limited resources? But I’m not surprised this isn’t pointed out more often. The hardcore priva…

It can be mostly innocuous. And I feel no sympathy for facebook’s business model here. I don’t want my attention to be bought and sold like a horse between faceless companies. I’d much rather pay $1/year to WhatsApp than have the content of my personal life analysed by the world’s marketing teams. I want to be the customer, not the product. I want the software I use to be primarily designed around my needs - not the needs of advertisers.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#252
post #110

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.

Great idea! It means that the company gets to do the tracking as much as it wants as long as it shares some of these profits with the government, and as a bonus gets to enjoy a reasonably confidence that any initiative to futher enhance privacy will be quashed in a hurry - with bipartisan support, too, especially in the current tax revenue slump thanks to the ongoing pandemic. /s The word you were probably looking fo…

what I meant was taxes high enough to matter for the bottom line. Also, this would force the companies to open up their databases for government or public inspection, kind-of like we do today with uranium processing. This alone would expose dark behavior much earlier than today

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Overall advertising budgets are not dominated by the effectiveness of advertising, but by adversarial spending by their competitors. This is absolutely not the case. Google’s biggest ad clients achieve pretty incredible ROI (called ROAS) on each dollar they spend. And they track these obsessively—I supported a large travel client that had a small (but highly skilled) engineering team dedicated exclusively to their…

'When Big Brands Stopped Spending On Digital Ads, Nothing Happened. Why?' https://www.forbes.com/sites/augustinefou/2021/01/02/when-bi...

What happens when small brands don't spend on digital ads? Nothing Happening is the worst possible outcome.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#255
lol @ people who think Apple pushing back on FB tracking is out of their goodness of heart.

They want FB to introduce a subscription model so they can rake in that sweet 30% commission.

I am in favor of more consumer options, always prefer subscriptions to ads/tracking, and am a huge fan of Apple products. The issue is more that 30% commission is extortionate imo.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#256
post #189
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a simple man -- if I see a button with a primary intent color standing between me and my content I've been conditioned to press it, often before I realize what I'm doing or reading the accompanying text. Probably tens of millions of people will do the same here.

> if I see a button with a primary intent color standing between me and my content I've been conditioned to press it While cookie-laws have good intentions, this side effect should have been properly researched first. An internet full of shady and useless pop-ups which drive this behavior makes me sad. I'm still hoping they will someday disappear.

The skeptic in me bets that side effect was quite thoroughly researched, by the media companies, who found by normalizing intrusive banners they could get users to agree to whatever they heck they’d want.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Overall advertising budgets are not dominated by the effectiveness of advertising, but by adversarial spending by their competitors. This is absolutely not the case. Google’s biggest ad clients achieve pretty incredible ROI (called ROAS) on each dollar they spend. And they track these obsessively—I supported a large travel client that had a small (but highly skilled) engineering team dedicated exclusively to their…

At least someone in this thread gets it. Ad tracking really is about attribution, personalized ads are secondary nice-to-have. This is how small businesses figure out their advertising budget. Where are our customers coming from, or more importantly, where are they not coming from, so we know where to spend or not spend our limited resources? But I’m not surprised this isn’t pointed out more often. The hardcore priva…

Because (all other concerns and objections aside) the intent doesn't matter.

Apologies for the crude analogy, but if I install a camera in your bathroom and say, "okay, technically I could watch you poop, but the only reason I'm actually doing this is to figure out when you're out of toilet paper", that explanation won't leave you satisfied.

Similarly, if someone is tracking me across the web and trying to link my identity across multiple sites/devices, I don't really care whether or not they're worried about attribution. The concerns about attribution are secondary to the fact that they're still watching everything I do online.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tracking aside, I prefer not to have "personalized" ads for two reasons. First, they create another bubble based on their perception of me. Second, their personalization is so poor I sometimes wonder how come advertisers believe them. And this is all assuming you actually want to see ads. I don't. It's only when I need to buy something I enter the buying mode: I disable adblockers and start doing research - this is t…

If ads weren't clickbait, obnoxious, or misleading (and didn't violate your privacy) you may find yourself more open to seeing them. Even if they're not always super relevant to you and only you. Respectful advertising will always have its place whenever the buyer has a choice. It's when the companies selling those ads learn how to manipulate their audience that the 'respectful' parts of the equation get dropped and…

> My Kindle shows me ads

I have no experience on Kindles, but on my Amazon Fire HD, I have rooted it, uninstall 50-60% of the bloatware, I have installed "NoRoot Firewall" to cut down on the unwanted comms between my tablet and Amazon, and I now have a perfectly functioning tablet for reading.

Extra tip: install ReadEra and you can read the non-Kindle-app pdf, mobi, epub, etc.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#259

I am really surprised the amount of tantrums FB is throwing in this saga. This is a golden opportunity for them to reset their platform and change their brand in the world. Large businesses don't get these kind of opportunities often and this is something, I thought, they will seize. I really thought they will build security/privacy into their platform and weed things out. They could have gone to a paid model in some…

Likely this is because they do not have other options. Ever since 2016, they have been 'alerted' that their stack is fragile to regulation and other outside forces. Zuck has been hauled up in front of Congress a few times now over many things, including the tracking issues. The C-suite is very much aware of the problems.

I suppose they are trying to throw a fit now, and then relax to their secondary position when they must. But knowing how large bureaucracies (don't) work, there is no fall-back position. There is no 'there' anymore.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#260
post #244
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's not really a false equivalence, as a matter of degree - but see edit made in response to this. There is also an issue of Maslow style leveling here, but the core point is identical.

I still think it’s essentially a false equivalence: > Nobody needs a smart phone" or "No family of 4 needs a >2000sq/ft house" or the like as examples. Even these are in a totally different class of ‘need’ to Facebook which is trivially substituted by comparison.

I think you miss the point the point I was trying to make (i.e. I didn't articulate it well).

Regardless of how trivial you think it is, the fact that so many people demonstrate a preference not to should make you think harder about the problem. It's not just the technology, and many tech people tend to get this wrong consistently.

Let's put it another way: if it was actually as trivial as you seem to think, it probably would have happened already.

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