Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

facebook.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 311 posts

Re: Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

#141

Post by partiallypro »

shajznnckfke wrote: post #102

In iOS 13, Apple and third-party ad tracking were both controlled by the same opt-out setting. In iOS 14, the settings have been split, with third party tracking disabled and and Apple’s tracking enabled by default. Blatant anticompetitive behavior to promote their own tracking services in the guise of protecting users. Genius move by Apple. https://twitter.com/eric_seufert/status/1291730115253145600?...

This is my main issue with it. If Microsoft say, added something to your host file, that blocked all ad trackers except from the Microsoft network, everyone would be up in arms. But since it's Apple, people think this is out of the goodness of their heart when really they just want all the data for themselves which they will eventually use in their in-app advertising. Heck maybe they will use this to subsidize any losses they gave from eventually having to lower their 30% fee.

Re: Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

#142

Post by [deleted] »

ignoramous wrote: post #125
shajznnckfke wrote: post #102

In iOS 13, Apple and third-party ad tracking were both controlled by the same opt-out setting. In iOS 14, the settings have been split, with third party tracking disabled and and Apple’s tracking enabled by default. Blatant anticompetitive behavior to promote their own tracking services in the guise of protecting users. Genius move by Apple. https://twitter.com/eric_seufert/status/1291730115253145600?...

At least there is a way to opt-out compared to, say, things like this: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=carrieriq&sort=byPopularity&pr...

[deleted]

Re: Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

#143

Post by pornel »

danShumway wrote: post #113
Despegar wrote: post #2

>We believe that industry consultation is critical for changes to platform policies, as these updates have a far-reaching impact on the developer ecosystem. We’re encouraged by conversations and efforts already taking place in the industry - including within the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the recently announced Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media (PRAM). We look forward to continuing to engage with…

To be fair though, don't you remember how the DNT header worked really well for everybody involved, and how all these advertisers today universally respect it, and how they totally didn't abandon the entire concept as soon as it started seeing mainstream use and platforms started turning it on by default? What could go wrong if we give them another spot at the table? I mean, PRAM has already released so many good pla…

We've even had P3P spec that allowed users to say in browser's settings "I don't want your tracking cookies", without any consent pop-ups. It was even implemented in Internet Explorer!

And then Google found a loophole in the P3P syntax, and abused it to bypass it entirely. Fun times.

Re: Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

#144

Post by bitxbit »

At this point you have to assume a round of antitrust lawsuits once the US govt returns to normal. But you have to wonder how they will divide the big tech or whether DC will even have the expertise required to implement something credible and effective.

Re: Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

#145

Post by machello13 »

shajznnckfke wrote: post #138
machello13 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To what extent is this really "tracking"? Apple's ads are served only in a few of their own apps, like the App Store and News. They're only tracking you across their own services, no differently than Facebook or Google could do in iOS 14, right?

This seems like a poor equivalence when Facebook and Google aren’t allowed to run an App Store on iOS, and Apple also boosts News, Music and other services by bundling and exempting them from the 30% revenue cut that competitors are subject to. Overall, the big picture is Apple is leveraging their power of platform owner to advantage their other businesses at the expense of competition and ultimately the consumer. Th…

I'm not sure it's a poor equivalence. Apple's ads appear only in a few of their own apps. I wouldn't even call it an ad service, because that implies that third-parties can use it.

In comparison, Google and Facebook both operate actual, for-profit ad services that are used across almost every website and app in the world.

I agree about Apple being too strict on the App Store. But it's not really what I'm talking about.

Re: Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

#146

Post by miki123211 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #83
oblio wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm honestly interested about this, Facebook is a big company. Is there no case of FB screwing over its partners? Like locking or limiting an API that they had offered in the past, etc. One thing that comes to mind immediately is that Facebook Messenger used to be accessible through XMPP and then they blocked that.

I mean, at one time you could build apps on Facebook that basically downloaded all of a user's data when they used it. The Obama campaign built an app that you could use to find your Facebook friends who hadn't been contacted by the campaign yet, so you could call them on the campaign's behalf. I heard of other political operations that built a "wish [famous person] happy birthday" app solely so they could grow their…

This is a perfect example of the tradeoffs between openness and privacy.

If you give dangerous tools to users, you will have a few cool things and lots of tech-illiterate users screwed over.

Privacy advocates often preach solutions like the fediverse, without understanding that the fediverse is a privacy disaster for the tech illiterate. Cambridge Analytica wouldn't even be preventable on Mastodon, and it would have far worse consequences. Nevermind admins snooping on messages of their users, for i.e. romantic or financial reasons and poor people having to pay for their own services instead of seeing ads.

Yes, Facebook is horrible, but all currently known cures are worse than the disease.

Re: Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

#147

Post by shajznnckfke »

webkike wrote: post #108
snowwrestler wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, at one time you could build apps on Facebook that basically downloaded all of a user's data when they used it. The Obama campaign built an app that you could use to find your Facebook friends who hadn't been contacted by the campaign yet, so you could call them on the campaign's behalf. I heard of other political operations that built a "wish [famous person] happy birthday" app solely so they could grow their…

Wasn’t this closed in response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal?

The scandal in Cambridge Analytica was roughly that they were able do this stuff after FB made it officially against the rules.

Re: Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

#149

Post by shajznnckfke »

machello13 wrote: post #145
shajznnckfke wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a poor equivalence when Facebook and Google aren’t allowed to run an App Store on iOS, and Apple also boosts News, Music and other services by bundling and exempting them from the 30% revenue cut that competitors are subject to. Overall, the big picture is Apple is leveraging their power of platform owner to advantage their other businesses at the expense of competition and ultimately the consumer. Th…

I'm not sure it's a poor equivalence. Apple's ads appear only in a few of their own apps. I wouldn't even call it an ad service, because that implies that third-parties can use it. In comparison, Google and Facebook both operate actual, for-profit ad services that are used across almost every website and app in the world. I agree about Apple being too strict on the App Store. But it's not really what I'm talking abou…

Apple does offer an ad service to third parties: https://searchads.apple.com

The biggest market for Facebook’s ads on iOS is for apps. Apple is cracking down on that with this change, so Facebook won’t be able to show attribution for app purchases. It’s hard not to think that this change is an effort to take over the market with their competing app advertising service.

My claim is that this is part of the larger effort to take a bigger cut the economic activity that happens on the phone. The 30% app cut expansion to cover more services is part of that. Capturing the advertising revenue for apps is another. The only way for Apple to keep growing as a two trillion dollar company is to take over more of the economy, and this is part of that effort.

I envision a future where, if they can get away with it, Apple takes an expanding cut of every Doordash delivery, every Uber ride, every Amazon purchase, and any other good or service that they can obtain sufficient market power to capture.

Re: Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

#150

Post by eitland »

Today it struck me that at the moment I think I like Facebooks behavior better than Googles.

Mind you; I don't think Facebook is less evil, just that they seem to have understood better than Google that users need to be treated with some amount of respect, at least for now.

Post reply on HN