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Facebook is pushing back on Apple’s new iPhone privacy rules

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Re: Facebook is pushing back on Apple’s new iPhone privacy rules

#381
post #281

Coming soon, crazy cheap Facebook subsidized Android phones with "Facebook Browser"... I'm only somewhat kidding. I imagine a flood of super cheap, but decent spec Androids would be pretty disruptive, despite sending everything to the FB mother ship.

i'd buy that

Re: Facebook is pushing back on Apple’s new iPhone privacy rules

#382
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, you literally are Apple’s product to their iOS developer ecosystem, in the sense that developers fork over 30% of their revenue to Apple for access to you.

On one hand, it's argued that Apple has an incentive to act against their customers because they want to sell apps on the app store. On the other hand, it's argued that Apple doesn't care about their developers because they enforce draconian regulations on what iOS developers are allowed and not allowed to do, and don't hesitate even to shut down billion dollar apps (i.e., Fortnite). I have mixed feelings about Apple…

> and don't hesitate even to shut down billion dollar apps (i.e., Fortnite).

It's fairly obvious that, given Epic was saying "you can pay $2 less to get the same amount of vbucks" that Apple was going to lose a huge portion of revenue from the App if they didn't pull it, and if they actually left it up, they'd have to allow every other app to institute third-party payment processors as well to not appear like they're playing favorites and the PR nightmare that would come from that.

Re: Facebook is pushing back on Apple’s new iPhone privacy rules

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was in adtech for awhile. Targeted ads work really well for many scenarios, b2b software.

Like I said, all evidence I know of is anecdotal. Which—for sure—is indicative, but by no means conclusive.

I’m not sure it makes sense to speak this broadly about efficacy, since there are probably variations in returns amongst different targeting groups and value props. Execution matters.

I’m also not sure if it matters whether they are actually effective. At least for the short term. If people believe they are effective, is there any difference in the dynamic?

Re: Facebook is pushing back on Apple’s new iPhone privacy rules

#384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really weird. I don't think the "threat" is the obvious one... Nobody trusts Facebook -- many, if not most, people honestly believe they listen to their conversations already. The real message is how emotional and immature the leadership is to a perceived slight. A message that said "Cigarettes will kill you" didn't stop smokers, and some label won't stop Facebook users or meaningfully impact Facebook. Hell, whe…

It won’t cause Facebook to go bankrupt (less well-targeted ads can still be sold but aren’t worth as much), but it will meaningfully impact them. Most high level Facebook employees have significant amounts of Facebook stock. Even the implication that Facebook’s ad revenue will decrease is going to lower their stock price. So of course they are going to try to prevent this change- if it becomes permanent they are taki…

>If Android follows suit (not guaranteed but iOS and Android often converge on features within a few versions of each other), then they are going to take another hit. Executives want to prevent this change in the interest of their personal wealth.

Google might be incentivized to do it, as doing so would harm the effectiveness of other ad networks without affecting their own (as long as the user has a Google account)

Re: Facebook is pushing back on Apple’s new iPhone privacy rules

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got an iPhone 12 mini (my first iPhone since the original) I’m also worried they won’t keep the form factor around. It hasn’t performed well in the market. I like the size, but apparently most people prefer the larger size and battery life.

My hope is that Apple realizes they created the apparent scarce demand by not having the mini format for so long. They need to keep the format over several years so the demand can materialize as people finally upgrade their old 5S and SE devices now that there's a viable iPhone for them. But those same people are clearly patient and are not in a collective rush to go out and buy new phones, it will take several years…

Apple released a $400 to $550 iPhone SE in Apr 2020 after years of not having an updated small phone option, so I imagine many who really wanted a smaller phone jumped on that. And then 6 months later they came out with 12 mini, so I wouldn’t expect a size able amount of demand for the 12 mini would have been sucked up by the new SE.

Re: Facebook is pushing back on Apple’s new iPhone privacy rules

#386
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting there is no difference between targeted and non-targeted advertisement?

At scale? Margin of error at best. I will tell you what my interests are by vising web properties that cater to them in that specific time. You deciding to keep showing me ads for a Nespresso machine when I'm reading about circular saws is idiotic.

That doesn’t pass the sniff test. Would you say that in general, you wouldn’t expect a difference in results if you sold Taylor swift albums to white suburban women in Iowa, versus black urban men in Atlanta?

Re: Facebook is pushing back on Apple’s new iPhone privacy rules

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really weird. I don't think the "threat" is the obvious one... Nobody trusts Facebook -- many, if not most, people honestly believe they listen to their conversations already. The real message is how emotional and immature the leadership is to a perceived slight. A message that said "Cigarettes will kill you" didn't stop smokers, and some label won't stop Facebook users or meaningfully impact Facebook. Hell, whe…

The real message is how emotional and immature the leadership is to a perceived slight It's very telling that personal privacy has Facebook's leadership fudging its collective Huggies, while every other company — even Google — is going along with it.

Google has avoid updating their iOS apps for months to avoid putting privacy labels on them.

Re: Facebook is pushing back on Apple’s new iPhone privacy rules

#388
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the App Store should not be the only marketplace available. Wouldn't Facebook then simply stop distributing it's app through the Apple App Store and then create it's own app store that doesn't have any of the anti-tracking restrictions?

Is the permission popup that asks users to allow/block access to the location, tracking, etc, tied to the App Store? On Android, it doesn't matter the source of the app. If the app wants to access your location, camera, files, etc, you need to give it access. I don't see why this new iOS feature to "ask apps not to track" has to be different, isn't it all part of what the "app sandbox" lets them do? Apple can't contr…

That would work for things like accessing a user’s address book or location but some of the quality control occurs at the App Store review level.

I don’t think iOS would be capable of protecting against, for example, the running of hidden cryptocurrency software.

Also iOS has private api’s but their use is prevented by the review process.

Re: Facebook is pushing back on Apple’s new iPhone privacy rules

#389

How can an app track activities in other apps? Is it only possible if those other apps use the same tracking networks, or can the app track activities in _any_ other app? How does this work? What can facebook extract today? (I'm surprised a bit, i thought phones offer app isolation). The only things that comes to mind is to correlate device ids from different apps if the apps use the same analytics/advertising networ…

“which includes which apps are being used and for how long, which websites are visited, and data about a user's location“ This is probaly in the “/tmp” or similar directory and probably useful for the system as a whole to be readable (or probably /dev or /proc). It is not a big deal unless you are facebook and, for instance, want to know if your user watches foxnews or has the cnn app or whatever. AFAIK just doing “p…

I may be wrong, but I don't think the iOS sandbox allows apps to poke around that much.

Re: Facebook is pushing back on Apple’s new iPhone privacy rules

#390
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wholly internalized that there was a real problem when I started taking my phone to other parts of the house, placing it in a drawer before returning and shutting the door to have an in person conversation with someone.

Apps cannot use the microphone on iOS 14 without your awareness. There is a little dot that will show up at the top of the screen if an app has recently used microphone or camera. Hopefully this can assuage your paranoia.

The dot seems to not be interactive, i.e. I won't be able to find out which app it was, and what it did. But it's a start!
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