Apple has a massive user base now, I imagine they are preparing to make sure users stay in their ecosystem for everything. I won’t be surprised if they eventually use their own Siri search service instead of google as the default. Once they have all of the users locked in to their ecosystem I think apple’s own ad network will eventually be touted as “secure” and Apple will avoid antitrust scrutiny because everyone opts in to this ecosystem, voluntarily paying higher prices for access. It’s pretty genius really.
Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market
151–160 of 249 posts
Re: Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
I (sort of) work in the advertising industry. I'm really excited to see this change, but the major players in the industry just weren't ready for it, and it would have been very chaotic with lots of money on the line. I think waiting until early 2021 is better than having anything that depends on ad revenue see a huge dropoff until the industry figures things out.
I hope the entire advertising targeting business goes bankrupt, and anything that depends on it goes with it. Any computer I own (including a phone) is supposed to represent its users interests; It is not supposed to be some compromise between betraying their trust and making money for ad networks. (Personally, I already have limit tracking enabled. And I use custom DNS filtering, and a bunch of other BS. But my frie…
Part of me (the emotional part) agrees with you. But without offering a human-nature compatible monetization mechanism to replace ad monetization, I'm sure you'll lose many things that you deeply value without acknowledging or understanding how they depend on that money.
It could probably be argued that "people in general" are willing to pay for services they value and that a few current generations have just been irreparably "mis-trained" to expect free services, but in any free-ish market economy businesses will be incentivized to offer services with costs as hidden from the user and as externalized as possible.
Re: Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple has an ad service: https://searchads.apple.com/ Ads to install apps, shown in App Store and News apps. App install ads are also Facebook’s main mobile ad market. This crackdown specifically block’s Facebook’s ability to show attribution of app purchases for their ads, while preserving that ability for Apple by default.
> while preserving that ability for Apple by default. I think you mean by design. Ads above search results can be tracked because they're shown within the App Store, so they don't require looking at "who is this user" from within the downloaded app, they can just differentiate based on where it was placed, like Google Ads. The only case I can see here is "why does apple get to be the only ones with ads on search resu…
The way I see it, this is not a particularly surprising move by Apple. There’s a clear financial gain from taking this ad revenue. The discussion should be focused on whether they should get away with it from an antitrust/market dominance perspective. Not giving them great PR because they found a way to spin it as good for privacy.
Re: Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market
#154Here's the technical detail that everyone seems to be missing: IDFA is an Apple API.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/adsupport/asidenti...
"The advertisingIdentifier is an alphanumeric string unique to each device, that you only use for advertising."
Apple created an API for advertisers that gives them a unique identifier, specifically for the purpose of tracking users. This has been available since iOS 6, released in 2012.
Shame, shame on advertisers for using the thing that Apple made for them to use!
If Apple cares so much about privacy, why did they make this in the first place? Where has Apple been for the past 8 years?
Re: Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market
#155Earlier 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.
I don't see "Location-Based Apple Ads" on my iPhone running iOS 14.
It's there for me on iOS 13.7: https://imgur.com/gJyId5P
It was on by default - I toggled it off.
Re: Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market
#156As a current Android user, this was one of the driving reasons I was considering coming back to Apple. Maybe I'll switch "early next year".
Re: Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
And what have we gained from it? Toxic unconstrained social networks, more methods to make everyone feel uglier and worthless, endlessly consume random crap without producing anything of value, and robotic hamburger making shops that no one asked for and are somehow IT related?
This site, for one, is funded by job ads. No one forces you to use it, or any other "toxic" site that makes you feel "ugly and worthless". If you think the entire web (or the entire ad funded web) is toxic and makes you feel "ugly and worthless" what are you doing here?
Do you think Apple's changes will affect HN's ad business?
Re: Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market
#158Here's the technical detail that everyone seems to be missing: IDFA is an Apple API. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/adsupport/asidenti... "The advertisingIdentifier is an alphanumeric string unique to each device, that you only use for advertising." Apple created an API for advertisers that gives them a unique identifier, specifically for the purpose of tracking users. This has been available since iOS 6,…
They made it all they could control it. Before this the advertisers were sneaking out other data like the Mac address etc. The advertiser I'd had always been opt in so it was progress for privacy.
Re: Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hope the entire advertising targeting business goes bankrupt, and anything that depends on it goes with it. Any computer I own (including a phone) is supposed to represent its users interests; It is not supposed to be some compromise between betraying their trust and making money for ad networks. (Personally, I already have limit tracking enabled. And I use custom DNS filtering, and a bunch of other BS. But my frie…
> I hope the entire advertising targeting business goes bankrupt, and anything that depends on it goes with it. HN has become a rant fest whenever ad tech gets mentioned. but this does fit the "minuscule but very vocal minority" trend of our times.
Note that HN does not do ads (except the totally unintrusive job listings) or tracking so it is logical for ad haters to come here :) it's one of the last places left still running on goodwill.
For that it's also one of the few sites I would consider paying a membership for.
Re: Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given the number of newspapers and blogs closing every year, it doesn't actually seem to be the case that adtech successfully pays for the "modern Web".
Lots of businesses go broke, that doesn't mean we should dismiss the idea of paying for things as "cancer", similarly the fact that some websites go broke doesn't mean we should dismiss ads as "cancer".
I was replying to someone who asserted that adtech pays for "the modern web". I dispute that statement. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and nobody has ever provided evidence that adtech actually pays for what we know as the Web today. We get lots of assertions as to such, but never proof.