New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads • Hacker News Board

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#381

Post by roughly » Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

Yetanfou wrote: post #53

raxxorrax wrote: post #9

Maybe the open source promise of Android was indeed a lie. To me this industry has no value to society at all. Not a fan of Apple, but they seem to be serious about privacy showing other companies how it is done. Microsoft could have really established itself as an alternative to Google on the same front, but they utterly failed by mirroring the worst aspects of the disastrous landscape we see on mobile devices. I ho…

In what way is open source Android a lie? I never used any other version, I do not have a Google account, nor do I have any Google-proprietary software on my devices yet they still run all software - including the Swedish "BankID" electronic ID app which is needed for just about any interaction with anything official nowadays. That "BankID" is, together with Firefox Preview, the only software which I got from the pla…

This has nothing to do with your point about Android OSS -

It's really a statement on our industry that avoiding spyware at this point basically means not using anything with a recognizable brand name. Apple's in a position to do this because they actually sell services to consumers; I'm curious if the rest of the industry will ever try anything that radical.

Remember when "doing well by doing good" was a phrase?

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#382

Post by roughly » Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 9:18 PM UTC

b112 wrote: post #89

raxxorrax wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, Android itself doesn't have to be horrible, but most distributions are full of adware. Wouldn't want to minimize the work going into the core of the OS, I meant the critique to be directed against Android + gapps. I love Lineage, but you are dependent on other maintainers for your device or you have serious work ahead of you. It is quite simple to install for experienced users, but way too complicated for most…

How about the elephant in the room? Radio firmwares. It is meaningless if you install firewalls, if you compile android on your own, only to have to turn around and use proprietary, closed source libs to access proprotary, closed source radio firmwares. Radio firmwares which often have full RAM access, parallel CPU control, GPS and full hardware access, and make intel's management engine, and closed source bioses loo…

This isn't the elephant in the room. This is a fringe problem of dedicated attackers. This is the fox hiding behind the elephant. The elephant in the room is that nobody needs to hack your phone to spy on you because all of that data is already being exfiltrated through the front door.

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#383

Post by erklik » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 1:21 AM UTC

halostatue wrote: post #137

erklik wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you wanted to, although it is more effort, and more niche, you can install a pi-hole on your network blocking all sorts tracking, ads etc across all devices. Although, for Android, there do exist apps that will do system-level ad/tracker blocking.

How do you install pi-hole for the cellular modem on a smartphone?

You do not unfortunately.

However, what you can do is utilize a VPN into your home network where you already have a pi-hole set up. Doing so will route all your phone's traffic through your home network (and pi-hole) first. You'll have the same "ad protection" on the go as you would at home. I recommend checking out WireGuard.

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#384

Post by ssharp » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 10:58 AM UTC

frenchie4111 wrote: post #232

ssharp wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ad platforms have very clear incentives to deliver the ads that perform best for marketers so that the marketers spend more with the ad platform. As much as you think the ads are doing a poor job, they're likely doing a better job in aggregate than alternatives. Retargeting ads deliver higher value than prospecting ads so that's likely why you get so many more of those.

Honest question: Do retargeting ads just appear to perform better because I already had purchase intent and I was already going to go back there to buy it later anyway?

This is a completely fair question and is something anyone working in performance optimization (marketing, product, etc.) should be asking themselves all the time when looking at data and finding ways to suss it out.

In the case of retargeting ads, you can run tests to figure it out. When I was doing more on the marketing side, I used to find a non-profit and then show ads for the non-profit to my retargeting audiences. That way we could test to see what kind of value our retargeting ads had vs. a completely irrelevant retargeted ad.

For the most part, the relevant retargeted ad outperformed irrelevant by enough magnitude to make the retargeting campaign profitable.

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#385

Post by artificial » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 6:13 PM UTC

ardy42 wrote: post #340

artificial wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm looking at this more from a product standpoint. When someone shows an ad for a vehicle that's priced lower than before and I'm in the market for a car, I'd like to know about it. What do you consider an advertisement? Is a business sign an advertisement? I consider a lunch special saving me the time of thumbing through a menu, I don't consider it manipulation which has negative connotations as well and seems pret…

> When someone shows an ad for a vehicle that's priced lower than before and I'm in the market for a car, I'd like to know about it. But that's not what modern advertising is. Let's look at a real car ad. Here's the first ad for a discrete vehicle that wasn't a Lambo that I found on youtube searching for "car ad": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk5QL_kKN_g . It's message is roughly "if you drive a Land Rover you'll…

> But that's not what modern advertising is. Let's look at a real car ad.

Here's an example of a current automotive special, these are what dominate Google and FB ads (at least with the 150 automotive clients we work with) and there's typically some copy with it soliciting the price and some incentives. If someone's seen an ad there's dynamic ads which can be tailored to that audience. https://pictures.dealer.com/h/huntingtonbeachchryslerjeepcll...

> It would also save time if they just ordered for you. You'd save the time, they'd get to sell you their item with the highest profit margin. Win-win?

For example, the local gourmet Taco shop (cafe to the restaurant) normally has tacos for about $3.99 and on Tuesday they're $1.99, advertised on special with a drink, I know the tacos are good and that's a great deal. Their highest margin item is the auga fresca (which they sweeten with agave), they charge about $4.50 for that. Thanks for taking the time to let me see things from another perspective.