Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#81

Post by FridgeSeal » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 10:36 PM UTC

lancesells wrote: post #36

aaaxyz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if it's intentional or not but this is what some online stores appear to do (poorly). E.g. suggesting me office chairs after I just ordered one, suggesting motherboards incompatible with a CPU I'm looking at...

If you're seeing ads from the same company for office chairs it's most likely a poor marketing campaign setup. It could also be if you're running third party blockers in your browser when you check out and then use the mobile apps you might not have been counted by the Facebook pixel.

"Oh that's because they set their campaign up poorly, they should have done xyz" yes but they didn't - a statement that holds for most campaigns we encounter. It is the ad-tech equivalent of "just don't write code that does ". It's a flawed argument, because demonstrably, in the vast majority of cases, people simply don't.

Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#82

Post by lambdasquirrel » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 10:53 PM UTC

andrewstuart wrote: post #55

I bet they're talking about how the heck they can own their own platform/browser. Facebook is too big to be under the thumb of the operating system and browser vendors, who are possibly hostile towards Facebook's way of doing things. Not an easy problem to solve.

Apple's control over its app ecosystem is unsettling at times. The tactics against Epic seem heavy-handed.

But then you have to remember how Facebook scraped the contacts list on Android phones, when users installed the Android app. Ugh.

Maybe an ideal world is one where there's more than one app store for iOS, but Apple still maintains control over the developer APIs. Apple bans plenty of legit content that isn't Disney kiddie-ish enough for its tastes. Imagine if the web were like that.

Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#83

Post by shajznnckfke » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 10:58 PM UTC

giantrobot wrote: post #77

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's detremental to your business to not be able to track users on such a granular level, it's a bad business. Except that Apple still allows tracking on this granular level, it's just that now they have to explicitly ask users to allow this. Says a lot about Facebook's (and others) business model if it only works when the vast majority of users are mostly unaware of the amount of tracking they do, but the minut…

It's not even just the amount of tracking that Facebook et al do but the pervasive scope of it all. It's also a serious abuse of language. Facebook and others use the word "ad" hoping people assume the definition is the old school television or print ad; "here's our thing buy it and it'll make you happier". Beyond whatever massage it had that advertisement only affected you if you turned to that page or watched it du…

Isn’t it common knowledge at this point that our browsing history is used to target ads? Who hasn’t had the experience of searching for a product and then seeing ads for it?

Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#84

Post by amelius » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 11:00 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #21

cheeze wrote: post #2

... And nothing of value was lost. If it's detremental to your business to not be able to track users on such a granular level, it's a bad business. I'm sure Facebook will survive here. 100% biased, can't stand that company.

> If it's detremental to your business to not be able to track users on such a granular level, it's a bad business. Except that Apple still allows tracking on this granular level, it's just that now they have to explicitly ask users to allow this. Says a lot about Facebook's (and others) business model if it only works when the vast majority of users are mostly unaware of the amount of tracking they do, but the minut…

> but the minute you make these users aware of the tracking and ask for their permission, the business model falls apart.

Unless you break the service in case the permission is revoked. Then users gladly enable the permission.

Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#85

Post by jefftk » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 11:01 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #35

tmhrtly wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in some situations if users see value in the opt-in then it can be ok. E.g. your phone asking you if you're happy to share your location with an app. I sure as hell want my mapping app to know where I am, but I also feel very comforted that I still get a say in the process. The thing about this tracking opt-in is that no user would ever want it because it's solely there to exploit them. So in this case I thin…

Wouldn't the value in this situation be "you get to use Facebook"? If they didn't make money off their users, Facebook wouldn't exist. Would you be ok if they did it that way? A warning that says "by using Facebook, you are agreeing to be tracked", at which point the user could either continue or uninstall the app?

The change Apple is making keeps Facebook (and others) from using the advertising ID to track users between apps. Facebook's ability to notice that you have suddenly started posting a lot of baby pictures and choose to serve baby-related ads is unaffected.

Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#86

Post by amelius » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 11:02 PM UTC

ghj wrote: post #31

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's detremental to your business to not be able to track users on such a granular level, it's a bad business. Except that Apple still allows tracking on this granular level, it's just that now they have to explicitly ask users to allow this. Says a lot about Facebook's (and others) business model if it only works when the vast majority of users are mostly unaware of the amount of tracking they do, but the minut…

To be fair if you add an opt-in step to anything, it will kill that thing. No moral judgement, just human laziness. If it doesn't kill it, it still becomes something everyone loathes (e.g., how you need an extra click to accept cookies on every site you use).

> To be fair if you add an opt-in step to anything, it will kill that thing.

That's like saying if you put a price on something, it will kill that thing. No, it doesn't.

Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#87

Post by olliej » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 11:03 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #21

cheeze wrote: post #2

... And nothing of value was lost. If it's detremental to your business to not be able to track users on such a granular level, it's a bad business. I'm sure Facebook will survive here. 100% biased, can't stand that company.

> If it's detremental to your business to not be able to track users on such a granular level, it's a bad business. Except that Apple still allows tracking on this granular level, it's just that now they have to explicitly ask users to allow this. Says a lot about Facebook's (and others) business model if it only works when the vast majority of users are mostly unaware of the amount of tracking they do, but the minut…

I thought the model was you had to ask permission, not that you just had to tell them.

E.g. it's not a cookie banner type thing, you provide the text for the dialog, and the dialog gives users a yes/no option.

So there's no ambiguity about what the user's intent in, and any developer who ignores it wouldn't be able to argue that they didn't understand.

Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#88

Post by jariel » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 11:06 PM UTC

johnday wrote: post #76

jariel wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"... And nothing of value was lost." This is definitely not true. There is considerable value in advertising, it's just not apparent to you. In fact - advertising that is 'well targeted' is considerably less annoying than ads that are poorly targetted. The economic value of a well targeted ad is probably 10x otherwise. Ergo - unless you are willing to pay for apps - you might now see 10x more ads appearing on pages t…

> The economic value of a well targeted ad is probably 10x otherwise. > Ergo - unless you are willing to pay for apps - you might now see 10x more ads appearing on pages than otherwise. I'm afraid that this is nonsense. If the economic value of selling bread went down by 10x, do you think people would start offering you 10x as much bread?

Only someone with absolutely no understanding of advertising would say this, because the effectiveness of targeting is a given, it's not controversial.

I would urge you to consider the real economics of the situation instead of propagating bad information, and embarrassing yourself.

Ironically, the evidence for the relative value of ads is right on Facebook Ad Platform itself!

You can run an experiment today, right now.

Create a Facebook ad, and send people to your web site, with some kind of intended action.

Send 'Ad 1' to a completely untargtted audience.

Send 'Ad 2' to a crudely targeted audience (say, nation and demographic)

Send 'Ad 3' to an interest based demographic.

You will right there, plain as day, in a single day, see that ads 1, 2 and 3 will each have an order of magnitude of a different conversion rate.

Most public commentary on ads is based on ignorance, which is somewhat understandable because it's domain specific knowledge, but because it's a 'personal issue' to some, they have an opinion about it.

Targeted ads are unambiguously better for everyone: sellers, marketers, exchanges, buyers.

The issue is privacy.

Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#89

Post by rightbyte » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 11:07 PM UTC

shajznnckfke wrote: post #83

giantrobot wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even just the amount of tracking that Facebook et al do but the pervasive scope of it all. It's also a serious abuse of language. Facebook and others use the word "ad" hoping people assume the definition is the old school television or print ad; "here's our thing buy it and it'll make you happier". Beyond whatever massage it had that advertisement only affected you if you turned to that page or watched it du…

Isn’t it common knowledge at this point that our browsing history is used to target ads? Who hasn’t had the experience of searching for a product and then seeing ads for it?

Took a long time for me to notice since I didn't even think that it could be possible.

Re: Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

#90

Post by johnday » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 11:11 PM UTC

jariel wrote: post #88

johnday wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The economic value of a well targeted ad is probably 10x otherwise. > Ergo - unless you are willing to pay for apps - you might now see 10x more ads appearing on pages than otherwise. I'm afraid that this is nonsense. If the economic value of selling bread went down by 10x, do you think people would start offering you 10x as much bread?

Only someone with absolutely no understanding of advertising would say this, because the effectiveness of targeting is a given, it's not controversial. I would urge you to consider the real economics of the situation instead of propagating bad information, and embarrassing yourself. Ironically, the evidence for the relative value of ads is right on Facebook Ad Platform itself! You can run an experiment today, right n…

I know that targeted advertising is more effective and I am not disputing that. I did not dispute it in my comment.

I am disputing your random assertion that, if advertising became less effective (say by removing targeting), the quantity of advertising that people see would go up significantly.

The amount of adverts that people see currently is not based solely on their economic value - it is based on their value relative to how much people are willing to put up with being advertised to. If advertising becomes less valuable, that doesn't mean people will suddenly put up with more of it.

Indeed, if the value of adverts went down, I would expect to see fewer advertisements, not more, since the value of showing them to people is now less relative to their willingness to put up with them.