Apple surpassed $3.5B in annual revenue from its ad network • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple surpassed $3.5B in annual revenue from its ad network

#111

Post by spandrew » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 5:11 PM UTC

fancl20 wrote: post #30

uncomputation wrote: post #24

> But it crushed FB, Snap, and 1000s of small businesses in the process. Ironically, this is far more of a narrative than this guy’s idea of Apple’s “narrative.” The idea that banning user tracking hurts small businesses was FB’s narrative to try and get backlash against Apple for its tracking crackdown. That genuinely is a narrative because from Apple’s decision we have seen that consumers (1) prefer not to be track…

While this is a "narrative", there is quite a lot data back that this is a fact. You can argue that you trust and fell comfortable to give apple the power of crushing any other small businesses they don't care based on Apple's own company decision. BTW, you can here the same story from small businesses' narrative: https://www.npr.org/2022/03/17/1087425495/tech-giants-and-ti...

Of course the maker of a platform used by the majority of high-value users would have power. That in itself isn't a damning fact. Nor is the narrative that Apple wanted to expand its services revenue. FB and Shopify want to grow their revenue too. Turns out they're competing on opposing principles, and Apple is winning.

A better question is whether or not anyone who isn't in the ad business actually gives a flying f about the shift in power dynamic. Is it an ABUSE of power? To the majority of consumers (by a wide margin) the answer is "NO". They don't want to be tracked and have their data exhaust vacuumed up for capital gains of billion dollar titans.

So this is the underlying motivation on why nobody cares that Apple is flexing hard on ad companies.

Re: Apple surpassed $3.5B in annual revenue from its ad network

#112

Post by jcuenod » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 5:13 PM UTC

But with these ads, you're not the product.

Re: Apple surpassed $3.5B in annual revenue from its ad network

#113

Post by karaterobot » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 5:15 PM UTC

shuckles wrote: post #70

jsnell wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Apple is tracking you. They build an advertising profile using your behavior on iOS and your personal information (and at least for me, that included PII that I would never have consented to them using for ad targeting; but they just took it, and hid the opt-out in an obscure settings menu). They then allow targeting of ads based on these fine-grained profiles. Just how is this better than FB?

First of all, your definition of tracking is different from the one used by Apple. Apple’s definition of tracking is sharing information about an identifiable person between unrelated parties. Think Facebook buying all your purchases from Mastercard. Apple simply does not do that. Next, Apple’s cohorts and interest information about audiences is not nearly as detailed as Facebook or Google. And even at a far less det…

> Apple’s definition of tracking is sharing information about an identifiable person between unrelated parties.

That is a weird definition of tracking! By that definition, a single party that follows what you do over time is not tracking you?

That is separate from the question of whether or not Apple is actually doing this and not telling us (I'd bet they are), I'm just saying that that definition of tracking reads like it's from a parallel universe.

Re: Apple surpassed $3.5B in annual revenue from its ad network

#114

Post by JediLuke » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 5:15 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #26

kernal wrote: post #12

I'm looking forward to the discussion on how Apple's ad business is more ethical and good for us.

I look at all advertising as obnoxious. If it is unbidden it is little different from a door to door salesman knocking at my door trying to sell me solar. With regard to Apple not tracking us with PII, that is good however.

No post body was provided.

Re: Apple surpassed $3.5B in annual revenue from its ad network

#115

Post by dialtone » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 5:16 PM UTC

shuckles wrote: post #60

cycomanic wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that narrative is that apple does not apply the same rules to themselves. I actually agree with apple tracking should be optional, however why should apple get a free pass?

Apple does not track your activity across unrelated apps, websites, or the real world. They can offer personalized ads based on your interactions with Apple, which is not tracking, and they allow you to turn off that personalization. What rule are they exempting themselves from?

oh but they do. All of the apps you purchase, stocks you own, news stories you read, location of your phone/mac based on precise geolocation, your name, address, age, gender, oh and this too:

> We may also use local, on-device processing to select which ad to display, using > information stored on your device, such as the apps you frequently open.

But who's counting?

https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-advertisin...

Re: Apple surpassed $3.5B in annual revenue from its ad network

#116

Post by dialtone » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 5:18 PM UTC

nemothekid wrote: post #72

cycomanic wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that narrative is that apple does not apply the same rules to themselves. I actually agree with apple tracking should be optional, however why should apple get a free pass?

> The problem with that narrative is that apple does not apply the same rules to themselves What do you mean? Apple tracking is optional, they straight up ask when you setup your phone.

That's for apps to track you, not for apple.

Re: Apple surpassed $3.5B in annual revenue from its ad network

#117

Post by dialtone » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #97

jsnell wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is Apple's privacy policy on ads: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-advertisin... > We create segments, which are groups of people who share similar characteristics, and use these groups for delivering targeted ads. > We may use information such as the following to assign you to segments: > ... The music, movies, books, TV shows, and apps you download ... > ... The topics and categories of the st…

That's not ideal, but it's certainly much better than every other ad company out there. Apple can at least enumerate the ways it profiles you in plan text, and most of it makes perfect sense. (Though I'd be happier if they excluded age and gender.) The other companies profiling information requires a massive spreadsheet, or even a JSON dump that no human being can make sense of. And that's just for their internal dat…

That's not how it works. Every ad vendor has a privacy page with this stuff spelled out in the same way.

Re: Apple surpassed $3.5B in annual revenue from its ad network

#118

Post by insane_dreamer » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 5:25 PM UTC

uncomputation wrote: post #24

> But it crushed FB, Snap, and 1000s of small businesses in the process. Ironically, this is far more of a narrative than this guy’s idea of Apple’s “narrative.” The idea that banning user tracking hurts small businesses was FB’s narrative to try and get backlash against Apple for its tracking crackdown. That genuinely is a narrative because from Apple’s decision we have seen that consumers (1) prefer not to be track…

> But it crushed FB ...

FB had $11B in profit in Q1 on $30B of revenue, and that's after massive drop due to R&D expenses; it's hardly crushed.

Re: Apple surpassed $3.5B in annual revenue from its ad network

#119

Post by nojito » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 5:25 PM UTC

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #52

nojito wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All tracking is opt in.

Nope, ATT is opt in, Apples stuff is opt out.

They literally ask you when you set up the device.

Re: Apple surpassed $3.5B in annual revenue from its ad network

#120

Post by timssopomo » Fri, Aug 19, 2022, 5:25 PM UTC

I'm an iOS user and spent 6 years working in the bowels of adtech. I'm generally skeptical of the industry. Apple's posture and position here seems like a net good for me as a user.

Apple's and Facebook's approaches are totally different. Facebook vacuumed up reams of data from themselves and third parties and spat it back out into the industry indiscriminately. It _did_ likely allow some niche businesses to reach target audiences. It _also_ created and enabled a rube goldberg machine of third parties to access behavioral data in a way that likely made it personally identifiable. The same was true of most third party platforms. Cookies were fundamentally broken and users have no idea what data they were creating and no meaningful control of how it was being consumed (or by whom). All sorts of harm was done in ways that was difficult to quantify.

Apple giving individuals meaningful control over their data within Apple's ecosystem and protecting anonymity at the boundary of their platform is a net good. Apple's segmentation and targeting of users is fundamentally different than cookie based targeting utilizing 3P data. The fact that this hurt parties who unknowingly relied on 3P data in good faith is a sad externality, but nobody should lose sleep over it. I wouldn't feel bad about mom and pop groceries losing revenue from cigarette sales either.