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Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

thebigtech.substack.com

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Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#11

Post by ______- »

> “Senator, We Run Ads” was the iconic response from Facebook’s CEO

> And that’s how Facebook still manages to stay free of cost today.

I enjoy articles that explain to the layman how the sausage is made. I've always wondered: if enough people know they're the product and know how Facebook makes money, would they delete their account in a fit of rage or continue to use it, knowing that they're victims of surveillance capitalism?

I know for me, I cancelled my account after looking at the 'interests' page and discovered how strangely accurate it was. They really can get to know you on an intimate level. The more you engage with the app, the bigger and more accurate the profiling. More people need to visit that interests page and decide if they want to continue using Facebook.

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#12

Post by smrtinsert »

mtgx wrote: post #6

> To put it straight, Google’s advertising ID (GAID) can no longer be accessed by advertisers if the user disables it from their settings. > Now that Google is pulling the plug by making GAID almost obsolete, Facebook is about to stare at a bigger loss. If their loss from iOS 14 was in the range of $80bn, Android the more dominant platform will only increase their losses and woes. Almost obsolete? This means users ha…

Putting their toes in the water, for sure.

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#14

Post by razius »

newuser46547 wrote: post #7
diogenesjunior wrote: post #3

Wow, Google finally decided to do something right.

They are doing it to kill off competition, not because they care about privacy.

Yeah, this is what I'm thinking as well. Isn't this a blatant anti-trust violation?

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#15

Post by chimen »

diogenesjunior wrote: post #3

Wow, Google finally decided to do something right.

It's not right - It is for the end user I mean but the basic idea did not spawn from a need to make right with their users. They aspire for market domination as well by impeding competition. I don't believe that this will affect their tracking though.

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#16

Post by pavlov »

The article manages to contradict itself at every turn. For example:

"Only yesterday, Google announced its plans to make advertising ID an opt-in feature."

A few paragraphs later:

"Google’s opt-out ad-tracking popup isn’t on the forefront like in iOS. Instead, it’s buried deep in the Google Play Service settings — which could be difficult for the non-tech savvy user to find out."

And this opener:

"Facebook has a market evaluation of over 930 billion dollars today."

Versus the conclusion:

"Clearly, this chain of events is about to trigger an irreversible slump in Facebook’s advertisement business — making their ambitions of becoming the fastest trillion-dollar tech firm a far-fetched dream."

Is it really a far-fetched dream when the stock price only needs a 7.5% bump from its current level?

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#17

Post by parthdesai »

______- wrote: post #11

> “Senator, We Run Ads” was the iconic response from Facebook’s CEO > And that’s how Facebook still manages to stay free of cost today. I enjoy articles that explain to the layman how the sausage is made. I've always wondered: if enough people know they're the product and know how Facebook makes money, would they delete their account in a fit of rage or continue to use it, knowing that they're victims of surveillance…

Anecdotal, but I think people on HN tend to care about privacy more than the general population. In my friend group, where no one else works in tech, everyone still actively uses facebook. And I haven't even started to talk about Instagram and Whatsapp. An average person doesn't care about it as much as you think or you would like to think that they do. Heck a part of me is happy that I get relevant ads rather than some random ad.

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#18

Post by sneak »

faitswulff wrote: post #4

> However, if Mark Zuckerberg goes back on the drawing board to figure what went wrong, he’ll probably realize that data breaches and privacy awareness aren’t the causes of an impending downfall. > Instead, a lack of effort in developing their own operating system a decade ago might be Facebook’s biggest regret. And this has come back to bite them today. Crazy that it came to this.

Ultimately every platform is about control. With the situation wrt bonzai buddy and a million search bars on every '95 box, treacherous/trustworthy DRM-everywhere computing was eventually inevitable.

Enter the iPhone/iOS and ChromeOS. (Android and Windows still have an escape hatch, and are still plagued with malware. macOS's escape hatch is basically irrelevant at this point, to the point of nonexistence.)

In those circumstances, if you aren't publishing the OS and holding the secret keys to the certs in bootloaders, you are only a sharecropper, and your access to the namespace of programs that are allowed to run on end user devices is entirely outside of your control.

Your milkshake is now someone else's. Epic and Facebook are upset about this, understandably.

I personally believe that people should be able to run Facebook spyware on the devices they bought, even if it is worse for them and the world. We aren't free if we aren't free to act against our own interests.

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#19

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

mtgx wrote: post #6

> To put it straight, Google’s advertising ID (GAID) can no longer be accessed by advertisers if the user disables it from their settings. > Now that Google is pulling the plug by making GAID almost obsolete, Facebook is about to stare at a bigger loss. If their loss from iOS 14 was in the range of $80bn, Android the more dominant platform will only increase their losses and woes. Almost obsolete? This means users ha…

I'm pretty sure >40% of US and EU users already do. That's not 100. But it's also not even close to insignificant.
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