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Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

thebigtech.substack.com

41–50 of 206 posts

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#41
post #16

The article manages to contradict itself at every turn. For example: "Only yesterday, Google announced its plans to make advertising ID an opt-in feature." A few paragraphs later: "Google’s opt-out ad-tracking popup isn’t on the forefront like in iOS. Instead, it’s buried deep in the Google Play Service settings — which could be difficult for the non-tech savvy user to find out." And this opener: "Facebook has a mark…

This is common for Substack articles recently: It delivers a conclusion readers want to hear (Facebook bad! Zuckerberg going to lose a lot of money! Business model destroyed!) but the reality doesn’t quite match the pitch once you decipher the underlying facts. It feels like Substack authors got started in an ultra-competitive world where they knew clickbait journalism was the norm, so they’ve gone all-in on saying w…

It's not just substack. It's a plague that has infected regular journalism; they're just more cunning in disguising it.

Think about all the "Sources say" articles you've read at 'respected publications' over the past few years. How many of them turned out to be true or collaborated?

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#42
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zuck is personally all in on capturing the VR and AR market and making it the next ubiquitous computing platform. They already have their own OS. One fifth of the company is working on VR and AR, 10,000 employees. They are pouring billions into it. Zuck likely understands that he missed the platform boat last time around and doesn't intend to miss the next one. https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/12/22326875/facebook-rea…

I don't think VR will ever take over the world. Too many people get motion sickness from it and I don't think it's only a matter of more pixels/fps. AR... maybe. My personal opinion is the needed electronics (and especially the battery tech) aren't small enough yet, if we're talking AR glasses. If we're talking AR on phones, where's the killer app? Pokemon go?

You're saying it ain't small enough yet. Another way to say it is, it'll get there, but in the future. That's what FB is investing in

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#44
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it that crazy? It's the reason Google not only developed Android, but Chrome, ChromeOS, Fuchsia, the Google speaker thing and all that, and Samsung has Tizen, which is sort of their plan B, of plan F or whatever, and Amazon developed the Fire line, Alexa, AWS, the speaker thing, etc. They know they can't trust each other. Even Apple had to develop their own maps! It's really a surprise Facebook was so blindsided b…

When the initial FB OS attempt failed, I think Zuck realized the investment to make something work was beyond the capital he was willing to invest. When FB released its first “phone” it was still unwilling to take mobile seriously. They left the head of mobile position open for a very long time. Zuck himself has said he missed mobile. With the IPO around that time, making some major strategic investment in tech was n…

FB more or less always had access to capital markets, and they could 100% have borrowed money and dumped billions into mobile. Subsidized, $100 phones that are comparable to flagships (but data-sucking for FB) would have beaten the market.

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#45
post #16

The article manages to contradict itself at every turn. For example: "Only yesterday, Google announced its plans to make advertising ID an opt-in feature." A few paragraphs later: "Google’s opt-out ad-tracking popup isn’t on the forefront like in iOS. Instead, it’s buried deep in the Google Play Service settings — which could be difficult for the non-tech savvy user to find out." And this opener: "Facebook has a mark…

this chain of events is about to trigger an irreversible slump in Facebook’s advertisement business

Surely the majority of ads Facebook sells are displayed on Facebook's properties (Facebook, apps, IG, etc), where they'll have the logged in user's details already and don't need the user's device mobile advertising ID. That's not to say this won't impact them at all, because it will, but it's not exactly the sky falling.

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#46
post #38

It's really hard to trust google on anything when it comes to ads and privacy. Will these changes stop Google from tracking and targeting you? It seems that Facebook might have a much stronger case against Google here, since it's using its success in the smartphone OS market to hobble its biggest competitor in the digital ads market.

> It's really hard to trust google...

I feel the same way; very little chance Google stops this unless it doesn't affect them at all (either by having determined these identifiers aren't particularly effective, or by having cooked up some new scheme.)

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#47
post #11

> “Senator, We Run Ads” was the iconic response from Facebook’s CEO > And that’s how Facebook still manages to stay free of cost today. I enjoy articles that explain to the layman how the sausage is made. I've always wondered: if enough people know they're the product and know how Facebook makes money, would they delete their account in a fit of rage or continue to use it, knowing that they're victims of surveillance…

Funny you should mention that the "Interests" thing... I just happened to take a look, earlier today, at what Twitter thinks I'm interested in, and... it's laughable. I mean, seriously deranged. If this is the state of the art in ML/AI/whateveryouwanttocallit then we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

I'd love to know what FB thinks I'm interested in, but I'm nothing more than a shadow to them - no account, never used their apps - so there's no way for me to know. I think this is one of the more horrible, insidious outcomes of their way of working: If you're signed up for their abuse, you can at least find out something about what they know of you. If you've opted out of their surveillance platform, you have no way of finding out. And that's iniquitous.

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#48

> However, if Mark Zuckerberg goes back on the drawing board to figure what went wrong, he’ll probably realize that data breaches and privacy awareness aren’t the causes of an impending downfall. > Instead, a lack of effort in developing their own operating system a decade ago might be Facebook’s biggest regret. And this has come back to bite them today. Crazy that it came to this.

What's even more crazy is that they kind of did have their own OS, albeit one that was really just a launcher on top of Android with some deep integration of Facebook content - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Home

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#49
post #44
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the initial FB OS attempt failed, I think Zuck realized the investment to make something work was beyond the capital he was willing to invest. When FB released its first “phone” it was still unwilling to take mobile seriously. They left the head of mobile position open for a very long time. Zuck himself has said he missed mobile. With the IPO around that time, making some major strategic investment in tech was n…

FB more or less always had access to capital markets, and they could 100% have borrowed money and dumped billions into mobile. Subsidized, $100 phones that are comparable to flagships (but data-sucking for FB) would have beaten the market.

Yes, but they were not willing to. The environment for risky internet companies at that time was tepid still.

They knew money came from ads and tracking and the web and the other thing did not move the needle.

Re: Google Joins Apple to Opt-out of Mobile Advertising IDs

#50
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zuck is personally all in on capturing the VR and AR market and making it the next ubiquitous computing platform. They already have their own OS. One fifth of the company is working on VR and AR, 10,000 employees. They are pouring billions into it. Zuck likely understands that he missed the platform boat last time around and doesn't intend to miss the next one. https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/12/22326875/facebook-rea…

I don't think VR will ever take over the world. Too many people get motion sickness from it and I don't think it's only a matter of more pixels/fps. AR... maybe. My personal opinion is the needed electronics (and especially the battery tech) aren't small enough yet, if we're talking AR glasses. If we're talking AR on phones, where's the killer app? Pokemon go?

> Too many people get motion sickness from it and I don't think it's only a matter of more pixels/fps.

What do you think it's a matter of then? I guess I would add latency to the list, but those 3 metrics seem to capture the difference in visual perception between vr and the real world?

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