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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

#131

Post by marketingtech »

Given the App Store antitrust lawsuit and "big bully" PR issue that Apple is facing, they probably realize that now would be a terrible timing for them to flex their muscles and crush a multi-billion dollar ecosystem (even if it's the ethical thing to do).

Facebook's concern isn't oriented around their revenue - it's about the 3rd party advertising ecosystem on mobile in general ($2B of FB's $80B revenue). FB and Google will take a small hit from their 3rd party mobile ad networks going away, but they still have their dominant 1st party businesses to fall back on.

Who this really hurts are the apps that don't directly sell their own ads and rely on a 3rd party network to monetize. Those apps' revenues will be chopped in half overnight, sending a shockwave throughout the entire mobile ecosystem.

FB and Google get poked in one eye, but most ad-supported apps will be blinded.

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

#132

Post by pwinnski »

notatoad wrote: post #55
madeofpalk wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's "Apple's offering"?

their own ad network, as described in top of this comment chain.

Except Apple shut down their ad network years ago, so that's not what these options are for.

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

#133

Post by dvionoth »

mayneack wrote: post #114
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.

that's scary to hear. where I live there was a very short lived experiment with facial recognition at a train station and when it ended it showed that the general public was not in favour of it.

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

#134

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

millstone wrote: post #119
makecheck wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unfortunately, most large corporations are relatively immune to hypocrisy.

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

#135

Post by MayeulC »

asutekku wrote: post #111
dudus wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are hundreds of ways to fingerprint you and your device, without an avertising ID. You just need a few (5-7?) To uniquely identify someone.

A few examples that come to my mind: Current battery level, typing speed, phone model, OS version, battery wear (guessable from charge/discharge rate), charge rate (depends on the charger), finger width, propensy to use features differently (scrolling, zooming, selecting text), clipboard contents, RTC lag, microbenchmark performance... System preferences alone is probably enough (brightness level, airplane mode, dark mode).

If a fingerprinting library is present in more than one app, I find it unlikely that both fingerprints couldn't be linked to the same user. If one of these apps has a log-in, they can probably link that up with the rest of browsing history, on-device and cross-device.

Sounds far-fetched? I don't think so. I rather think I'm underestimating the issue.

I think one technical answer to that would be to "taint" every measurement of a potential identifier, and track its usage across the program. If the app tries to submit information that is somewhat related, block it.

Alternatively, compute a score and block it above a certain threshold (that will be gamed, but could help a transition). Or use a RR-like mechanism to change the measurement to a dummy value, and replay up to the exfiltration point.

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

#136

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

marketingtech wrote: post #131

Given the App Store antitrust lawsuit and "big bully" PR issue that Apple is facing, they probably realize that now would be a terrible timing for them to flex their muscles and crush a multi-billion dollar ecosystem (even if it's the ethical thing to do). Facebook's concern isn't oriented around their revenue - it's about the 3rd party advertising ecosystem on mobile in general ($2B of FB's $80B revenue). FB and Goo…

It also kills off all the smaller players in mobile advertising, of which there are many (mostly focused on gaming, because that's what makes money on mobile).

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

#137

Post by lilyball »

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...

It looks like Apple's advertising targeting isn't using the same info that they're trying to withhold from third parties though. I actually have it off on my device so I can't see what the "View Ad Targeting Information" says (if I turn it back on, it says I have to wait 24 hours before it has the info to show me), but from the description it does show, it sounds like the ad target uses "account information and interactions with Apple services" for serving ads. Which is to say, this is information Apple already has, and all you're saying is "please don't use that info for serving ads". It does not sound like it reduces the information Apple has (which makes sense, any PII not necessary for running Apple's services is not sent to Apple except after undergoing differential privacy).

Compare this with third-party advertising, where the use of IDFA does explicitly hand information to third parties that they otherwise wouldn't have. For example, the Facebook SDK is integrated into a bazillion different apps, so Facebook can track a single user across all of these different apps even if the user doesn't use Facebook login (or if they use Facebook login for a single one of these apps, Facebook can then associate the usage of all the other apps with that same login too).

The two are not remotely equivalent.

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

#138

Post by lilyball »

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.

I don't see "Location-Based Apple Ads" on my iPhone running iOS 14.

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

#139

Post by librish »

lilyball wrote: post #137
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...

It looks like Apple's advertising targeting isn't using the same info that they're trying to withhold from third parties though. I actually have it off on my device so I can't see what the "View Ad Targeting Information" says (if I turn it back on, it says I have to wait 24 hours before it has the info to show me), but from the description it does show, it sounds like the ad target uses "account information and inter…

They seem pretty equivalent to me. You have a site or service send usage information to an ad network and the ad network returns an ad to show. The only difference here is that in the case of Apple they own both the service and the ad network.

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

#140

Post by Yizahi »

What will really happen - apps won't work without accepting tracking. So technically users will be given a choice, and in practice there will be none. Just like now - "Oh, you don't want to give us your contacts, sms, location and all photos? Fine, here is an app with every function disabled. You want to actually use the app? Give us permissions."
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