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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

#291

Post by ogre_codes »

kortilla wrote: post #222
kibwen wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies obsess about these metrics because they don't want their ROI to be less than their competitors', because that would put them at a competitive disadvantage. It's not in doubt that individual-targeted advertising is more effective than than the alternatives; by eliminating user tracking you would be decreasing ROI across the board, but that's fine because, again, all that you're fighting for is a higher ROI t…

This model is based on the assumption that ads are for things the consumers already know about. This is not correct. Example: I type “housing insurance” into Google and the “organic” results are dominated by the mega insurance companies. Without targeted advertising, the ads are also dominated by mega insurance companies because they have the biggest advertising budgets. With targeted advertising, I can see an ad fro…

> Similarly, the ads for someone interested in DIY vs someone who is happy to pay for skilled labor are drastically different when you search “drywall repair”.

Google doesn't need to "Track and target" me personally to know that a web request I make comes from a specific location. Knowing I bought cycling shorts last week isn't going to increase the relevance of that search. Likewise, the reverse is true.

FWIW, have you tried searching for something like Drywall repair? Google's results for that type of search are almost identical to what you get on DDG, you just have to scroll past a page of Google garbage first.

Also... it's not too tremendously difficult to type "Drywall repair in Hoboken NY", that's what I do by default regardless.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#292

Post by karmakaze »

A horrible thought experiment:

What if FB only maintained their Android mobile app and made iOS second class, gradually lagging in features and operational support/stability?

If that experiment 'succeeds', Instagram could follow.

What do you suppose would be the outcome?

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#293

Post by ogre_codes »

fingerlocks wrote: post #269
danShumway wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because (all other concerns and objections aside) the intent doesn't matter. Apologies for the crude analogy, but if I install a camera in your bathroom and say, "okay, technically I could watch you poop, but the only reason I'm actually doing this is to figure out when you're out of toilet paper", that explanation won't leave you satisfied. Similarly, if someone is tracking me across the web and trying to link my id…

Filming me defecating in the privacy of my home is not comparable to a quasi-anonymous unique value traveling from my computer to another. Also, please remember that this conversation is very specifically about Facebook's access to the Apple IDFA, not about general web tracking or other data vacuuming issues. The fact that these two separate issues get conflated is part of the problem.

> Filming me defecating in the privacy of my home is not comparable to a quasi-anonymous unique value traveling from my computer to another.

It's not a "Quasi-anonymous" token the moment it's tied to your Facebook account... which is exactly 100% the point here. Facebook wants to be able to tie your off Facebook activity to your Facebook account.

Also, there are some incredibly private things which happen on people's phones. If I went to the courthouse or a DUI lawyer in town, I don't want Facebook to know this. If I have to install an app due to parole restrictions, this shouldn't be a thing Facebook finds out about.

There are piles of other private activities which people keep in the apps they use.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#294

Post by latexr »

gameman144 wrote: post #143
ArmandGrillet wrote: post #13

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.

Agreed that a lot of ads are useless, but I've personally seen a few that I wouldn't have otherwise known about. For instance, there's a really cool used technical bookstore near me that I only discovered because I saw an ad for it. Also I would have missed a Humble Bundle that I really liked without an ad. Don't get me wrong, I probably hate the average ad more than most people (any Liberty Mutual ad just makes me a…

Would you say those occasionally useful ads are worth the added stress (extrapolating from your words: “hate”, “angry”) of having to see other ads?

If you do, I dispute the claim you hate the average ad more than most people, as would millions of Adblock users.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#295

Post by ogre_codes »

fingerlocks wrote: post #271
Closi wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you mean their REAL purpose is attribution, but they just chose to build giant databases covering peoples locations, friend groups, hobbies, desires, careers, sex, sexual preferences, relationship statuses, political alignment, voting probability, race and more in order to implement a 'secondary nice-to-have'? And that's better? As a side point, I don't see why attribution tracking requires any form of cross-site…

None of that has anything to do with this topic. This is about Facebook's access to the Apple IDFA. There are no web URLs involved[0] when you click an ad on instagram and it launches another app on your phone. These are separate issues, and I don't entire disagree with the others you brought up. [0] Before someone comes in to correct me, I know I'm handwaving here. The point stands.

> None of that has anything to do with this topic. This is about Facebook's access to the Apple IDFA.

You don't seem to understand what the implications of the IDFA are. Facebook uses the IDFA to tie your activities together. It is one of the fundamental ways they collect all this data.

This is why they are fighting so hard to maintain it.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#296

Post by latexr »

jraph wrote: post #56
hourislate wrote: post #32

Do people who use facebook actually care about privacy? I can't understand why any user would want to be targeted by tailored ads or any ads for that matter? It's psychological warfare with the goal of separating you from your money. Stop spending, you'll realize you don't need all that shit they try to peddle. Less is more...

> Do people who use facebook actually care about privacy? Many people probably both use Facebook and care about privacy. Many probably would rather quit Facebook but think they can't because a part of their social life they think important is there. Or even a part of their education is (many students have a Facebook group for their class). I sympathize with you but it would help to try and understand people who care…

> Many probably would rather quit Facebook but think they can't because a part of their social life they think important is there.

I like that you used “think” in there; it makes all the difference. As Mike Monteiro tweeted[1]:

> I’ve heard excuses from people who want to quit Facebook but can’t that would make heroin addicts blush.

[1]: https://twitter.com/monteiro/status/321048448889663488

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#297

Post by dillondoyle »

kibwen wrote: post #212
sanedigital wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Companies obsess about these metrics because they don't want their ROI to be less than their competitors', because that would put them at a competitive disadvantage. It's not in doubt that individual-targeted advertising is more effective than than the alternatives; by eliminating user tracking you would be decreasing ROI across the board, but that's fine because, again, all that you're fighting for is a higher ROI t…

It would get rid of a lot of verticals that only run with positive ROAS. Ecommerce, political donations, etc. We won't spend on direct to donate ads unless the ROI is strong and I know that is not possible without FB and their data.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#298

Post by ogre_codes »

sanedigital wrote: post #179
kibwen wrote: 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…

> This is absolutely not the case. Google’s biggest ad clients achieve pretty incredible ROI (called ROAS) on each dollar they spend.

It's their job to figure out how to best advertise, not mine to hand it to them on a silver platter at my own expense. This is my data, information about me, which they are stealing without my knowledge and profiting from. If someone asked me if they could snoop around in my personal affairs for money, the price would be a hell of a lot higher than the big fat zero I get in return here.

Whatever Google or Facebooks' advertising ROI is, does not make it ethical or interesting to me.

Credit cards get the benefit of knowing where I shop, but at least I know when and how they are getting that information. Likewise, cellular service. It's a price we pay for ubiquitous access to information. But I would cut them bot off as well if there were some way I could.

It's parasitic and it's zero benefit to me.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#299

Post by ska »

zepto wrote: post #272
ska wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you miss the point the point I was trying to make (i.e. I didn't articulate it well). Regardless of how trivial you think it is, the fact that so many people demonstrate a preference not to should make you think harder about the problem. It's not just the technology, and many tech people tend to get this wrong consistently. Let's put it another way: if it was actually as trivial as you seem to think, it proba…

That makes the point a lot worse, and really just comes across as you responding to a set of assumptions nobody is actually making. What is the ‘it’ which you imagine people think is trivial? Who is saying anything is trivial? Where is anyone saying it’s just technology? Who said people don’t have a preference to use Facebook? How do you know how hard people have thought about this? I don’t think Facebook is trivial…

I think we're down in the weeds here - so I'll leave it at this. I shouldn't have focused it on tech so much, other people make the same category of mistake.

The assumptions that I am talking about are basically this. (1) "people can easily do without Facebook", or the variant that "Facebook isn't very important to them" (2) There are viable replacements available to the people who do value this, at least in their own estimation.

Both these assumptions are (empirically) incorrect, at least for many people. If you reject them both, you are basically saying people are incapable of really knowing their own best interests, which is laughable. The best you can do is advocate they understand the implications better.

Hence this falls in to the category I was drawing, mainly that if you say "People don't really need X" and lots of people are at the same time saying "I really need X" and "I don't see a good replacement for X" then you are far more likely to be wrong than they are.

You dislike all my examples, try this one "Nobody needs a fossil fuel engine car". Obvious, right? Electrics are available and better in every way (just ask your favorite tesla owner). Telling people they can do fine without FB because you do is a bit like telling them they can do fine without gasoline because you do. Even when technically true for some values of "fine" and "need", it's not useful.

Re: Facebook testing notification to users about Apple privacy changes

#300

Post by kergonath »

fingerlocks wrote: post #217
sanedigital wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

At least someone in this thread gets it. Ad tracking really is about attribution, personalized ads are secondary nice-to-have. This is how small businesses figure out their advertising budget. Where are our customers coming from, or more importantly, where are they not coming from, so we know where to spend or not spend our limited resources? But I’m not surprised this isn’t pointed out more often. The hardcore priva…

> hardcore privacy zealots

Way to lose all credibility.

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