311–320 of 359 posts
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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.
Apple's ad business, however, is growing all the time. And in significant margins. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/apple-is-an-ad-company-now https://www.statista.com/statistics/1330127/apple-ad-revenue...
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I don't see the logical connection between my comment and yours. Yes, ads make people buy more stuff. Is that a good thing? My comment doesn't say anything about that. But anyway, my guess is no, because it leads to overconsumption, and exhaustion of natural resources. Also: > 96% of US users opted out of IDFA sharing Meaning that users really do not want to be tracked.
I was replying to this. > will just make products more expensive, since now you also pay for the adtech that's involved That’s not generally how the economics of advertising works. If it were, advertising wouldn’t be very successful/important. People don’t like the idea of being tracked, but my experience is that they like the results.. Especially all the extreme specialty niche products that simply wouldn’t exist wi…
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> Then you know what will happen. There is an interesting lesson you can learn from history: Google Maps vs Apple Maps. Google set up their system to track each individual's location history forever, even if the user turned off the setting that Google said would stop this behavior. This data can be handy when you're trying to keep map data updated. However, you don't have to track each user's location constantly to g…
That's an awesome story and I'd love to believe that's how it will always be. But I can't. I'm sure we could find great examples of other companies that made similar privacy aware decisions, only to then turn around and throw all that out of the window for increased profits. Call me skeptical, but these entities have one purpose: profits. Why would I trust they won't ever misuse my data?
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I agree. Apple has always had an advertising business, remember apps with ad banners in the early IOS store? However the fundamental difference is that their model is being an hardware company.
Their "ecosystem" model is why we need crowbar legislation like Europe's DMA to force interoperability. Make no mistake, Apple is playing for keeps just as hard as Google is: https://httptoolkit.com/blog/apple-private-access-tokens-att... All of these companies deserve their due scrutiny. Specifically around the illusion of privacy though, nobody has further to fall than Apple.
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> I wonder what it will take for people to finally get fed up with creepy advertising companies. As long as people get "free stuff" people won't get fed up.
It doesn't matter whether it's free or you're paying either — your consumer data from the grocery store and other retail purchasers is already tied to the ad grid too. If you buy a can of cat food you'll get cat toy ads on Instagram. The harsh reality, despite what privacy pundits might say, is that people... just don't really care. And that's fine? It's great Apple lets me tell an app not to track me. But if they di…
I'm personally against ads in my mail, billboards, and pretty much everywhere else where my default context is not to buy something. If I go to a pet store and get cat ads--even based on my preferences shopping there--then I think that would be fair. But ads are currently way too aggressive and essentially stalk us everywhere.
Another aspect is how misleading and/or manipulative they are. Why aren't ads more reasonable with a tl;dr about the product and then some pros/cons of it over alternative options?
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> I think that many criticisms of it is just nitpicky and doesn’t help anyone This is true, but many criticisms are valid. Apple News is user-tracking adware that cannot be uninstalled on MacOS. You cannot install an app on any of the iDevices without telling Apple. You cannot get your GPS location on an iDevice without telling Apple. Apple is spending considerable resources growing their ad business, so expect this…
Meanwhile, the only competitor(Google's Android) tracks everything you do everywhere. So Apple's privacy perspective is way better than Android's. Could it be better? Of course, and I'm fine with trying to pressure them to do more for protecting our privacy, but between the 2, it's not even close, Apple is WAY more private with your data than Google will ever be.
The difference is you can avoid the tracking easily. This is a direct result of prioritizing user control. You can install apps without telling anybody, you can get your GPS location without telling anybody, and so on. Apple, by denying user control, makes privacy worse for users who care, and it will only get worse as Apple ramps up its services business.
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Apple shows ads for apps in the App Store sans behavioural targeting. If there is a kind of “ethical ads” that’s as close as it gets.
Apple advertising extends beyond the app store, both for iOS and macOS, and is personalized by default. You can disable this in Settings -> Privacy and Security -> Apple Advertising on both platforms.
AFAIK it also includes ads in the News app and apps that load articles from the News app (e.g. Stocks app).
Their fine print also mentions the TV app, but I haven’t seen ads there, so perhaps they’re referring to content suggestions.
This seems to be confirmed further down the line in the fine print when it says:
> We create segments to deliver personalized ads on the App Store, Apple News, and Stocks.
I’d say the main difference between Meta and Apple is that the latter doesn’t combine data from different source and only relies on their own data (what Apple calls “tracking”):
> Apple’s advertising platform does not track you, meaning that it does not link user or device data collected from our apps with user or device data collected from third parties for targeted advertising or advertising measurement purposes, and does not share user or device data with data brokers.
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The article tries to make it out as if it's about privacy and integrity in general. Google is all the way up at the top of the list of crooks together with arseholes like Meta.
That's whataboutism at its finest! A: "I will write an article about Apple's and Meta's privacy practices." B: "But what about Google???"
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Please don't force Twitter to delete more of my favorite inactive accounts.
Content != pii.
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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.