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Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

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Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#161

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

kaba0 wrote: post #119
innagadadavida wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In 2022, Apple generated 4.7 billion U.S. dollars with its global advertising business. > By 2022, Facebook's ad revenues had hit $135.94 billion. $4.7B is not a small number but no where close to Facebook’s.

Also, not all ads are the same from an ethical standpoint. Displaying an app ad in the appstore upon searching for a similar term is very different than displaying ads based on your whole life, collected in malicious ways.

I don't own an apple device now but why does app store have ads ? After paying upwards of $1000+ on a iPhone, why can't you expect an ad free experience on a first party app store?

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#162

Post by fh9302 »

fmajid wrote: post #135
daft_pink wrote: post #13

I think it's unfair to compare Facebook actively screwing us to Apple not adopting your proposed metric on their product and passively allowing a very popular app in their app store. Not a huge fan of Apple, but they aren't Facebook.

If anything the article gives Apple unjustifiable benefit of doubt. Apple exempts itself fron the IDFA transparency requirements it imposes on third-party app developers, and has drawn legal scrutiny in France and the EU, among others: https://gizmodo.com/apple-iphone-analytics-tracking-even-whe... Then there is their scanning of iCloud backups for CSAM without being forced to do so by law, something Meta hasn't done…

Can you show a source for your iCloud backup CSAM scanning claim? These days iCloud supports E2EE so they have no ability to scan once you enable it.

Signal does not support any cloud backups and WhatsApp uses iCloud so this seems like a flawed comparison.

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#163

Post by Draiken »

GeekyBear wrote: post #115
soperj wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Apple now with their ad business. How are they fundamentally different?

Advertising doesn't require that you relentlessly spy on users, it's just more profitable if you do so.

Then you know what will happen. They will relentlessly spy on their users.

This is a for-profit company. It will always do what is more profitable, even if they don't do it right away.

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#164

Post by balderdash »

tomcar288 wrote: post #142
goalieca wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple does not have a tracking pixel on half the popular web. Apple's main source of income is through luxury hardware and subscription services. Facebook sells your information and attention to willing buyers.

I don't understand why people are so against Advertisers targetting people based on their data? what are people so afraid of? the way i see it, the worst case scenario is you get an Ad for something you might actually like...

It’s not the targeting, it’s the largely surreptitious compilation of the dossier about people that is so vile.

If someone showed up at your house with a folder about a loved one, turns out they had been following them around town, tracking their movements, taking pictures, reading their emails, etc. I don’t think you’d be two thrilled, but hey they’re only going to use that info to target ads…pinky swear…

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#165

Post by tomnipotent »

Draiken wrote: post #160
tomnipotent wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't make a point. App telemetry is absolutely benign compared to the kind of invasive ad tracking that Facebook participates in. There's no shortage of horror stories of poorly implemented Facebook Pixel integrations passing sensitive user data that marketers then use to create custom ad campaigns. Most recent examples that come to mind: https://www.extremetech.com/internet/341111-tax-filing-websi... https://g…

It might be less awful, but in no way, shape or form it is benign.

Apple is using the data first-party only and isn't reselling or otherwise making it available for third parties to use. Explain how it's not benign, other than "tracking bad". How does it harm consumers, or put customers at risk?

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#166

Post by amelius »

hedora wrote: post #128
Timber-6539 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the difference between Meta's tracking pixel and Apple's IDFA?

From the top hit for IDFA (the wikipedia article): > Starting in iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5, and tvOS 14.5, users are prompted to decide whether to opt-in or out of IDFA sharing before apps can query it. This choice can be altered in Settings.[2][3] In May, 2021, Verizon-owned advertisement analytics company Flurry Analytics reported that 96% of US users opted out of IDFA sharing.[4]

> 96% of US users opted out of IDFA sharing

If it's so clear that users don't want to be tracked online, why don't we just ban it altogether? It would solve a lot of problems.

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#167

Post by dwaite »

azinman2 wrote: post #22
phailhaus wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that your Threads account is your Instagram account. They're not separate.

And yet it isn’t. One is a totally new platform and one already exists. You might use your login from one to enter the other, but they could totally delete just your threads account if they wanted.

There isn't a Threads account. You upgrade your Instagram account to work with Threads.

It isn't a different platform, specifically because they didn't want to build up yet another social graph from scratch. Your graph in the Instagram app is your graph in the Threads app. This is somewhat akin to how Messenger isn't a different platform from the rest of Facebook.

There may be a future 'downgrade' function, but removing those orphaned threads posts amounts to a partial deletion of your Instagram account. The text that Meta is investigating this is actually in the slide show, but I don't know if they have said anything about what level of commitment they have given, or timeframe they are shooting for.

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#169

Post by charcircuit »

heavyset_go wrote: post #151
tomcar288 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why people are so against Advertisers targetting people based on their data? what are people so afraid of? the way i see it, the worst case scenario is you get an Ad for something you might actually like...

> the way i see it, the worst case scenario is you get an Ad for something you might actually like... That's hardly the worst case scenario when there are countless stories like "Facebook Allowed Advertisers to Target Users Interested in “White Genocide” — Even in Wake of Pittsburgh Massacre"[1]. There's also the time Facebook's targeted ads were used to facilitate genocide in Myanmar[2][3]. [1] https://theintercept.…

>when there are countless stories like "Facebook Allowed Advertisers to Target Users Interested in “White Genocide”

What's wrong with that? The more interests available the better ads can be targetted.

>There's also the time Facebook's targeted ads were used to facilitate genocide in Myanmar

The article doesn't mention ads were used. It just sounds like Facebook was connecting people based off a common interested people shared.

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#170

Post by giantrobot »

nologic01 wrote: post #80
screye wrote: post #32

Apple's core incentives are misaligned with stealing your data. And that's why they are more trustworthy than facebook. It's that simple. Apple is first and foremost a lifestyle company, then a b2b platform company, then a hardware company. The lifestyle company ensures customer acquisition and the 'unreasonable' pricing . The platform company is the revenue, the moat and the golden handcuffs for every 3rd party comp…

Another year passes by, their revenue sources dry up (or dont meet expectations) and everybody is scrambling for a new stream. They look at their massive data trove, they double check with the lawyers and your nice little trust framework is up in flames. Thats how capitalism works. This is all wrong. Conditioning on goldilocks and accepting least bad solutions is not how the digital society should be built. And make…

> They look at their massive data trove

I can tell you from first hand experience their data trove isn't the most valuable for farming out for AdTech. They take in a lot of opt-in telemetry and bend over backwards to anonymize it. There's also very clear demarcation of PII and if you even work around something considered PII you as an engineer need to sign all sorts of extra paperwork.

Even if any individual manager or director decided they wanted to leverage PII they'd quickly run afoul of Apple's extremely legally conservative legal department. Because of this data is sanitized and anonymized before it's collected and then further after it's collected.

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