Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Analytics suggest 96% of users leave app tracking disabled in iOS 14.5

macrumors.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 371 posts

Re: Analytics suggest 96% of users leave app tracking disabled in iOS 14.5

#121

Post by libertine »

8fingerlouie wrote: post #101
libertine wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple is disrupting whole economy for apps. I've been wondering why people aren't asking what kind of data is Apple itself collecting? Not only from users, but from the marketplace. Shouldn't users also give consent to what they share with Apple? Shouldn't businesses also choose to share info with Apple? This is gave us a sense of "justice as been done", but now we should look deeply into what the gatekeeper is doin…

While I’m sure Apple collects ample (pseudo anonymous) data from their respective stores about patterns, they actually don’t gather that much data about you. For a long time they’ve had an “on device” policy to handling data. Buy a new phone and your frequently visited locations list is empty. Most of their AI stuff only lives on your device. Of course there are limits to what can be handled on your device, but they’…

I do agree with you that it's part of Apple new positioning, that they are a privacy first company, yet I think you missed my point: I'm talking about consent.

When you said:

>While I’m sure Apple collects ample (pseudo anonymous) data from their respective stores about patterns, they actually don’t gather that much data about you.

I don't doubt it, what I meant is that even for that there's no explicit consent in the way they are doing with the Apps on appstore (they probably mix it when you're setting up your account). Because you might have apps that collected even less data then Apple, and they are still subject the user consent message.

I can see from the downvotes that this is not a popular opinion, which is odd - I'm just saying that everyone should play by the same rules, else there's an asymmetry that will favor the ones who can circumvent this limitation, which in this case, it's Apple.

It's just not coherent, since it's not about collecting a lot, or very little data, it's about users giving explicit consent to share data.

Re: Analytics suggest 96% of users leave app tracking disabled in iOS 14.5

#122

Post by pydry »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #109
the_snooze wrote: post #12

>The challenge for personalized ads market will be significant if the first two weeks end up reflecting a long-term trend. Adtech is basically highly-paid people sniffing your underwear trying to figure out what you had for breakfast. And they get all indignant when you say "hey cut it out, that's kind of weird."

Ads are paying for something with tracking. Expect prices of apps to go up.

It sure would be awful if Facebook became a paid app :)

Re: Analytics suggest 96% of users leave app tracking disabled in iOS 14.5

#123

Post by KoftaBob »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #111
justapassenger wrote: post #68

What a surprise. If I tell people going to the store that they choose to pay for the products, or not, a lot of people will choose not to. Who would guess that people like free stuff? Apple is disrupting whole economy for apps. It’s a very broken economy, with lots of questionable practices, that’s for sure. But we’ll see if it’ll be net benefit for customers. For sure for Apple, as more apps will have to move to be…

> Apple is disrupting whole economy for apps. Not at all. Facebook can simply require you to enable tracking in order to use Facebook.

Apple explicitly says that apps can't require app tracking in order to use their app, they're removed from the app store if they do.

Keep in mind "app tracking" here means reading your device ID, called the 'Identity For Advertisers' (IDFA for short). They do this so that they can cross reference that IDFA with data that other apps have collected on that same IDFA, allowing them to connect the dots that it's the same user.

This app tracking transparency feature makes it so that they can't access your IDFA, and can only show you ads based on info you provide within their own app, not from the other apps you use. It keeps your data silo-ed to each app.

Re: Analytics suggest 96% of users leave app tracking disabled in iOS 14.5

#124

Post by matheusmoreira »

f6v wrote: post #70
the_snooze wrote: post #12

>The challenge for personalized ads market will be significant if the first two weeks end up reflecting a long-term trend. Adtech is basically highly-paid people sniffing your underwear trying to figure out what you had for breakfast. And they get all indignant when you say "hey cut it out, that's kind of weird."

I think the users have brought it on themselves. Almost everyone wants free content, more, more of it! Just say: “You know what? I’m not gonna watch these cat videos on YouTube cause there’s an outrageous number of ads!” Or (and I’m going to sound crazy) we could skip scrolling Instagram and just read a book or take a walk when we need to unwind. Google search is harder to escape, of course.

Nobody can be blamed for wanting free content, who doesn't? The fact most sites are free of charge does not mean the advertising industry should be allowed to surveil everyone and monetize their private information. If sites can't aford to offer content for free, they should charge money for it.

Re: Analytics suggest 96% of users leave app tracking disabled in iOS 14.5

#125

Post by elite_hackers5 »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #109
the_snooze wrote: post #12

>The challenge for personalized ads market will be significant if the first two weeks end up reflecting a long-term trend. Adtech is basically highly-paid people sniffing your underwear trying to figure out what you had for breakfast. And they get all indignant when you say "hey cut it out, that's kind of weird."

Ads are paying for something with tracking. Expect prices of apps to go up.

You mean like Facebook? What a tragedy.

Re: Analytics suggest 96% of users leave app tracking disabled in iOS 14.5

#126

Post by KoftaBob »

I've seen a lot of people confused by this, so I figured I'd clear it up:

"App tracking" here means reading your device ID, called the 'Identity For Advertisers' (IDFA for short). They do this so that they can cross reference that IDFA with data that other apps have collected on that same IDFA, allowing them to connect the dots that it's the same user.

This app tracking transparency feature makes it so that they can't access your IDFA, and can only show you ads based on info you provide within their own app, not from the other apps you use. It keeps your data silo-ed to each app.

This is where the whole "I looked up nike shoes on Amazon and now I'm getting nike shoe ads on Facebook" comes from. Without the IDFA, Facebook has no way of knowing what you looked up on Amazon, only what you look up on Facebook.

Re: Analytics suggest 96% of users leave app tracking disabled in iOS 14.5

#127

Post by mrtksn »

justapassenger wrote: post #68

What a surprise. If I tell people going to the store that they choose to pay for the products, or not, a lot of people will choose not to. Who would guess that people like free stuff? Apple is disrupting whole economy for apps. It’s a very broken economy, with lots of questionable practices, that’s for sure. But we’ll see if it’ll be net benefit for customers. For sure for Apple, as more apps will have to move to be…

At the end of the day, nothing is free. It's just a different payment scheme and Apple is killing that scheme. We don't even pay through our privacy or attention span. These are simply wasted in the process of offloading the payment to a different payment processor.

The game is not free, it just collects the payments through the candy shop. The offsetting of the payment includes you stop playing and looking at candy images and initiating the process itself requires us writing off our privacy so that the candy image guys can try to guess which candy we might like more.

What if everything is paid directly? Yes, there's Apple's %30 cut but there's also Google's cut and Facebook's cut in advertisement(which is not transparent and I hear that it's about %50).

Besides, huge resources are spent in running the system that tries to guess who would prefer to buy what. It comes at the cost of computational and human resources too, not just the privacy. That cost must be incorporated to the product price.

Is finding the product you look for through WOM, lists and publications that inefficient? Is it really impossible to find your customers organically? Do we really need the customer/product matching in exchange of money?

Do we really need an incredibly inefficient centralised communist system(the big agencies like FB) where the party members(the technicians in these companies) need to track everyone(the spying required to make the system possible) so that we can have free games and apps(which are not free but paid from the communal money that the central organisation collects from you)?

Re: Analytics suggest 96% of users leave app tracking disabled in iOS 14.5

#128

Post by simondotau »

libertine wrote: post #83
justapassenger wrote: post #68

What a surprise. If I tell people going to the store that they choose to pay for the products, or not, a lot of people will choose not to. Who would guess that people like free stuff? Apple is disrupting whole economy for apps. It’s a very broken economy, with lots of questionable practices, that’s for sure. But we’ll see if it’ll be net benefit for customers. For sure for Apple, as more apps will have to move to be…

>Apple is disrupting whole economy for apps. I've been wondering why people aren't asking what kind of data is Apple itself collecting? Not only from users, but from the marketplace. Shouldn't users also give consent to what they share with Apple? Shouldn't businesses also choose to share info with Apple? This is gave us a sense of "justice as been done", but now we should look deeply into what the gatekeeper is doin…

> Shouldn't users also give consent to what they share with Apple?

You give consent to share data with a company when you share it with that company. This straightforward relationship isn't an issue so long as the company's use of your data is in line with your expectations.

When you want to know what a company's incentives are, look at their financials. Money is the great truth teller. Does Apple have sources of revenue which rely upon use of customers' private data? I'm not aware of any.

Now ask the opposite question. Does Apple have a financial incentive to be a good steward of their customers' data? This is a very clear yes, as evidenced by their highlighting of privacy as a distinguishing feature. While it's stupid to trust a company's marketing, it's important to appreciate that Apple have wilfully staked a large part of their reputation on customer privacy. That would have been a monumentally stupid move if they weren't intending to live up to it.

> they put Apple first above everything else

A weird accusation. Setting aside immutable truths about the motivations of any corporation, Apple has famously placed their customers ahead of many other external concerns. Case in point—where they have actively defied the wishes of the FBI (and similar arms of many world governments) in the implementation of robust on-device encryption and cryptographic security.

> I only see them getting an exclusive view of user behavior on their devices.

Yes, and? Tell me, who are these other people that should have access to my data? Damn right it should be exclusive to Apple—people are paying them good money to be a trustworthy steward of their data.

Re: Analytics suggest 96% of users leave app tracking disabled in iOS 14.5

#130

Post by ahmedalsudani »

dlhavema wrote: post #99
ahmedalsudani wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people would be happy to pay upfront and keep their data.

I think the market has said otherwise. Among aware engineers, sure. Among Suzie home maker and Tommy Q the support rep? Doesn't seem so. Facebook is free and has how many people now? ( Just one example I know )

The situation likely arose as a tragedy of the commons. It’s why Apple taking the hammer to the business model is worth watching. A dominant platform like Apple has the ability to change the economics so we don’t end up with everything being “free” and trying to learn everything about you.

There’s some concern about how Apple is changing the economics of free apps. I personally have always had a problem with free apps destroying the opportunity for those that charge the user cash instead of data.

Post reply on HN