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Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

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Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#181

Wow, those encouragements are very weak. "Get ads that are more personalized", "Support businesses that rely on ads to reach customers": why would I support businesses relying on that when only 1 out of 5 ads in my feed is not garbage? These encouragements make me think that Facebook seems to believe that their ads are useful, which is a bit insane from a user perspective.

I’m not on Facebook so I can’t speak to what you personally see. However, I think the “support small business” angle is going to be somewhat compelling. I have, for example, two friends who are starting a niche business, offering a good and ethical service, and reaching people in that niche through Facebook and Instagram ads. The customers they find love what they’re doing and happily paying. If I had Facebook, I cou…

I bet for every one small business like your friend, there is 10 scammy business (something like selling 1$ item for 20$ with 40% discount) who is betting 10x more than your legit friend for impressions.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#182
post #164
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're more forgiving than I am. As far as I'm concerned, individual-targeted advertising has such inherently perverse incentives that even those starting out with good intentions (e.g. consensual opt-in) will eventually find themselves engaged in unethical, privacy-eroding behavior as a matter of course. Consider what would happen if you outlawed individual-targeted advertising. Ad relevancy falls overall. What then…

>” Would consumers spend less money? No...” I’m not sure about that. A lot of advertising is about appearances and superficial things. Example. Do we need cars in the US to get from place to place (NYC, etc excepted) Yes! Does it have to have bells and whistles? No. Can an entry level car do the job in the great majority of cases? Does it have to be a “luxury” brand? Or an upscale model? Spending would go down. Good,…

Given how many people seem to find themselves with crippling debt, or unable to save enough of a buffer to handle unexpected (but not especially unusual) expenses, I'd be inclined to say "good".

Much of the advertising industry isn't about getting you to choose Company A's product rather than Company B's, or to choose the deluxe version rather than the entry-level one; it's about getting you to buy things you would never even have considered otherwise, and certainly have no "need" for.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#183

Why would anyone agree to this? I don’t see a benefit to letting Facebook or any company track me across the internet. When did we ever decide this was what consumers wanted? Every time this topic comes up I check Facebooks stock price and realize how detached people are from facebooks revenue driven by the advertisement market.

> Why would anyone agree to this?

And that is the entire story of dark patterns.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#184
post #88

actual title: "Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes"

Yes, that was bad. Changed now. (Submitted title was "FB testing screen to encourage users to accept active tracking")

Submitters: please follow the HN rules, which ask you "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#185
post #69

Why would anyone agree to this? I don’t see a benefit to letting Facebook or any company track me across the internet. When did we ever decide this was what consumers wanted? Every time this topic comes up I check Facebooks stock price and realize how detached people are from facebooks revenue driven by the advertisement market.

I'm a simple man -- if I see a button with a primary intent color standing between me and my content I've been conditioned to press it, often before I realize what I'm doing or reading the accompanying text. Probably tens of millions of people will do the same here.

True but looking at my own iTunes App Analytics dashboard for example, about 50% of users don’t opt-in to share analytics with us.

At Facebook-scale 50% means at least a billion users will still opt-in, but probably significantly less than what they were tracking before at the 100% level.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#186
post #152
post #5

It's simultaneously remarkable and utterly unremarkable that Facebook has been dragged kicking and screaming into building a consent screen for this kind of tracking. Watching this tracking notification conflict unfold in the media has really helped me to refine where I stand on this: if a business depends on non-consensual tracking to be able to survive, then I'd prefer that the business has to fold before stripping…

You're more forgiving than I am. As far as I'm concerned, individual-targeted advertising has such inherently perverse incentives that even those starting out with good intentions (e.g. consensual opt-in) will eventually find themselves engaged in unethical, privacy-eroding behavior as a matter of course. Consider what would happen if you outlawed individual-targeted advertising. Ad relevancy falls overall. What then…

Exactly! How do you grow by 25% quarter over quarter without discovering new business models? "Knowing" us even more and getting us to fork over 25% more! Or moving spend from a site outside of FB to within it.

What could be the end result? I give the algorithms my bank account and they are responsible for restocking my fridge, refilling prescriptions to purchasing books and investing in my stocks?

Some aspiring product manager (of course another algorithm in training) is furiously jotting down all of the above...

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#187
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're more forgiving than I am. As far as I'm concerned, individual-targeted advertising has such inherently perverse incentives that even those starting out with good intentions (e.g. consensual opt-in) will eventually find themselves engaged in unethical, privacy-eroding behavior as a matter of course. Consider what would happen if you outlawed individual-targeted advertising. Ad relevancy falls overall. What then…

> Overall advertising budgets are not dominated by the effectiveness of advertising, but by adversarial spending by their competitors. This is absolutely not the case. Google’s biggest ad clients achieve pretty incredible ROI (called ROAS) on each dollar they spend. And they track these obsessively—I supported a large travel client that had a small (but highly skilled) engineering team dedicated exclusively to their…

Advertising has existed without this feature in other mediums forever

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#188

Why would anyone agree to this? I don’t see a benefit to letting Facebook or any company track me across the internet. When did we ever decide this was what consumers wanted? Every time this topic comes up I check Facebooks stock price and realize how detached people are from facebooks revenue driven by the advertisement market.

I would rather get advertisements about tech toys than get advertisements about debeers diamonds.

If HN were supported by non-tracking ads, do you think you would be more likely to see an add for a tech toy or a diamond here?

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#189
post #69

Why would anyone agree to this? I don’t see a benefit to letting Facebook or any company track me across the internet. When did we ever decide this was what consumers wanted? Every time this topic comes up I check Facebooks stock price and realize how detached people are from facebooks revenue driven by the advertisement market.

I'm a simple man -- if I see a button with a primary intent color standing between me and my content I've been conditioned to press it, often before I realize what I'm doing or reading the accompanying text. Probably tens of millions of people will do the same here.

> if I see a button with a primary intent color standing between me and my content I've been conditioned to press it

While cookie-laws have good intentions, this side effect should have been properly researched first. An internet full of shady and useless pop-ups which drive this behavior makes me sad. I'm still hoping they will someday disappear.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#190
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few factors at play here when it comes to advertising. 1) Digital is taking over all ad-channels 2) Digital ads can be tracked and attributed ways that were never possible with traditional media 3) It turns out most non-targeted ads aren't actually that effective, and aggregate ad spend is falling. FB ads are effective and high value because of tracking. If tracking goes away, FB ad revenue will fall to t…

> FB ads are effective and high value Not really. Digital advertising, frankly, sucks from the advertiser's point of view. It's just that people are online now and advertisers have no choice: the inventory providers are monopolistic and unregulated.

> Digital advertising, frankly, sucks from the advertiser's point of view.

What advertising does not suck from the advertiser's point of view? How are metrics gathered that demonstrate these forms of advertising work?

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