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Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

economist.com

131–140 of 579 posts

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#131
post #6

I'm going to ask the same question here: If I run a Facebook ad campaign for my app and given that Apple already provides the SKAdNetwork attribution mechanism, does enabling IDFA benefit my app, or it benefits only Facebook? Marketing people are trying to convince me IDFA is important for ad efficiency and thus should be enabled (with the spooky ATT popup in the beginning), but something is telling me it's not. I mi…

If you want the Ad optimisation from FB/Google/whoever to work, it's important.

More generally, if you want to be able to track your own users and where they come from, it matters.

If all of your traffic is organic, then it's irrelevant.

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#132

Facebook failed to pay the big money to Apple that they should have been paying for years. If Zuck had been handing Apple $5,000,000,000 per year as google does, then Apple would never have kneecapped Facebook. Larry and Sergei know how the protection racket works. You pay your dues to the local mob, you get to do business in their street corners. What do google pay Apple $5b for? Ummm… to be in the search of Safari.…

Do you suggest that Google apps on iOS are somehow exempt from new privacy protections?

Google has an easier time providing targeted ads via search keywords. Facebook users spend most of their time in their feeds which is a relatively weak signal for monetization.

Note that google appears to be acting as though they are effected, you can see this in their push for FLOC/topics (but the impetus for this could be coming from android moreso than search)

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#133
post #125
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept you are describing is a government.

Except the government is a monopoly with its own agenda. In addition it already kind of owns us (well a large percentage), what would it gain if it negotiated this deal for us? I would argue it can gain more power by making a deal with facebook.

Digital direct democracy is a potential opportunity that has only become possible with ubiquitous computing devices (iPhones)

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#134
post #10

> But last year, citing privacy concerns, Apple turned off IDFA by default and forced apps to ask people if they want to be tracked. It seems most do not: a study in December by AppsFlyer, an ad-tech company, suggested that 54% of Apple users who saw the prompt opted out. Hard to believe that nearly half of all people is ok with being tracked...

Unpopular opinion on HN, but I’m 100% OK with being tracked because it means:

1. I get to use products and services I like without paying money from my wallet. I have plenty of data to share that’s effectively worthless to me.

2. I get exposed to new products and services (through ads) that I’d like to buy. I like buying things!

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#136
post #70
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have to wonder if that agreement would have survived a competitive Google Plus.

Well yeah, Google tried to build a social network (actually several) and failed; Facebook didn't try to build a search engine - that wouldn't fit into their business model of sucking you in and driving you to sign up to Facebook. I mean, after they bought Oculus, they even started requiring a FB account to use the device, but they couldn't have done that for a search engine, nobody would have used it. But lots of oth…

Yet Google tries really hard to get you to log in, to the point where if you log into the browser to be able to sync your bookmarks and settings, you will be logged into your Google search as well.

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#137
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since I detect sarcasm, I'm not sure how to respond. As someone who chooses Apple partly because of the comparative privacy versus Android I'm actually quite happy that they bargain with other parties? It reminiscent of the working of efficient markets. I have a choice. No privacy (Google, Facebook), or a tidbit (Apple, G/F via Apple) or a lot (custom ROM options, drop all G/F/A). For a tidbit of privacy I pay more,…

You don't have a choice with Apple, and that's at the crux of the definition of privacy. What you're doing is justifying a specific choice that you've made, by assuming good faith and bad faith with certain companies - take a few minutes to read up on recent news and you can easily see that they do make anti-privacy choices. Their aim is not user privacy, but user lock-in. But convincing us that it's in our best inte…

It's really interesting to see certain Apple users justify how Apple's choices are always the right one (even when they are diametrically opposite to Apple's choice from a few months ago, at which point they also defended the Apple choice as the right one).

And I say this as a long time Apple user, both on macs and iPhones.

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#138

Lies. Don’t you all see it? Facebook has been declining over the past year and this is a convenient way to blame someone - anyone. Let’s face it, what are your friends all using now? That’s right - video - YouTube and TikTok. Facebook had no answer for video and thus lost a lot of eyeballs. Instagram is a poor clone of TikTok and most people just repost their popular TikTok videos on Instagram reels anyway - hardly a…

While I agree with you that Facebook (the app) is in decline and Facebook/Meta are rushing to diversify as the market changes, the premise of the article that Apples change has significantly effected Facebooks revenues is not a lie. Apples change has fundamentally damaged ad conversion attribution from the Facebook/Instagram apps on iOS, we have seen it it ourselves. It may be that the exact figure of $10B is inflate…

Please correct me if I'm wrong. This privacy change only affects apps on iOS? I only use the facebook.com website. Ad tracking in that context hasn't changed?

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#139
post #6

I'm going to ask the same question here: If I run a Facebook ad campaign for my app and given that Apple already provides the SKAdNetwork attribution mechanism, does enabling IDFA benefit my app, or it benefits only Facebook? Marketing people are trying to convince me IDFA is important for ad efficiency and thus should be enabled (with the spooky ATT popup in the beginning), but something is telling me it's not. I mi…

If you want the Ad optimisation from FB/Google/whoever to work, it's important. More generally, if you want to be able to track your own users and where they come from, it matters. If all of your traffic is organic, then it's irrelevant.

So if there's SKAdNetwork attribution, why do I need to give the unique device ID to FB or Google in addition to that? They will know which ad led to the install via SKAdNetwork calls anyway, right?

I know IDFA benefits them because they can connect the dots and know which apps are installed on a given device. But does my app's campaign benefit from that so much that I should go for the ATT popup?

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#140
FB is one of the most developer hostile platforms that I've worked with. For example, their API tokens expire in 60 days, so users of automated reporting tools are constantly having to re-grant. Why? No good reason. And the documentation is garbage. FB can't blame Apple or anyone else for those failings. They should fix the things that are under their own control.
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