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Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

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Re: Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

#81

Post by akmarinov »

gregorythecat wrote: post #65
Spivak wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that was really the case then why are FB and Google fighting it so hard? Shouldn’t they want this then?

I believe it will still comprise a reduction in their revenue. The internet as a whole will be less profitable, and only the big players will be able to survive. Maybe with time there can be a shift in the economics, but I would not bet on it. I can’t imagine people will start paying for email, search, music streaming...

Don’t people already pay for music streaming?

Re: Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

#82

Post by WhyCause »

TACIXAT wrote: post #64
tmpz22 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's ironic given some of the best possible ad blocking on mobile devices is Ublock Origin on Firefox mobile which is only available on Android (Apple only allows third party browsers to wrap Safari on iOS). Its 2020 and the only modicum of privacy you can get is a rooted android device.

That is a good point. I switched from Chrome to Firefox for ublock, and I use Firefox Focus regularly. That will be sad to lose moving to iOS.

Firefox Focus is on iOS; I use it as an ad-blocker in Safari, and to view the occasional Instagram or FB page. It does a pretty good job of blocking ads, even though it's restricted to using WebKit.

Re: Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

#83

Post by snowwrestler »

oblio wrote: post #63
criddell wrote: post #3

> We believe that industry consultation is critical for changes to platform policies, as these updates have a far-reaching impact on the developer ecosystem. Why should platform makers consult the advertising industry? It's not like the advertising industry consulted anybody before they started collecting every bit of data they could.

I'm honestly interested about this, Facebook is a big company. Is there no case of FB screwing over its partners? Like locking or limiting an API that they had offered in the past, etc. One thing that comes to mind immediately is that Facebook Messenger used to be accessible through XMPP and then they blocked that.

I mean, at one time you could build apps on Facebook that basically downloaded all of a user's data when they used it. The Obama campaign built an app that you could use to find your Facebook friends who hadn't been contacted by the campaign yet, so you could call them on the campaign's behalf. I heard of other political operations that built a "wish [famous person] happy birthday" app solely so they could grow their database.

Eventually Facebook closed all that access down and basically deprecated the concept of FB as an app platform entirely. That is a way more dramatic change than what Apple is doing to Facebook here.

Re: Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

#84

Post by simonh »

What we really need is an open platform on iOS for app stores, so that Facebook can launch or partner with a third party store that provides built in APIs to enable bypassing Apples restrictions. Maybe Facebook could make their app exclusive to it, so hundreds of millions of users are drawn to an App Store sub-platform subsidised by intrusive, data scraping, privacy compromising policies. Win!

Re: Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

#85

Post by ogre_codes »

actuator wrote: post #76
ogre_codes wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's my phone, not the developer's. I should absolutely have the right to disable this kind of tracking on my phone. If the advertisers/ developers want to track people, maybe they should start buying people phones or do what Google did and build an OS and give it away.

TBF, not all Android phones are created equal. There are Android phones sold in the developing world at low price points where ads appear on home screen, notification bar etc. with tracking deep within OS. Then, there are phones like Pixel where with recent versions you have control of what is shared and you need to authorize access(single/multiple use) for things like location. Like iOS, not much can be collected un…

Fair enough.

I probably shouldn't have mentioned Android at all because it's not about phone brand so much as it is my right to tell advertisers no.

Re: Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

#86

Post by K0nserv »

gregorythecat wrote: post #80
K0nserv wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple added SKAdnetwork specifically for the attribution use case, presumably because they foresaw this.

SKAdNetwork is severely restrictive. In my group we’re still forecasting a major hit to our ability to perform attribution or lift analysis.

It's worth it in the balance of user privacy and how accurate attributions are imo. Apple are tilting the balance back in favour of users.

Re: Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

#87

Post by trasz »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #58
Joeri wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do newspapers need to know what websites every subscriber visits in order to put ads in the paper? The idea that privacy needs to be conceded in order for a healthy ad market to exist is false.

Sure. As long as the flip side of that argument is equally appreciated - ad revenue pays for the apps, so less revenue will necessarily lead to fewer "free" apps and/or fewer "free" features and/or worse quality. It's a rational response of the intermediary (i.e. app makers) to the customers (i.e. advertisers) having less access to the product (i.e. us).

Ad-funded apps are usually garbage. Prime example is the Facebook app, or Messenger.

Re: Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

#88

Post by mattkevan »

techbra wrote: post #52
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #12

> Ultimately, despite our best efforts, Apple’s updates may render Audience Network so ineffective on iOS 14 that it may not make sense to offer it on iOS 14. Seems like Apple is really backing up their rhetoric with real action. Awesome news for anyone that values privacy. Kudos to Apple.

Only if they made this accessible to everyone. You need a thousand dollar phone which is useless in 3 years

Good sarcasm!

Sometimes it’s hard to communicate tone through text alone, but I really think you managed it there. Looking forward to more of your witty comments.

Re: Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

#89

Post by skratlo »

gregorythecat wrote: post #48

Given the attitude on HN about iOS14, I don’t think most here grasp the implication of gutting ad attribution. All publishers (news sites, indie games, etc) are going to see huge drops in CPM. It could easily be a business ending shift. Sure removing IDFA will help protect user privacy, but let’s not kid ourselves that there will not be collateral damage. Being a third party publisher will be that much harder and wal…

> Being a third party publisher

And what is it that you publish that helps humanity?

Re: Preparing Our Partners for iOS 14

#90

Post by baddox »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #58
Joeri wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do newspapers need to know what websites every subscriber visits in order to put ads in the paper? The idea that privacy needs to be conceded in order for a healthy ad market to exist is false.

Sure. As long as the flip side of that argument is equally appreciated - ad revenue pays for the apps, so less revenue will necessarily lead to fewer "free" apps and/or fewer "free" features and/or worse quality. It's a rational response of the intermediary (i.e. app makers) to the customers (i.e. advertisers) having less access to the product (i.e. us).

> less revenue will necessarily lead to fewer "free" apps and/or fewer "free" features and/or worse quality

I agree with "fewer" and strongly disagree with "worse quality."

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