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Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market

mobile.reuters.com

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Re: Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market

#111

Post by asutekku »

dudus wrote: post #46
firloop wrote: post #2

Apple's blog post about their plans: "We are committed to ensuring users can choose whether or not they allow an app to track them. To give developers time to make necessary changes, apps will be required to obtain permission to track users starting early next year. More information, including an update to the App Store Review Guidelines, will follow this fall." https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=hx9s63c5

This reads as just another popup you'll need to click before you can use any app. Just like cookies.

The pop-up is literally “allow tracking” and “disallow tracking” and disallowing does not give the advertisers any kind of information about cross-app usage. It is not something you can as a developer circumvent.

Re: Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market

#112

Post by jariel »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #65
librish wrote: post #7

One thing that removes a lot of credibility from Apple's "for the good of the user" communication on this is that they broke out the personalization for their own ad network as an option, put it in a different location, and made it opt-out instead of opt-in. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/08/07/apple-a...

Sounds like this might also be the reason for this delay. If Apple is indeed favouring their own ad services they might indeed be the target of very well funded antitrust-based legal campaigns. I assume the adtech companies would have at least threatened them with this. So they are probably going to retune their own ad service to comply with the same before they go live with this change.

If Apple is indeed rolling out their own ad program and giving themselves preferential access, it would be thermonuclear valley war.

Nobody cares about individual users in the end, once in 50 years you might get a politician who rises to a populist challenge.

But when you take 1/2 of some major adjacent-competitors money away, then it's war. The stakes are 10's of billions and every lobbyist, lawyer, marketer, PR person is going to be engaged.

I wouldn't quite speculate on Apple's motivations here, but it's a very real and big issue. They can screw you and I, and even Fornite, but Facebook? An then 'self deal' with their own ads? Even that is a risk.

Re: Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market

#113

Post by asutekku »

ogre_codes wrote: post #98
sujinge9 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some free products that don't rely on ads?

Literally every service the previous poster mentioned has an ad free/ tracking free alternative which ships with the iPhone. Aside from that, there are too many " free products " without advertising to list them so you'd need to be more specific.

They are not free, if you need to buy a phone to use them.

Re: Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market

#114

Post by mayneack »

curiousllama wrote: post #11

I understand why they delayed, and it may be the right decision. However, tracking-by-default is a dark pattern in software, and it needs to be driven out. In no other domain is implicit, cross-arena tracking by default acceptable. Computers _should be_ no exception.

In the US, at least, your license plate can get scanned by cameras driving around and you show up on security cameras (with improving facial recognition).

What's a domain analogous to computers without tracking? I suppose all those are "by computers" at the end of the day, but I can't think of anything I do that isn't tracked somehow.

Re: Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market

#115

Post by JoshTriplett »

jeffasinger wrote: post #106
AnonHP wrote: post #6

(Re-posting on this thread) What a bummer! As an iOS user, I was eagerly looking forward to this feature, wanting to tell others about it and how the upgrade to iOS 14 would be worth it just to clearly expose apps that want to track users. I already have ad tracking limited in my settings (Settings->Privacy->Limit Ad Tracking), but that was something I had to explicitly turn on, and there’s no notice on which apps us…

I (sort of) work in the advertising industry. I'm really excited to see this change, but the major players in the industry just weren't ready for it, and it would have been very chaotic with lots of money on the line. I think waiting until early 2021 is better than having anything that depends on ad revenue see a huge dropoff until the industry figures things out.

> the major players in the industry just weren't ready for it

That's an excellent reason to do it.

Re: Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market

#117

Post by [deleted] »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #115
jeffasinger wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I (sort of) work in the advertising industry. I'm really excited to see this change, but the major players in the industry just weren't ready for it, and it would have been very chaotic with lots of money on the line. I think waiting until early 2021 is better than having anything that depends on ad revenue see a huge dropoff until the industry figures things out.

> the major players in the industry just weren't ready for it That's an excellent reason to do it.

[deleted]

Re: Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market

#118

Post by paulpan »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #65
librish wrote: post #7

One thing that removes a lot of credibility from Apple's "for the good of the user" communication on this is that they broke out the personalization for their own ad network as an option, put it in a different location, and made it opt-out instead of opt-in. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/08/07/apple-a...

Sounds like this might also be the reason for this delay. If Apple is indeed favouring their own ad services they might indeed be the target of very well funded antitrust-based legal campaigns. I assume the adtech companies would have at least threatened them with this. So they are probably going to retune their own ad service to comply with the same before they go live with this change.

Was thinking the same. If the reason is to give Apple's ad services team time to make the adjustments, then that seems another strike on antitrust grounds. Timing not great to say the least.

Re: Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market

#119

Post by millstone »

makecheck wrote: post #107
librish wrote: post #7

One thing that removes a lot of credibility from Apple's "for the good of the user" communication on this is that they broke out the personalization for their own ad network as an option, put it in a different location, and made it opt-out instead of opt-in. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/08/07/apple-a...

Yeah, this is crazy: Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> (ALL the way to the bottom of the list, past all apps) System Services -> Location-Based Apple Ads. Oh, and if you have text size increased by any amount, “Ads” doesn’t even appear and it’s just “Location-Based Apple...” (on or off). The harder something is to find and disable, the shadier it seems.

Gross! Just to feed App Store and Apple News? Apple should kill that immediately, it's hypocritical.

Re: Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market

#120

Post by clement_b »

kentf wrote: post #8

A cynical take is that all these ad platforms drive a ton of app installs for Apple and create stickiness on iOS. Without all these targeted ads, it will decrease app downloads and with the App Store already under such scrutiny they decided to measure twice and cut once.

This is not that cynical! Apple pulled the plug on something they created on purpose (ID for Advertisers) without really understanding the impact of that decision on their own App Store bottom line. So many in app purchases are initiated by users acquired via ad campaigns. Remove the campaigns, remove the users, remove the revenue, maybe even more (i.e. Developer's interest for iOS)

But, I bet this is mostly antitrust related, the risk is too big on that front in the current context. Now, what I wonder is whether they'll adjust to play by the same rules as everyone else (and not using some extra features as detailed in the Forbes article mentioned in another comment [0]) or revert in some way.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/08/07/apple-a...

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