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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

#111
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How many of them turned out to be true or collaborated?" The overwhelming majority have turned out to be true. So, what now? The faux equivalency "they're all the same" (usually pointing to a tiny, minuscule fraction of stories where something was errant) is exactly how we ended up with the rise of overtly fake news. In the same way we have normalized politicians who lie overtly and repeatedly by casting them all th…

> "Some random guy posting thoughts on Substack has remarkably turned into anti-"MSM" advocacy. Amazing." I wonder if there's a snappy name for this fallacy that professionals are somehow responsible for the failings of amateurs. It's pretty common. - Blogger writes poorly researched post -> "mainstream journalists are much worse" - Crypto project is fraud -> "banks are the real scams" Applying this logic to the tech…

>this fallacy

It's a garden variety false equivalence.

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

#112

I stopped reading when I counted ten grammatical errors and colloquialisms. Not coincidentally, the article is empty of content.

Ad driven journalism is not great for readers. Lots of clickbait, very little substance, baseless conclusions, hand wavy numbers, etc. But it made the frontpage of HN so I guess their SEO is spot on.

As others are pointing out, people sign in to Facebook apps. As soon as they do, that apple & google device ID are kind of redundant. The only place where these ids are useful is when users use other application to access content and the analytics for that somehow end up in Facebook's data lake. That is indeed something they've been doing as well but also something that has been getting harder due to increasing restrictions both technically and legally (e.g. GDPR).

Facebook might huff and puff a little but they'll be fine. What this will accomplish however is decimating the competition that lack their own walled gardens from which to gather tracking data and are very dependent on Google and Facebook telling them who is who. Which is also why Google is doing this.

And of course the latter two have had a strategy of strengthening the walls around their walled gardens. This will likely push more content providers inside these walls. I'm hoping the EU and the US might be able to force tearing these walls down a little. Google trying to monopolize news has been something they've been fighting for a while. And of course both Facebook and Google are creating a bit of a privileged/exclusive situation for themselves here.

Of course it will be years before most of their users get to play with Android 12. So, it's going to be slow process of this gradually getting harder for companies to work with rather than an overnight cut off. Unless of course they roll this out to older versions as well.

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

#113
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just substack. It's a plague that has infected regular journalism; they're just more cunning in disguising it. Think about all the "Sources say" articles you've read at 'respected publications' over the past few years. How many of them turned out to be true or collaborated?

"How many of them turned out to be true or collaborated?" The overwhelming majority have turned out to be true. So, what now? The faux equivalency "they're all the same" (usually pointing to a tiny, minuscule fraction of stories where something was errant) is exactly how we ended up with the rise of overtly fake news. In the same way we have normalized politicians who lie overtly and repeatedly by casting them all th…

> "How many of them turned out to be true or collaborated?" The overwhelming majority have turned out to be true.

That's not a very convincing statement. Do you have anything to back that up?

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

#114
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is common for Substack articles recently: It delivers a conclusion readers want to hear (Facebook bad! Zuckerberg going to lose a lot of money! Business model destroyed!) but the reality doesn’t quite match the pitch once you decipher the underlying facts. It feels like Substack authors got started in an ultra-competitive world where they knew clickbait journalism was the norm, so they’ve gone all-in on saying w…

It's not just substack. It's a plague that has infected regular journalism; they're just more cunning in disguising it. Think about all the "Sources say" articles you've read at 'respected publications' over the past few years. How many of them turned out to be true or collaborated?

This isn’t new. Look at the Oklahoma attack headlines from back in the day.

That MSG was bad started as a racist gag in a food lab.

IBM refused to invest in solid state computers, the government did then gifted IBM the technology. Somehow IBM is a free market innovator.

Journalism is bullshit meta-narrative. Same as god kings and holy trinity’s before that.

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

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there? Is facebook really having a hard time hiring new engineers? Last time I checked, it still was super hard to get a job at facebook, implying there are a lot of people willing to work at facebook.

They pay well, are influential in several high-profile and widely-used projects and have lots of really interesting challenges to work on and solve at their scale.

> a good deal of people involved with the factory process and its engineering are having a hard time stomaching it

So, at the end of the day, people are willing to look past privacy issues when it comes to walk the walk. It's easy to sit back and criticize something when you don't have anything to lose. You only really know if you actually care about an issue when you're willing to sacrifice for it. And clearly according to you, pay, interesting problems to work on >> privacy. So again, a few people like to think it matters more than it actually does to a lot of people.

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

#116
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zuck is personally all in on capturing the VR and AR market and making it the next ubiquitous computing platform. They already have their own OS. One fifth of the company is working on VR and AR, 10,000 employees. They are pouring billions into it. Zuck likely understands that he missed the platform boat last time around and doesn't intend to miss the next one. https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/12/22326875/facebook-rea…

I don't think VR will ever take over the world. Too many people get motion sickness from it and I don't think it's only a matter of more pixels/fps. AR... maybe. My personal opinion is the needed electronics (and especially the battery tech) aren't small enough yet, if we're talking AR glasses. If we're talking AR on phones, where's the killer app? Pokemon go?

> I don't think VR will ever take over the world. Too many people get motion sickness from it

I imagine similar things were send about planes in the early 1900s. "It's not natural!"

But in all seriousness I think they'll solve this (motion sickness) one way or another.

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

#117
post #16

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 mark…

> The article manages to contradict itself at every turn. That it might doesn't absolve the fact that Facebook has been essentially kicked about by the Big 2 that dominate the smartphone market. Remember that Apple and Google aren't exactly covered in glory as far as privacy is concerned. They want consumer data for themselves, and that's "private enough" in their eyes. There's a reason Facebook (and Amazon) has a de…

I don't want to be an Apple apologist, but I don't think you can lop them into the same dysfunctional privacy strategy that google operates under.

Apple is using user behaviors for advertising within Apple's ecosystem, but that's not something I really mind. Once my data/behavior exists the company I've entrusted it too, I get very uncomfortable.

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

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just checked my Android device and the opt-out looks like this https://imgur.com/a/1aaN4Ko I find interesting the UI, the user have to "enable" the opt-out, not enable the opt-in. It shows how crucial can be this simple switch for the ad industry immoral surveillance status quo. I guess the opt-out is disabled by default, I think I enabled it some time ago checking the phone settings.

Is your screenshot showing the default setting, when you first checked it?

I'm not sure, maybe I enabled the opt-out at some point.

Can't tell what was the default option when I buy the phone (have to flash it to know)

Also, I guess the manufacturer is responsible of what is the default option of this setting? (or even the setting appear at all).

Is a Xiaomi Mi A2 lite, it comes with Android 8.1 and was updated till Android 10.

Maybe from Android 12 this is improved in some way.

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