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Apple is becoming an ad company despite privacy claims

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Re: Apple is becoming an ad company despite privacy claims

#71

Post by paulryanrogers »

noizejoy wrote: post #68
paulryanrogers wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also: Being tracked while on someone’s property isn’t exactly the same as tracking someone across unrelated properties. Do you consider Apple-made devices property of their buyers or do they forever remain property of Apple?

> Do you consider Apple-made devices property of their buyers or do they forever remain property of Apple? The original post talked about advertising on cloud properties, not devices. And that was the context of my post. So I’m puzzled why you’d be moving the conversation to the topic of devices.

Because Apple is showing ads on devices with some captive services, like the app store.

Re: Apple is becoming an ad company despite privacy claims

#72

Post by clnq »

calciphus wrote: post #67
denkmoon wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you are right, but I've tried doing the de-googled Android thing (when I was an Android user even). It sucks, hard. Android is a pretty bad UX platform to begin with, and trying to make it work with free software is just... awful. I can't contribute because I only have so many hours in a day. I'd rather pay. I'd pay a boatload for an operating system that replaces Android with something that has a good user ex…

I pay for a lifetime license on adguard, on Android. It is vanishing rare to see ads and the audit logs show how often and which apps are having their telemetry and other trackers blocked. It blocks a lot of Google stuff. That's the reason I stay with android. The Apple version of the app (which has to come through the app store) is not allowed to block anything for Apple apps or services. This they exempt themselves…

I am skeptical of apps claiming to block telemetry. There is a feedback loop that app/service developers like Adguard can use for blocking ads - if an ad shows up, they can look into blocking it.

It's not the same for telemetry. There's no way to verify none is transmitted, and difficult to intercept it or distinguish it from essential traffic. Not all telemetry goes to an HTTP endpoint. Some telemetry-like fingerprinting data can be gathered from basic requests (like an email provider scanning email headers, a phone app developer screening spam calls/numbers, a password manager storing domains of your accounts, and so on). More can be sent along with basic requests. And there is much more data/telemetry engineers could do if the number of users interfering with their methods became statistically significant.

I don't mean to fearmonger. I believe that most telemetry gathered is harmless to any particular user and is just used by data scientists and MBAs trying to see trends they can exploit in their business strategy. Ads probably have a much larger impact on an individual (emotional and mental effects), and there is value to ad-blocking services like Adguard. Still, apps claiming to block tracking, fingerprinting, and telemetry seem to target a very naive audience.

Re: Apple is becoming an ad company despite privacy claims

#73

Post by grahamjperrin »

A somewhat careless, reactionary blog post.

"… On Nov. 20, a pair of iOS developers known as Mysk discovered that Apple has a specific identifier (a “directory services identifier” or DSID) for every Apple iCloud account. …"

– as if Mysk discovered this. Not so.

DSID-related analysis was performed more than seven months earlier – by a group of five researchers, including four at the University of Oxford.

Konrad Kollnig, Anastasia Shuba, Max Van Kleek, Reuben Binns, and Nigel Shadbolt. 2022. Goodbye Tracking? Impact of iOS App Tracking Transparency and Privacy Labels. In 2022 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT '22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 508–520. https://doi.org/10.1145/3531146.3533116

(Version 1 was submitted on 7th April 2022.)

Re: Apple is becoming an ad company despite privacy claims

#74

Post by noizejoy »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #71
noizejoy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you consider Apple-made devices property of their buyers or do they forever remain property of Apple? The original post talked about advertising on cloud properties, not devices. And that was the context of my post. So I’m puzzled why you’d be moving the conversation to the topic of devices.

Because Apple is showing ads on devices with some captive services, like the app store.

I’d categorize that as a beef with the walled garden system, more so than Apple becoming an ad company.

I don’t have an issue with criticism of the walled garden approach and that being a reason for many individuals to avoid the Apple ecosystem.

But I think that’s quite a different discussion than the business model of companies who make most of their revenue from ads and the tracking they do while one is visiting different properties all over the web.

Approximately 1% of revenue from ads doesn’t really make someone an ad company.

Again, I have no problem with critical comments about Apple (I have a lengthy list myself) - but advertising is not an equivalence between Apple and other truly advertising based companies.

Re: Apple is becoming an ad company despite privacy claims

#75

Post by paulryanrogers »

noizejoy wrote: post #74
paulryanrogers wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Apple is showing ads on devices with some captive services, like the app store.

I’d categorize that as a beef with the walled garden system, more so than Apple becoming an ad company. I don’t have an issue with criticism of the walled garden approach and that being a reason for many individuals to avoid the Apple ecosystem. But I think that’s quite a different discussion than the business model of companies who make most of their revenue from ads and the tracking they do while one is visiting di…

My concern is that ad revenue is just too tempting, especially as other revenue sources plateau. That's why once paid and ad free services like cable devolved into paid-with-ads.

Re: Apple is becoming an ad company despite privacy claims

#76

Post by noizejoy »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #75
noizejoy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d categorize that as a beef with the walled garden system, more so than Apple becoming an ad company. I don’t have an issue with criticism of the walled garden approach and that being a reason for many individuals to avoid the Apple ecosystem. But I think that’s quite a different discussion than the business model of companies who make most of their revenue from ads and the tracking they do while one is visiting di…

My concern is that ad revenue is just too tempting, especially as other revenue sources plateau. That's why once paid and ad free services like cable devolved into paid-with-ads.

If you’re essentially extrapolating into what Apple may become one day, rather than what it is now (i.e. if/when the 1% of revenue from advertising becomes a meaningfully larger share like 51% or whatever the threshold for being an advertising company is in your thinking), then I understand where you’re coming from.

However, I’m coming from a perspective to let history play out a little more before trying to predict the future too far out.

In addition, I find calling Apple an advertising company distracts from much more legitimate complaints about Apple.

And it whitewashes Google, Meta and their ilk.

Apple is far from perfect on privacy issues, but todate also nowhere near as horrific as the much more fully ad dependent companies.

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