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WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

webkit.org

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Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#101

Post by danielscrubs »

downandout wrote: post #86
peanutz454 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason people just have an aversion to paying for stuff they use. Facebook's revenue per user is less than 7$, I don't use facebook, but do not mind paying that little for something I use instead of getting tracked wherever I go. Similarly Google's service that I use like gmail and photos are easily worth about 7$ per month. I would pay if they said they will stop tracking me. I don't know about youtube.

Google makes $21 on average per US user per month [1], almost all of which comes from advertising. Would you pay $21/mo for your Google services? [1] https://mondaynote.com/the-arpus-of-the-big-four-dwarf-every...

I’ve bought zero products via google ads, except the case when I search for a company name and their official homepage is the top sponsored result. Which is insane.

And yet, my eyeballs looking at text with less text than a tweet is worth 21 USD. It feels like Google disrupted, but it’s far away from being optimal for companies.

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#102

Post by TeMPOraL »

cameronbrown wrote: post #75
peanutz454 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason people just have an aversion to paying for stuff they use. Facebook's revenue per user is less than 7$, I don't use facebook, but do not mind paying that little for something I use instead of getting tracked wherever I go. Similarly Google's service that I use like gmail and photos are easily worth about 7$ per month. I would pay if they said they will stop tracking me. I don't know about youtube.

YouTube being the only one you've listed that has a premium option. The problem is people will say they'll pay but as soon as the option comes up, they don't.

Why would they if they can still not pay and get ads, which hurt less short-term (spending money can feel like losing hit points), and can be ignored either through effort or an ad blocker? Ten times more so if you still are going to show them ads.

You want people to pay, make them pay. If you worry about ad-driven competitors, then maybe this should serve as a good argument to advocate instituting regulations against funding services with ads.

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#103

Post by briandear »

rale00 wrote: post #40

So what is going to happen when Apple succeeds in making it impossible to make any money off advertisements shown to iOS users on the web? I'm currently imagining a future where publishers start to just redirect iOS traffic to install their app, where they can actually make money. Good news for the walled garden, I guess?

Ads without allowing tracking networks. You know, like print ads. And sites already annoy you to download their godforesaken apps. See Yelp, Reddit and Quora.

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#104

Post by briandear »

rale00 wrote: post #64
geofft wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't people make money off internet advertising before the modern surveillance-marketing complex? What happened to it? I mean, maybe the answer is that those ads were only profitable because of the novelty factor and now that we have metrics we know they don't work, or at least don't work anywhere close to how much they cost. But I do miss things like the webcomics running their own ad network, Google's textual ads…

> Didn't people make money off internet advertising before the modern surveillance-marketing complex? What happened to it? Non-contextual advertising still exists, but it's perceived as less effective, so there's a lot less money in it. I don't know if that perception is correct, but I do remember back when a common complaint from people was that the ads they saw weren't relevant to them. It's also not just targeted…

> No one wants to spend money showing ads to bots

Bots can watch TV, somehow TV ads work. Newspapers have audited circulation, it wouldn’t be that hard to have a website visit audit company to verify “circulation.”

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#105

Post by TeMPOraL »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #76
geofft wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't people make money off internet advertising before the modern surveillance-marketing complex? What happened to it? I mean, maybe the answer is that those ads were only profitable because of the novelty factor and now that we have metrics we know they don't work, or at least don't work anywhere close to how much they cost. But I do miss things like the webcomics running their own ad network, Google's textual ads…

From what I can tell, the pre-surveilence norm was businesses having to find a website with an audience they wanted to advertise to, or a website finding a business that might want to market to their users, and then every website having to negotiate contracts with every business that wanted to set up ads. Basically the print magazine model. But as businesses wanted to advertise to larger populations (we want to do a…

I think that at a minimum, we need to get back to that model. What "reducing overhead" really bought us is tracking and behavioral targeting with all its failure modes. All because companies wanted and could externalize the costs of actually curating and targeting the ads they serve themselves.

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#106

Post by jesstaa »

I expect that tracking will just move to being proxied server side. It will be more annoying for the people setting it up but services will spring up to help. Little will change in the advertising and tracking space.

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#107

Post by fapjacks »

tialaramex wrote: post #100
therealx wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but YouTube doesn't stop tracking you when you pay.

But what does that mean? YouTube keeps a history list, which I download and periodically reset. If it didn't I would need to add some sort of Firefox add-on that remembered which videos I'd seen. What else are they "tracking"? Does YouTube have tracking on other sites (like Facebook, Twitter etc)? I haven't seen anything like that. You can switch the history off, I presume that would work even without Premium, but it…

Well, for starters, now they're tracking that you are willing to pay a ransom. That's the same kind of knowledge value as spammers get when a user clicks the "unsubscribe" link in one of their emails.

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#108

Post by auslander »

tialaramex wrote: post #100
therealx wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but YouTube doesn't stop tracking you when you pay.

But what does that mean? YouTube keeps a history list, which I download and periodically reset. If it didn't I would need to add some sort of Firefox add-on that remembered which videos I'd seen. What else are they "tracking"? Does YouTube have tracking on other sites (like Facebook, Twitter etc)? I haven't seen anything like that. You can switch the history off, I presume that would work even without Premium, but it…

> You can switch the history off

And trust Google, Ad company, to erase it in its backend?

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#109

Post by beagle3 »

qroshan wrote: post #94
rale00 wrote: post #40

So what is going to happen when Apple succeeds in making it impossible to make any money off advertisements shown to iOS users on the web? I'm currently imagining a future where publishers start to just redirect iOS traffic to install their app, where they can actually make money. Good news for the walled garden, I guess?

Most of HN don't understand that the Advertising ecosystem is what is feeding the tech boom and their livelihood. Just like housing it is an entire ecosystem now with many people's jobs and livelihood is based on. Hit that ecosystem and you get a recession. However it doesn't stop at the recession. Most VCs are funding hundreds and thousands of startups with the hope that one of them is going to get sold to Google or…

That's usually called "the broken window fallacy".

A kid goes out and breaks random windows in people's home; as a result, a lot of economic activity ensues - the glass producers, the people who produce glass cutters and specialized tools, the people who install windows, the cleaners who specialize in cleaning broken glass, etc ...

The ad industry is breaking everyone's windows. It does indeed produce a lot of economic activity; But it is more likely than not "misallocation and waste of funds" when looked at in a broader context.

Re: WebKit Tracking Prevention Policy

#110

Post by TeMPOraL »

qroshan wrote: post #94
rale00 wrote: post #40

So what is going to happen when Apple succeeds in making it impossible to make any money off advertisements shown to iOS users on the web? I'm currently imagining a future where publishers start to just redirect iOS traffic to install their app, where they can actually make money. Good news for the walled garden, I guess?

Most of HN don't understand that the Advertising ecosystem is what is feeding the tech boom and their livelihood. Just like housing it is an entire ecosystem now with many people's jobs and livelihood is based on. Hit that ecosystem and you get a recession. However it doesn't stop at the recession. Most VCs are funding hundreds and thousands of startups with the hope that one of them is going to get sold to Google or…

I think many HNers do understand this. I do and I am sad by the amount of waste it creates. The jobs in adtech are better left not done at all, and the manpower and money redirected to more socially useful jobs.
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