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France fines Apple €150M for “excessive” pop-ups that let users reject tracking

arstechnica.com

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Re: France fines Apple €150M for “excessive” pop-ups that let users reject tracking

#121

Post by briandear »

ipaddr wrote: post #23
gruez wrote: post #21

No good deed goes unpunished. Don't protect users' privacy, and you get flak from regulators for "not doing enough". Protect users' privacy, and you get flak from regulators because it's "too complex and hurts small companies that rely on advertising revenue". You see similar levels of cynicism directed at Google. When firefox banned third party cookies, it was almost universally welcomed, but when Chrome does it the…

One benefits directly while the other doesn't. Plus many people complained.

The advertising industry was who filed the complaint, it wasn’t a bunch of normal users. If the ad industry wasn’t so shitty, I might give them the benefit of the doubt.

Re: France fines Apple €150M for “excessive” pop-ups that let users reject tracking

#122

Post by [deleted] »

dkga wrote: post #109
arrosenberg wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like it’s roughly what it is about. Apple has a mandatory consent, but won’t adapt it so that third party apps can integrate their own tracking consent into it. As a result third party apps are treated differently than first party because they have one fewer consent screen. That advantages entrenched incumbents with big, locked-in user bases and disadvantages new entrants. Since Apple owns the platform, it’s an…

Yes, but are consumers that knowingly bought into the Apple ecosystem harmed?

[deleted]

Re: France fines Apple €150M for “excessive” pop-ups that let users reject tracking

#123

Post by briandear »

the_clarence wrote: post #76

This is such a bizarre move from Apple honestly. They're acting like they're letting users make a choice when realistically all users are going to choose not to get tracked. It's like a "do you want to install malware?" button. They just did it for the lulz and to hurt the finances of companies they don't like.

Shouldn’t a user be able to choose if they want to be tracked? Of everyone says no, I’m not sure that’s a problem — unless your business model is intrusive tracking.

Re: France fines Apple €150M for “excessive” pop-ups that let users reject tracking

#124

Post by izacus »

ohgr wrote: post #55
dinkblam wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Indeed. If they really gave a shit they'd be getting Apple to open up their APIs so we can get data out of Reminders and Notes etc without having to resort to necromancy and hacking... Apple need one of these https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/

They literally did that too via DMA. Why are you bullshitting? :)

Re: France fines Apple €150M for “excessive” pop-ups that let users reject tracking

#126

Post by aiauthoritydev »

tedunangst wrote: post #56
nottorp wrote: post #2

Actually Apple were fined because they don't apply the same standard to their own pop-ups that allow users to reject tracking. On Apple popups you seem to need one click, while on 3rd party popups you need to confirm twice. So the fine seems to be for treating 3rd parties differently from their own stuff. They could make their own popups require double confirmation instead...

I'm actually okay with the Apple Camera app asking me once and the Domino's Pizza app having to ask me twice. Who are the consumers being harmed here?

The pen pushers in France. As a consumer your choice does not matter much as much as the government servants who have decided that they know what is good for you.

Re: France fines Apple €150M for “excessive” pop-ups that let users reject tracking

#127

Post by umbra07 »

gruez wrote: post #46
refulgentis wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"there is an "asymmetry" in which user consent for Apple's own data collection is obtained with a single pop-up, but other publishers are "required to obtain double consent from users for tracking on third-party sites and applications." more @ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24109695 (via https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/08/07/apple-a... ) EDIT: Throttled, so reply can go here: > My previous commen…

My previous comment directly addresses the "asymmetry" aspect. >The obvious solution would be to combine the two, by allowing the ATT prompt to be used as consent for the purposes of GDPR. Why didn't French regulators go with this solution and decide to fine Apple instead? edit: >Apologies, you asked what the asymmetry was and I guess I'm still rather confused even after reviewing the thread. I think I've had too muc…

> but I don't understand why they went decided

You're assuming the regulators have no other motivations besides increasing consumer privacy?

Re: France fines Apple €150M for “excessive” pop-ups that let users reject tracking

#128

Post by isleyaardvark »

enasterosophes wrote: post #58
refulgentis wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "told reporters the regulator had not spelled out how Apple should change its app, but that it was up to the company to make sure it now complied with the ruling,"...shakedown I wonder if this sheds light: if they said exactly what to do, there's a strong argument that they went too far when business regulators became UI designers. > Wait until they tweak it then fine them again for getting it “wrong” I don't worry…

> I can't find that bit in the article and I haven't heard it before: could you share some more? The second paragraph has what you want. From the article: > The App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework used by Apple on iPhones and iPads since 2021 makes the use of third-party applications too complex and hurts small companies that rely on advertising revenue ... The system harms "smaller publishers in particular sin…

"by small businesses", and large businesses, and businesses like ad agencies that specialize in data collection and tracking.

Re: France fines Apple €150M for “excessive” pop-ups that let users reject tracking

#129

Post by refulgentis »

thebruce87m wrote: post #54
refulgentis wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "told reporters the regulator had not spelled out how Apple should change its app, but that it was up to the company to make sure it now complied with the ruling,"...shakedown I wonder if this sheds light: if they said exactly what to do, there's a strong argument that they went too far when business regulators became UI designers. > Wait until they tweak it then fine them again for getting it “wrong” I don't worry…

> I can't find that bit in the article and I haven't heard it before: could you share some more? > The Autorité also found that the rules governing the interaction between the different pop-up windows displayed undermined the neutrality of the framework, causing definite economic harm to application publishers and advertising service providers. https://www.autoritedelaconcurrence.fr/en/press-release/targ... “Economic…

I'm sorry, I'm sure I'm still missing something: my simpleton understanding is taking action to ensure neutrality, implies they want consumers to see more ads?

Re: France fines Apple €150M for “excessive” pop-ups that let users reject tracking

#130

Post by kypro »

simion314 wrote: post #83
tedunangst wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we have regulations? Who do they benefit?

>Why do we have regulations? Who do they benefit? Weird you still have no idea why. So let me tell you, there was a tribe in a village and they had many rules, some young boys hated the rules so they left and made their own village with no rules. One day one of them made a fire and let it unsupervised and many of their shacks burned so the boys decided that there should be one rule about not letting fires unsupervise…

This isn't a good analogy though?

A good faith interpretation of the parent's comment might assume the tribe's leaders started making arbitrary rules about fires which were of questionable benefit to the tribe and when the tribe did things there own way the leaders took bananas from them as a punishment.

If the rules being made are not of clear benefit to the tribe then surely it is right to question them? Your point that rules can be good should be self-evident, as is the inverse - that rules can be bad. What's important here who is the beneficiary of those rules.

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