Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by crazygringo » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 10:23 PM UTC

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 no other domain is implicit, cross-arena tracking by default acceptable.

Maybe you don't think it should be acceptable, but it's the norm everywhere. Computers aren't an exception.

Your purchases are tracked by credit card companies. Your license plate is tracked by road cameras. Your financial history is tracked by credit bureaus. Your phone calls are tracked by your telephony provider.

And you haven't opted into any of them.

In fact, except for the annoying cookie pop-ups on websites, I've never encountered opt-in tracking anywhere in my life. Everything is tracking-by-default, and you're lucky if you get an option to opt out anywhere.

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

#182

Post by likeabbas » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 10:33 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #181

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 no other domain is implicit, cross-arena tracking by default acceptable. Maybe you don't think it should be acceptable, but it's the norm everywhere. Computers aren't an exception. Your purchases are tracked by credit card companies. Your license plate is tracked by road cameras. Your financial history is tracked by credit bureaus. Your phone calls are tracked by your telephony provider. And you haven't opted in…

Giving examples of a bad pattern doesn't make the pattern less bad. This should have never been the default behavior.

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

#183

Post by rebelos » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 10:54 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #115

jeffasinger wrote: post #106

Earlier 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.

> the major players in the industry just weren't ready for it That's an excellent reason to do it.

That's a very cavalier attitude given how much of the consumer app ecosystem depends on ad revenue to survive. Having it drop precipitously over a very short span of time could trigger a chain reaction that might ultimately reduce the availability or utility of apps for consumers. It will also disproportionately harm the long tail of app developers.

I detest tracking just as much as anyone else here but I'm skeptical this is the right way to go about dealing with it. A more sensible system would give users the choice between accepting targeted ads or paying a fee for the service.

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

#184

Post by akmarinov » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 10:59 PM UTC

AnonHP wrote: post #6

(Re-posting on this thread) What a bummer! As an iOS user, I was eagerly looking forward to this feature, wanting to tell others about it and how the upgrade to iOS 14 would be worth it just to clearly expose apps that want to track users. I already have ad tracking limited in my settings (Settings->Privacy->Limit Ad Tracking), but that was something I had to explicitly turn on, and there’s no notice on which apps us…

If it helps, Apple only starts to mandate support for the latest OS in February to April every year, so all of the apps that are tracking you wouldn’t have updated until then anyway.

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

#185

Post by ShroudedNight » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 11:06 PM UTC

crakhamster01 wrote: post #150

JoshTriplett wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a whole industry that depends on tracking IDFA to function And hopefully that will become "was" at some point. > it is not about being creepy The ad industry is a poor judge of what's creepy; their interests are not aligned with user interests. > A 3 month period will allow all actors in the advertising industry to integrate and come up with solutions that protect the user's privacy. The advertising indust…

> hopefully that will become "was" at some point > their interests are not aligned with user interests How do you propose apps monetize going forward? The vast majority of users do not want to pay for the apps/utilities on their phones, but still appreciate the value these apps provide them nonetheless. Targeted advertising enables apps to provide these services to users for free by having marketing budgets front the…

Merchandising, both virtual and physical?

I firmly recognise that this would have a vastly different market structure, would cause tremendous pain to many in the transition, and really, that this is very likely nowhere near as remunerative, but it's not inconceivable that the game itself would be means to inject experience into people's sense of identity in order to sell them the clothing and accessories for signalling that identity to others.

I agree that it would probably make it impossible to financially justify investing in time-wasting games that would not be compelling enough for people to engage at that level.

As a disclaimer, I'm also not convinced that maximising the gross financial product of the app ecosystem is inherently the 'Right Thing' from a public policy perspective, either.

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

#186

Post by AnthonyMouse » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 11:10 PM UTC

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #134

millstone wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not hypocrisy they're immune from, it's consequences.

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

#187

Post by rayuela » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 11:19 PM UTC

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.

Holy hell that's shady as fuck. I would have never found that and I've gone out of my way to disable as much of this type of shit on my phone as possible. There's no way in hell the average user is ever going to stumble upon that setting.

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

#188

Post by hu3 » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 11:22 PM UTC

windexh8er wrote: post #171

dogma1138 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is off by default.

It's not off by default. I just reset an iPhone to check on 13.7. It's on by default.

Users have to manually "Opt out" as per Apple's own documentation: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202074

or https://web.archive.org/web/20200903215036/https://support.a...

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

#189

Post by aleppe7766 » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 11:29 PM UTC

shajznnckfke wrote: post #148

aleppe7766 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple’s own ad service is long gone and won’t come back (if some sanity is still left in Apple’s board). They’re just playing nice with some core partners.

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.

You’re right. Then is Apple going to use IDFA without asking while the others will have to ask?

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

#190

Post by JoshTriplett » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 11:33 PM UTC

rebelos wrote: post #183

JoshTriplett wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the major players in the industry just weren't ready for it That's an excellent reason to do it.

That's a very cavalier attitude given how much of the consumer app ecosystem depends on ad revenue to survive. Having it drop precipitously over a very short span of time could trigger a chain reaction that might ultimately reduce the availability or utility of apps for consumers. It will also disproportionately harm the long tail of app developers. I detest tracking just as much as anyone else here but I'm skeptical…

I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of ad-based apps (without IAP of some kind) make less than $0.50 lifetime revenue on average from 90+% of users. Some quick checking suggests that the median total revenue for most apps is close to $0. Most apps would probably win out if they said "turns out ads don't work, would you be willing to pay $0.99". Even if they lost users, they'd gain revenue.

Whenever an unsustainable free service comes out on HN, and it's something people actually want, there's often a comment saying "this seems unsustainable, so I don't think I can count on it; please let us pay you". The same thing applies to apps.