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Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

economist.com

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Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#561

Post by morelisp »

jfim wrote: post #488
CrazyStat wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do not understand correctly. Facebook (and other ad networks) want credit if someone clicks on your ad, spends time on your site, but then doesn't actually buy anything until a couple days when they enter the URL directly (i.e. not clicking on an ad). This is the problem generally referred to as attribution. Facebook (and others) do this by tracking everyone all around the web. They track the ad click and then th…

Out of curiosity, does attribution also work if the ad is not clicked? For example, I bought a product the other day after seeing a Facebook ad, but I didn't click on the ad itself and rather went searching for it on DuckDuckGo, then after reading a bit about it online, bought the product. I'm curious as to whether that got attributed to the ad impression or not.

Modern models do try to take views into account. (Also cross-device views and DOOH - which again rely extensively on tracking.)

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#562

Post by tehjoker »

bentcorner wrote: post #539
tehjoker wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of an ad is that it says you don't have this thing. Your life will be so much better if only you had this thing. In some cases, that makes sense, but mostly it serves to reset people's expectations and become dissatisfied with what they have. I think in many cases we should be aiming to do that for social fundamentals that would make all of us live richer and happier lives like healthcare and education, but…

While I hate ads, it's impossible to live in a world without it. Because even at the most extreme, where there are no ads, even the most minimal difference like location or appearance has value. Consider the simple example of a grocery store - what products do they place at eye level? What products do they place closer to the entrance? What color does P&G make their detergent bottle? What do they call it? It's all "a…

Certainly, but the line that has been drawn can be characterized as insane since the 1960s at least.

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#563

Post by [deleted] »

prasadjoglekar wrote: post #88
samwillis wrote: post #9

As a rough datapoint, I run a consumer targeted e-commerce site. We ran a campaign before Christmas were we were selling a new product that was only marketed on Facebook, we are certain that (almost) all customers found it though that Facebook campaign. Facebook was only able to attribute about 50% of the sales to the ads, it should have been close to 100%. This then meant that Facebooks estimated CPA was effectively…

Agreed. For advertisers with larger budgets, marketing mix models are still the only way to understand the relative performance of FB, Google, TV etc. - each of which is a "walled garden" that doesn't exchange data with others. FB marketing is effective, question is at what price. If those prices drop, ad dollars will flow back. It will take a few quarterly modeling cycles to reflect this though. The contra-contraria…

[deleted]

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#564

Post by babypuncher »

slenk wrote: post #467
babypuncher wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before this change, Facebook could still track you in non-Facebook apps that use their software. Even if you are not a Facebook user.

This change actually eliminates/ed that? (never used iOS, unsure of how things are)

It made it considerably more difficult, because there is no legitimate user/device specific identifier that Facebook can use to track usage across different apps that use their SDK, unless the user opts in to IDFA, or logs in with their Facebook account in every app that uses it.

This won't necessarily stop them from using other personally identifying information that you might share with multiple apps (phone number, email address, etc.) Sign In With Apple helps mitigate this to an extent.

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#565

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

GeekyBear wrote: post #425
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Google are much, much less dependent on apps because they get all that sweet juicy search data from each iPhone (which they can then use to track you across their apps, potentially (this is possible to implement, I have no idea if they do it)).

So antitrust regulators should break up Google?

They should regulate them better, certainly. I'm agnostic on whether that means they should be broken up.

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#566

Post by HWR_14 »

clarge1120 wrote: post #534
HWR_14 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, it's not "all ads are evil". It's the spying and tracking of ads that most people oppose. Second, how is this a "balanced ideological fight" counterargumnet. Let's say I oppose Facebook ads as invasion of privacy (and I do). A person on the internet used Facebook ads to make money. Those are contrary why? It's not like I'm sitting here and was like "oh, now that someone made money on the ads, I'm totally in fa…

If you have an income it’s because of economic activity, most likely derived from advertising. I pay for YouTube Premium to avoid ads because I hate ads. But I also like robust economic activity. So, I’m happy to pay a fee instead of seeing ads.

> If you have an income it’s because of economic activity, most likely derived from advertising.

That reasoning can be used to justify any shitty practice.

Concerned about global warming? If you have an income it’s because of economic activity, most likely derived from emitting carbon.

Concerned about human rights in China? If you have an income it’s because of economic activity, most likely derived from trade with China.

Concerned about American workers getting fired for unionizing? If you have an income it’s because of economic activity, most likely derived from interacting with sales behemoths like Walmart and Amazon.

Therefore, I suggest you come up with a better rational for bad things. Or frankly stop trying to justify them. That also works.

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#567

Post by pnutjam »

wbsss4412 wrote: post #392
scarface74 wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also - slaves being counted as 3/5ths of a person…

The irony is that always gets brought up as though it was actually meant to represent the value of the slave’s humanity. The large slaveholding states actually wanted 5/5ths whereas states will small slave populations wanted 0/5ths. Slaves couldn’t vote, their interests were ancillary to the whole discussion. The compromise was about pure political power for those that dominated them. The repeal of the 3/5ths clause…

Fun fact, the 14th amendment would have never passed if the South had not seceded.

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#568

Post by [deleted] »

YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo wrote: post #112
scim-knox-twox wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable . https://wikiless.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory?lang=en It's not a conspiracy when we know that GAFA works together: https://gizmodo.com/google-paid-apple-to-stay-out-of-the-sea...

It is because you can't validate it how is it that hard to distinguish between true statements and speculations. The same goes for your sources claims brought up in court are not true statements until they are proven to be factually correct.

[deleted]

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#569

Post by darthrupert »

If you think that manipulating people is evil, then ads are evil and hence Meta and Alphabet are evil.

If you think that some manipulation is evil, then it's about how they manipulate and on which issues. Perhaps manipulating people to buy something is ok but manipulating them to harm the society (something which Meta is clearly guilty of) is not. Then these companies could turn good if they just turned down a lot of their profit. Which of course won't happen because as companies their prime directive is to make money.

If you think that all manipulation is ok then your opinion should be dismissed.

Re: Apple's privacy push cost Meta $10B

#570

Post by fulafel »

darthrupert wrote: post #569

If you think that manipulating people is evil, then ads are evil and hence Meta and Alphabet are evil. If you think that some manipulation is evil, then it's about how they manipulate and on which issues. Perhaps manipulating people to buy something is ok but manipulating them to harm the society (something which Meta is clearly guilty of) is not. Then these companies could turn good if they just turned down a lot of…

I think expecting nothing wrt ethics, aka the "companies are amoral and will never let ethics affect profit making" meme is too cynical. It starts off as a criticism but we then accept and normalize the idea. That benefits the amoral corporations.

There are better outcomes if hold them to society's moral standards and to their own goals and claims they make to the public or shareholders. Those organisations are made up of people that mostly aren't that amoral, after all.

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