[HN Gopher] Apple's ad business set to boom on the back of its o...
___________________________________________________________________
Apple's ad business set to boom on the back of its own anti-
tracking crackdown
Author : elashri
Score : 581 points
Date : 2022-10-03 16:24 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (adguard.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (adguard.com)
| drawingthesun wrote:
| As a Mac and iPhone user I am annoyed as this means I'll have to
| start migrating away from Apple over the next few years, paying
| for premium product only for the os and native apps to start
| getting adverts is atrocious and cannot be rewarded with my
| continued support.
|
| Edit: I just checked the stocks app on my MacBook M1 Max and
| there are unrelated adverts alongside finance news items.
|
| I am appalled and regretting my my m1 max (64gb ram, 4tb ssd)
| purchase for the first time. Up till now its has been one my of
| best tech purchases in my life. Not anymore.
|
| This is a sign of pure greed. The most profitable company wants
| even more profits and will damage its brand to do so.
| bloggie wrote:
| Yes this is exactly why I switched from Samsung to Apple after
| they added ads to the Wallet app.
| freeAgent wrote:
| The problem is that there's now nowhere to go, unless you can
| deal with using Linux as your daily driver desktop OS. I have
| tried many times and have never succeeded, but if it gets bad
| enough I may have to find a way eventually.
| danielheath wrote:
| It's definitely difficult at first - the loss of polish, and
| the extra up-front setup to make it nice.
|
| If you do try again, my advice is: Play to the strengths of
| the new OS.
|
| MacOS makes decisions for you (usually good ones), but you're
| SOL if you don't like them. This culture affects native apps,
| too.
|
| For me, getting good results out of Linux has been a question
| of putting in more up-front work to figure out what I
| actually want the computer to do. The result is... very
| comfy.
| cheeze wrote:
| The big problem for me is that there just... isn't a way to
| do a lot of things on Linux without a looot of effort.
|
| I use Linux as a daily, but I still have a windows computer
| for all the things you can't do anywhere else. Random
| executables that I (begrudgingly) need for work, life, etc.
|
| It's definitely getting better, but it's still not quite
| there. I still need my windows computer for various things
| that have no alternative.
| thaumaturgy wrote:
| I have been daily-driving Plasma (KDE) for ... eesh, at least
| 5 years now, maybe 7. I can't remember the last time I booted
| a Windows or Mac OS (for my own use). Plasma just keeps
| getting better too.
|
| I use it as a generalist dev (so, interacting with lots of
| different environments) as well as hobby & entertainment
| (incl. photography).
|
| The biggest pain point IMO is lack of a good email
| application. They're all aggravating in different ways.
|
| The initial getting-started process requires a bit of reading
| to figure out hardware support and get a few things dialed
| in. That's a little painful, but shouldn't be a deal-breaker
| for dev types.
|
| If you want to jump ship from the Windows/Mac dichotomy,
| check out Plasma. Runs great on Debian. Debian's less "sexy"
| than other distros, but it's a great solution for the "I just
| wanna get my work done" crowd.
| drawingthesun wrote:
| I would rather go back to cheaper computers and phones and
| deal with ads than pay for extremely premium products and get
| ads.
|
| I feel like an idiot buying a $7,000 aud computer to have the
| native apps contain ads.
|
| It's disgusting.
| nomel wrote:
| Is ad blocking on Apple products not possible? I naively
| assume some hosts file changes could clean it up.
| cma wrote:
| The problem for Apple is people with $7000 to blow on a
| ocmputer are worth way, way more to advertisers than people
| that spend $500.
| grapescheesee wrote:
| For an addition $1,000 you can purchase a lifetime ad-free
| option for this laptop. (Apple ID specific and
| nontransferable).
|
| Made in jest, but oddly nearing reality.
| grecy wrote:
| How do we go about blocking these ads?
|
| Sounds like we'll need OS level uBO.
|
| PS if you're serious, I'm interested in your m1
| drawingthesun wrote:
| What I mean by the next few years is instead of upgrading
| eventually to the M3 Max version of my laptop I'll buy
| something not Apple. If Apple continue down this path and
| don't do a reversal on this move.
| thr0wawayf00 wrote:
| > This is a sign of pure greed. The most profitable company
| wants even more profits and will damage its brand to do so.
|
| This a feature of the system, not a bug. Companies have to keep
| growing because analysts and the money people decide that's how
| the system works.
| DrBenCarson wrote:
| To play devil's advocate...if you believe Apple really stands by
| their privacy values, why wouldn't they start an ads business? If
| they feel they can deliver ads and protect customer data, they
| _should_ start an ad business. They owe it to shareholders and to
| their customers.
|
| If they don't do it, someone else will, and they ultimately don't
| trust third parties with their customers' data (also being a
| massive corporation, they don't like other companies generating
| revenue off the backs of their customers).
|
| If you believe Apple is genuine about their commitment to
| privacy, this should be encouraging news. If you don't believe
| that, then this does appear to be questionable at best (boxing
| out third parties so they can profit off the data themselves)
| amelius wrote:
| > If they feel they can deliver ads and protect customer data,
| they should start an ad business. They owe it to shareholders
| and to their customers.
|
| Collecting data about people is already an infringement of
| privacy in itself.
|
| It doesn't matter here if you keep that data out of the hands
| of yet other people.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| Profiling the user based on their seemingly private usage of
| the device is a breach of privacy. This is the big issue. It's
| not okay to be all for privacy when it's other corporations'
| tracking methods, but employ the same methods for yourself.
|
| What Apple basically did was say "tracking users for ads is
| great, and we realized we don't have to share this data with
| other ad companies, so good for us."
|
| Apple can collect device data for technical purposes, which is
| borderline, but more acceptable.
| xvector wrote:
| Anticompetitive to deny others the ability to run ads on your
| platform. Apple's gonna be hit big time with antitrust.
| DrBenCarson wrote:
| Yeah, that's not true.
|
| Apple doesn't stop anyone from running ads. They stop
| companies from collecting and aggregating data across
| multiple apps without explicit user consent.
| xvector wrote:
| Yes, but it's almost certainly not legal for Apple to
| aggregate across multiple apps while not allowing for other
| advertisers to do the same.
| m00x wrote:
| Yet they do it themselves :)
|
| It's a smart business decision. Basically "If you want to
| have deep tracking on users using iPhones, you need to go
| through us".
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Anticompetitive to deny others the ability to run ads on
| your platform._
|
| Yeah, if that were true it'd be pretty bad. (It's not true.)
| [deleted]
| saiya-jin wrote:
| DrBenCarson wrote:
| How can a product be overpriced if more than 50% of the [US]
| market buys and uses that product?
|
| You might want to reconsider who's doing mental gymnastics
| lol
|
| source: https://9to5mac.com/2022/09/02/iphone-us-market-
| share/
| account-5 wrote:
| Do they buy it outright of pay a fraction of the cost
| upfront then overpay for it on expensive monthly contracts?
| I very much doubt most of the 50% US market aren't tied
| into 24 month contracts.
| minhazm wrote:
| Why does that matter? It's an interest free loan and they
| eventually do pay for it. We don't criticize people for
| buying cars with loans or even houses. When we purchased
| my dads car we were going to buy it cash but we got a 6
| yr loan at 0% interest so it was a no-brainer to do that.
| Additionally most carriers now are offering incentives
| when you're on their payment plans. If your argument is
| that you should ditch your current carrier and use some
| cheap MVNO service instead then that's something entirely
| different.
| pb7 wrote:
| Does it matter? There is no such thing as "overpriced"
| for products that fly off the shelves except only in
| one's personal opinion.
| novok wrote:
| That is only a few markets, in one of the wealthiest
| countries of the world. In the rest of the world android is
| pretty much +%90 and iphones are luxury goods, like a
| designer handbag or a porsche.
|
| Apple is definitely the Porsche or Mercedes of computing.
| DrBenCarson wrote:
| Apple might be, but iOS is not.
|
| I can assure you 50% of America doesn't have a Porsche or
| Mercedes lol
|
| iPhone is just that much better than its nearest
| competitors.
| pb7 wrote:
| Neither of which are overpriced, they just target a
| different segment of wealth with a different set of
| features and build quality.
| jdmdmdmdmd wrote:
| I don't think it's gymnastics. The last part about being
| "genuine" is a stretch, but the fundamental point they're
| making is reasonable or at least worth discussing. It's
| relevant to the discussions of gambling and the lottery, for
| example. I don't appreciate Apple and their lock-in
| (especially the "we're protecting you" marketing) but the
| case for "the lesser evil" of advertising is worth
| discussing. I actually want Apple to start pushing ads, not
| because of the reason given by GP but because it will almost
| definitely kill Apple. I think they know that and will go
| only as far as they know they can without giving up their
| brand which is ultimately their most valuable asset.
| fullshark wrote:
| I actually don't care that much about the privacy stuff, you
| are insane if you don't think Apple tracks user metrics and
| device data for at the very least business intelligence. I care
| about the UX being worsened.
| pbronez wrote:
| They use some pretty sophisticated tech to do this in a way
| that respects user privacy:
|
| https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/Differential_Privacy_Over.
| ..
| DrBenCarson wrote:
| Oh 100% they collect and track user metrics, but I do think
| they abide by the answer you give when any Apple device asks
| you if you want to send metrics to the mothership at setup.
|
| It's also a matter of how well the data is anonymized. Given
| they've gone through the trouble of adding private email
| proxy features, secure web proxy features, and lockdown mode,
| I don't think it's lip service, but that's just my opinion.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| > Google's Manifest V3 -- Chrome's new extension-building
| platform -- severely limits the functionality of ad blockers.
| Though, ad blockers won't capitulate without a fight -- that is
| as much as we can promise you. In a world's first, AdGuard has
| recently published an ad-blocking extension built on Manifest 3.
|
| That's... awful? Building an ad blocker on top of Mv3 is exactly
| what Google is hoping for. If nobody built an ad blocker for it,
| how much market share do you think Chrome would keep?
| yladiz wrote:
| Not as many people care about, or even really know of, ad
| blockers as you might think.
| smoldesu wrote:
| That's funny, I remember people saying the same thing when
| Safari limited support for browser extensions:
| https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158
| jdmdmdmdmd wrote:
| >how much market share do you think Chrome would keep?
|
| The entire share of users who don't use AdBlock. The other
| users don't give them revenue anyway.
| rebeccaskinner wrote:
| I've seen this coming for a while, and I'm honestly not sure what
| the next move to make is for those of us who have done as much as
| we can to escape the hoards of advertisers. I have no particular
| love for iOS, but I switched to an iPhone years ago to escape the
| google ecosystem. There isn't really a plausible third option at
| this point. Even if Linux phones had usable hardware, more of the
| world is moving toward relying on apps that only run on DRMed
| systems with signed software from the data collecting duopoly. I
| can't deposit a check or order a taxi with a rooted phone, and
| the trend is getting worse over time- not better.
|
| I suppose the one up-side to the situation is that there's not
| much point in even trying to spend the time figuring out how to
| root a device, or dealing with egregiously under-performing open
| smart phone hardware, and it might be possible to save some money
| going back to a dumb phone.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| I recommended recently to my wife to buy Apple mini 13 as her
| next phone, after both of us being forever on Android.
|
| What a disappointment, she likes actually 1 feature - photos,
| and the rest is subpar experience compared to her old galaxy
| S10 (almost 4 year old phone). But then she likes my android
| photos similarly, since I have 10x zoom which is great for kids
| always running around or for hiking. Its not even first weeks
| of her use of Apple, she has it few months. I can browse on my
| samsung S22 ultra random internet without being swarmed with
| ads and tracking (firefox and ublock origin, something Apple
| phones will clearly _never_ have).
|
| And all the rest. It has fingerprint sensor for unlocking,
| instead of ridiculously shitty faceid which doesn't work with
| masks (she is a doctor so does wear them often). It often
| doesn't work even without masks, ie non-ideal light conditions
| like right now (evening and dimmer lights). Comparable S22 is
| much nicer phone to look at, to hold, to carry, to charge, and
| to work with.
|
| I regret recommending it to her at this point, I too was
| convinced by Apple's effective PR. But quality is just not
| there, the devices are worse, bigger in size with smaller
| screen, uglier, heavier, software is meh, raw CPU power is
| useless on its own when device is so limited. I don't believe a
| zilch of Apple's PR about privacy, as I didn't for the ads and
| various other PR talk, actions are the only thing that matter.
|
| And after reading this topic, its clear I will continue
| shopping in Android's non-chinese realm for a very long time. I
| don't consider my device secure from state actors, and neither
| is Apple, so we act accordingly. Thus, no added value in Apple
| devices, just plenty of marketing, similar to say Hermes or
| Louis Vuitton purses. Nobody believes those are worth 500$ or
| 5,000$ to manufacture, yet rich people buy them.
| hk__2 wrote:
| > I can browse on my samsung S22 ultra random internet
| without being swarmed with ads and tracking (firefox and
| ublock origin, something Apple phones will clearly never
| have).
|
| If you are ok with using Safari instead of Firefox, that's
| something that has been possible since 2015 on iOS [1].
|
| > instead of ridiculously shitty faceid which doesn't work
| with masks
|
| It does since iOS 15.4 (March 2022 [2]); I use it every day.
|
| > It often doesn't work even without masks, ie non-ideal
| light conditions like right now (evening and dimmer lights)
|
| Light has nothing to do with this because FaceID works with
| infrared: I'm able to unlock my iPhone in the dark with no
| issue at all. You're probably holding it wrong [3].
|
| > But quality is just not there, the devices are worse,
| bigger in size with smaller screen, [...] heavier
|
| I fail to find an iPhone 13 that's bigger than your Samsung
| S22 Ultra. The Pro Max is 0.2mm wider but 2.1mm less tall and
| 1.2mm thiner (163.3 x 77.9 x 8.9 mm [4] vs. 160.8 x 78.1 x
| 7.7 mm [5]). It does have a smaller screen-to-size ratio
| (87.4% vs. 90.2%) and is slightly heavier (240g vs. 228g --
| not sure how noticeable this is).
|
| > the devices are worse, [...], uglier, [...], software is
| meh
|
| That part is highly subjective. I personally find the S22
| Ultra very ugly but that's an opinion, not a fact.
|
| [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34173732
|
| [2]: https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/face-id-
| with-mas...
|
| [3]: https://www.macrumors.com/2017/09/13/how-iphone-x-face-
| id-wo...
|
| [4]: https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s22_ultra_5g-112
| 51.p...
|
| [5]:
| https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_13_pro_max-11089.php
| pkulak wrote:
| You can't deposit a check or order a cab with a dumb phone
| either. Might as well put Calyx on something and at least have
| Firefox and OpenStreetMap.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| I _want_ to be able to (among other things) order cabs and
| deposit checks using my smartphone, though. (Well, maybe not
| that last one, seeing as checks don't exist here in the
| Netherlands anymore.)
|
| Going back a decade in terms of functionality is hardly an
| answer.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Why can't you call a cab with a dumb phone?
| rebeccaskinner wrote:
| I've thought about going down that path, and I still might,
| but at the moment I'm very frustrated by the state of
| hardware and general support for a lot of the user and
| privacy respecting options to the point where it's hard to
| believe it'll actually be worth my time to try to get
| something like that set up.
| cwkoss wrote:
| We need to start a social movement to punish advertisers. Ads
| are pernicious and pervasive thought manipulation which
| systemically decrease the life satisfaction of nearly every
| person in society. It is a cancer.
|
| We should strive to make anyone who gets manipulated into
| changing their behavior based on an ad they saw feel ashamed
| and stupid for falling for their tricks, and angry at the
| advertisers for manipulating them.
| kibwen wrote:
| Say it louder: ads are socially-acceptable, corporate-
| sponsored brainwashing.
| thr0wawayf00 wrote:
| > We should strive to make anyone who gets manipulated into
| changing their behavior based on an ad they saw feel ashamed
| and stupid for falling for their tricks,
|
| This sounds great, but:
|
| A) how do you know/can you prove that you've been
| manipulated?
|
| B) How do we know that we haven't all been manipulated?
| (After all, millions of people bought into this ecosystem to
| get away from ads, I think every person who's angry has a
| case that they've been manipulated)
|
| and C) where is this social movement gonna take place? Social
| media, the bastion of internet advertising?
|
| The answer is make tech less important in our lives. There's
| been a pattern going back decades that technology grows in
| scale and utility and eventually becomes corporatized to that
| point that it generates more income to work against its
| users. The answer is to live a lower tech life. Less time on
| phones and apps and more time in the real world.
| kajaktum wrote:
| >We need to start a social movement to punish advertisers.
| Ads are pernicious and pervasive thought manipulation which
| systemically decrease the life satisfaction of nearly every
| person in society. It is a cancer.
|
| Will never happen until we can dispel the notion that human
| are free agents. People will never give up this believe about
| themselves. Meanwhile, it's proven to be effective by virtue
| of it being a trillion dollar industry or something. Same
| thing with gambling.
| kornhole wrote:
| Linux laptops are lovely at this point. Linux phones are for
| the more adventurous and tolerant hackers, and I love them for
| working out the issues. Android without any Google is the best
| handset option for most people. Degoogling can be accomplished
| in many ways such as using the universal android debloater
| found on github, or installing an Android fork such as
| Graphene, Calyx, or Lineage. Nextcloud is the most
| comprehensive replacement to many of the services and
| synchronization such as contacts, calendar, photos, files,
| bookmarks, passwords, phone location, news/RSS, podcasts,
| music, tasks, and notes. It can also host E2E chats and video
| calls.
| fsflover wrote:
| > Even if Linux phones had usable hardware, more of the world
| is moving toward relying on apps that only run on DRMed systems
| with signed software from the data collecting duopoly.
|
| This is not a technical but a political problem. People owning
| (GNU-)Linux-phones (or just caring about the future of mobile
| computing) should demand from the companies that they do not
| force everyone into monopolies.
| amelius wrote:
| you mean demand from governments.
| seydor wrote:
| So how much will you have to pay to view Apple Ads?
| reaperducer wrote:
| OK, that was actually funny.
| gumby wrote:
| Is there any way to block Apple's own ads today?
|
| I wonder if Apple will also try to prevent that or will just
| figure it's a small enough number that allowing it will help them
| with the nerds. Informally, when I see something on someone
| else's device, ad blocking doesn't appear to be popular. I can't
| imagine using the web without it.
| rchaud wrote:
| The lure of that sweet, sweet ad money finally takes down the
| FAANG member that many said would be immune to its charms.
|
| Apple didn't cut Facebook out of the picture for pro-privacy,
| 'user-centric' reasons. This is the same playbook they used in
| 2010 when they kneecapped Flash. It wasn't about battery life or
| viruses then, it was to clear a path for the App Store to be the
| focal point for app and game development.
| [deleted]
| bfrog wrote:
| I mean the main differentiator of Apple was the lack of Ads and
| tracking compared to google for me. If Apple starts hammering ads
| and providing tracking data and selling spots like google does
| with admob/android then is it really worth the premium anymore?
| smoldesu wrote:
| If the main difference between Apple and Google is selling your
| data, are they really all that different in the first place?
| Apple already collects plenty of telemetry from your devices
| whether you opt-in or not. OCSP sends data back to Apple's
| servers every time you tap an app, that's non-negotiable. They
| go out of their way to limit your traffic filtering
| capabilities solely so they can phone-home. The rabbit hole is
| pretty deep, and doesn't favor _any_ of these FAANG faces.
| alex_young wrote:
| Apple has astutely observed that they don't need a bunch of
| tracking cookies to track you across sites and services if they
| already have your account on your phone and access to everything
| directly.
|
| Google has something like this moat within their search engine
| dominance, likewise Facebook does for social, but both of them
| are rather limited slices in comparison with the OS itself.
|
| So, we arrive at this junction - Apple lobbies, for the consumer
| of course, to prevent tracking across the web, and conveniently
| limits their number of competitors to one, that being Microsoft
| which seems rather inept at this advertising thing anyway.
|
| It's hard to root for Google or Facebook here, but it's also
| pretty obvious that our friends in Cupertino don't have our best
| interests in mind.
| servercobra wrote:
| I'd say Google should be in a pretty good spot with Android +
| search engine.
| alex_young wrote:
| That's a good observation, but Google really doesn't control
| things the same way Apple does since they aren't directly
| distributing Android for the most part. It would be hard to
| pull off that kind of synchronization with the handset
| ecosystem.
| paulmd wrote:
| Google has very direct control over Google Play internal
| services which are effectively system-level services on
| android, and collects at least as much data on those users
| as Apple does on theirs.
|
| The 1% of users running some custom Android build aren't
| really relevant here, Google scrapes up plenty.
| oneplane wrote:
| While a bit weird, I can understand that you can do ads without
| tracking (perhaps without profiling as well) and this doesn't
| always mean that Apple becoming one with the capitalistic
| singularity of advertising business requires them to also be
| tracking people.
|
| The same goes for plenty of forms of telemetry; it doesn't equal
| individual tracking or tracking at all (before someone comes in
| with a cohort theory).
|
| Some things like predictive text entry (Microsoft did/does that?
| And grammarly and Gboard) have an easy implementation where you
| ignore privacy and simply dump all user entry onto a server and
| do the heavy lifting there. Apple's version of that might be Siri
| recordings when recognition fails to improve that, but I haven't
| seen it with ads or text entry (yet?).
|
| At some point no company should be doing any of this without
| homomorphic encryption or a good level of sanitisation. All of
| Apple's telemetry that you can inspect (either locally or simply
| by adding a proxy) is well-anonymised. It doesn't hide what
| specific binaries are causing errors as that would defeat the
| point of measuring reliability, and when you connect to someone,
| they will know what IP connected to them, but other than that,
| it's not as bad as people tend to make it out to be.
| innagadadavida wrote:
| We saw what happened to Apple's Siri search initiative that was
| started around 2014. If that is any indicator, don't have much
| hopes for this one either.
|
| Apple is being very hypocritical here. Privacy matters until they
| tell you it's ok, don't worry about it. With Budd Trible moving
| on, I guess this is the state of affairs. Sad.
| mabbo wrote:
| Apple will just wind up like Amazon: cannibalizing the customer
| trust now that they have market power.
|
| Consider: Amazon has the majority of e-commerce sales today in
| the west. This is largely in part of decisions makes 20 years ago
| to allow honest reviews by real customers, both good and bad,
| earning strong customer trust. Now they're making money by
| selling the top spot on their search results and calling it
| "advertising". It's not. It's the sale of all that customer trust
| they spent 20 years building up. And the money they make on
| selling that trust is massive.
|
| Consider: Apple is loved by its customers. They trust them. Apple
| means quality, security, and all the other good things they want.
| They're also at 30% of global mobile phone sales- massive market
| power.
|
| Now it's time to start selling off that customer trust for
| profit.
|
| Being Apple, the first move is to attack the entire online ad
| industry via privacy improvements- I'm not saying it's a bad
| thing that they did it, but I am suggesting they didn't do it for
| anything other than profit motive. Next, join the industry with a
| competitor in the space that takes advantage of all the things
| Apple knows about their customers. Trade the trust they've built
| up for a payout in cash.
|
| It was either that or try to invent a new product. Since Steve
| Jobs died that hasn't gone very well.
| [deleted]
| frazbin wrote:
| err nope, now that they've got an Si lead and control teh whole
| vertical, they can abuse us all the want; we literally have
| nowhere to go.
| hatuthecat wrote:
| Apple Watch was probably the largest launch since Jobs died,
| and now it's the dominant smart watch. Apple Silicon breathed
| new life into the mac lineup. AirPods have become the standard
| bluetooth earbuds. I think apple has been doing great with new
| products recently (after struggling in the late 2010s, as shown
| by their extreme emphasis on services instead of products then)
| and I hope they keep that momentum instead of compromising on
| ads.
| [deleted]
| moolcool wrote:
| Speaking of Apple, Apple Watch, and data collection, how long
| do you think it will be until an insurance company subpoenas
| Apple for it's health data? "You said you didn't have a
| preexisting condition on your application, but you knew you
| had an arithmia, because your watch told you so. Therefore,
| we have no choice but to deny your claim"
| JimDabell wrote:
| > how long do you think it will be until an insurance
| company subpoenas Apple for it's health data?
|
| If you have iOS 12 or later and you have 2FA set up, your
| Apple Health data is E2E encrypted.
| nominusllc wrote:
| Are pre-existing conditions still grounds to deny coverage?
| moolcool wrote:
| I'm not an expert, but I think it's enough to change your
| premium.
| math-dev wrote:
| In Australia, unfortunately yes (upto 12 months)
| novok wrote:
| IMO I don't really trust amazon reviews. I use amazon because
| they have a very effective shipping and return network and
| system, with a very broad set of items that pretty much nobody
| else reproduces. It's their fulfillment network essentially.
| Order from random retailers (even with shopify) and you're
| reminded why amazon is in the lead, with gotchas in return
| polices that get pretty irritating. Order from target / walmart
| and you notice how much is missing.
|
| Amazon wins because it's more like visa or a physical goods
| internet than a specific store.
| timmytokyo wrote:
| Tim Cook was asked about advertising and privacy a couple weeks
| ago. Here's his answer. Take from it what you will.
|
| "Digital advertising is not a bad thing. We've never said
| digital advertising is a bad thing. What is not good is
| vacuuming up people's data when they're not doing so on an
| informed basis. That's what is bad. And so we try to put the
| user in the driver seat there to own the data."
|
| https://youtu.be/sdvzYtgmIjs?t=3717
| amelius wrote:
| Driver seat as in: we'll show you an annoying popup asking
| for consent every time you are least prepared for it.
| apienx wrote:
| "Privacy means people know what they're signing up for, in plain
| language, and repeatedly." - Steve "Newspeak" Jobs
|
| Apple doesn't care about what cyberlibertarians think about their
| business practices. Baking in ads won't affect sales (might even
| prop it up if used to subsidize devices).
| resfirestar wrote:
| After reading the article, I still don't understand the exception
| Apple purportedly gets from its tracking rules. As I understand
| it, Amazon is allowed to use activity in the Kindle app to show
| personalized ads in the Amazon Shopping app without using the ATT
| prompt. Isn't that the same thing as Apple using News app
| activity to personalize ads in the App Store?
|
| The part that is unfair is that no one but Apple gets to have an
| App Store or process IAPs, which has always been the problem with
| iOS. Trying to make it about ATT just seems like a red herring.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It's Apple, so any critique draws attention.
|
| Long game, a successful Apple ad business creates bad
| incentives and is likely bad for customers. As evidenced by the
| AppStore really being a front door for the worst kind of
| skinner-box gaming, Apple will choose cash over any overriding
| principle.
| jahabrewer wrote:
| > ... I still don't understand the exception Apple purportedly
| gets from its tracking rules.
|
| As Ben Thompson has been shouting, it's because Apple has a
| very convenient definition of "tracking".
| tehlike wrote:
| Apple is blocking conversion tracking for third parties.
|
| Think of this: 1.Fb shows an ad for angry birds 2. user
| installs the app 3. user opens the app and makes a ping to fb
| to tell user with idfa xyz opened the app.
|
| The problem is not that only apple gets (2), but it is that
| because it gets (2), it thinks it should be able to dictate how
| (3) happens. Since apple is the only one doing (2), it puts
| everyone else at a disadvantage.
|
| And since apple doesn't have web ads business, it sees no
| problem killing that altogether through att as well.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| Couldn't 3 just be done on the backend? User opens app, ping
| to app's own service which pings FB. Then apple can't block
| it
| querulous wrote:
| the mechanism isn't important. what apple restricts is
| access to any kind of cross app identifier like the idfa
| unless the user explicitly opts in. sketchier platforms use
| device fingerprinting but apple also forbids that under
| it's terms
|
| the only way to do cross app tracking in ios without the
| user opting in and without violating apple policy is via
| explicitly associating accounts across apps either via
| oauth or some kind of account linking
| mvanbaak wrote:
| And how is this a problem? As user i like the idea that i
| can select where and when i want this tracking to take
| place
| tehlike wrote:
| Apple also restricts what app developer can offer to
| people who don't agree to tracking.
|
| Imagine if you are less monetizable user, in theory, app
| should be able to restrict what you can do in the app.
| It's a business transaction after all
|
| But apple gets a say in this too.
|
| Also apple uses it's app store moat to restrict tracking
| on websites too, similarly.
| cma wrote:
| Up the thread someone claims Apple calls it
| "personalization" when they ask you to opt in to it from
| them but "tracking" when an app asks you to opt in to the
| same thing.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| The enforcement is mostly legal, not technical.
| jmalicki wrote:
| Meta is already doing this
| https://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-
| api/conversio...
|
| Matching the ad to the user is just more difficult as it
| requires more in the way of user signups, as opposed to
| e.g. cookie-based tracking which is more ubiquitous and
| requires less integration.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| How do you get the same ID from 1 to use in step 3? (You
| don't.)
| tehlike wrote:
| Idfa. Which apple canned with att & skadnetwork.
| closeparen wrote:
| Just curious: I know developers can have deep links
| preserved through the app store installation process, so
| that e.g. after you install the app it takes you to the
| article you were reading in Safari. What stops you from
| putting an identifier in there?
| tehlike wrote:
| There are possible technical work arounds to technical
| restrictions.
|
| There are policy restrictions that you won't be able to
| get around which is what att is.
| johnthewise wrote:
| Apple. If you try to get around the restrictions, you may
| get banned, which means the end of your mobile business,
| so you don't risk it.
| ec109685 wrote:
| Apple has SKAdNetwork to track app conversions in a privacy
| centric way. E.g. Google Ad network is integrated with it:
| https://developers.google.com/authorized-
| buyers/rtb/skadnetw...
| tehlike wrote:
| It is workable, but apple still gets the secret sauce
| that's personal data. Apple can personalize the ads better,
| and measure performance better.
| jchonphoenix wrote:
| Apple has access to all data it blocks from other ad networks
| by virtue of you owning an iPhone. It uses this data in its
| DSP. One effect of Apple locking down privacy was to create a
| unique monopoly on data for itself and its an advantage it
| intends to capitalize on.
| [deleted]
| jshier wrote:
| It could have access, but so far all of these articles
| calling Apple out haven't cited a single shred of evidence
| that Apple has replaced the previous invasive fingerprinting
| by third parties with their own. If nothing else, the quality
| of the ads you see from Apple would indicate they gather
| less, not more, than most advertisers. I mean, I see ads for
| Apple products I already own, or services I already subscribe
| to.
| htrp wrote:
| That just says apple hasn't hired the ad guys from
| facebook/google .... yet
| novok wrote:
| Apple doesn't need invasive statistical fingerprinting,
| they already have your unique ID, unchangeable device
| serial numbers and apple ID account. An iOS device cannot
| install any app without an apple ID, and nowadays you need
| a phone number to create an apple ID which is pretty much
| _the_ supercookie identifier in most of the world.
|
| You can see a lot of the tracking and correlating that
| apple does within their own legal documents, which I
| commend them for at least writing them out clearly :
| https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-
| advertisin...
|
| Apple also uploads a lot of logs, etc from their devices to
| their servers, and opting out of apple level tracking at
| some basic level is often just not an option. Ex, they
| upload battery behavior info and use it to improve the
| battery perf of their devices, or upload people's locations
| and other location adjacent data like wifi networks with
| location services and so on.
|
| Apple cares about privacy from third parties, _not_ privacy
| from apple itself. Which is very apple of apple. Apple also
| does not let you turn it off in some key parts. And they
| know they work with security services & authoritarian
| governments that force them to hand over any data that they
| have access to, in secret, which gets thousands of innocent
| people killed, tortured and jailed every day at their
| scale. Yet they still collect it.
|
| Key parts of apple doesn't really like the existence of
| third parties in many ways, and if they could, they would
| rather have full locked down control, from what I can
| observe from external actions over the decades.
|
| Any large group of people will of course have different
| actions and motives, and I do commend part of the company
| for caring, and funding efforts like lockdown mode and
| keeping %95 of the company thinking and caring about
| privacy at some level. But that key %5 that does not
| basically ruins it for many. The best we can hope for is to
| slowly change that last %5, although with this Services &
| Ads push, I feel like that bad part is only going to grow
| worse.
| mr_toad wrote:
| What people care about is whether they track which websites
| you visit and the contents of your email. And then selling it
| to anyone and their dog.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _"Apple is also reportedly taking steps to build its own
| demand-side platform (DSP) ... If true, it would mean that Apple
| is jumping on the ad tech bandwagon, something that it has so far
| resisted doing."_
|
| Not entirely true: Apple's iAd platform ran for a few years in
| the 2010s before being canned in 2016.
| [deleted]
| FrenchTouch42 wrote:
| > Not entirely true: Apple's iAd platform ran for a few years
| in the 2010s before being canned in 2016
|
| It still exists, was just renamed to Ad Platforms (worked
| there).
| lelandfe wrote:
| Yeah, I found that to be a very narrow definition of "ad tech."
| Apple already has campaign management for ads today:
| https://searchads.apple.com/advanced
| lupire wrote:
| iAd lasted shorter than a Google chat app. It was DOA.
|
| When people say "ad tech" now, they mean DSP -- selling their
| party ads unrelated to the boat company. Apple Store ads are
| Apple ripping off iOS devs for product placement in its own
| store, not generic interest-based ads.
|
| https://ksmmedia.com/intel/the-apple-dsp/
| anizan wrote:
| Brings back memories of a monty python sketch "You have got nice
| ... here. It would be a shame if something happened"
| https://montycasinos.com/montypython/scripts/armyprot.php.ht...
| CharlesW wrote:
| Keep in mind the source, and that AdGuard is effectively
| competing with Apple to make your online life more private.
| reaperducer wrote:
| This is also about the ninth rehash on HN of the same newspaper
| article that was written three months ago.
|
| Every blogger with an axe to grind has been re-spinning this
| same point with more and more hyperbole since because "Apple
| bad" = _click click click click_.
|
| Nothing new to see here.
| amelius wrote:
| I have a better idea: let's just stay with the facts.
| jackconsidine wrote:
| Marketing campaigns often convince people to think things,
| however subconsciously, i.e. Lincoln is associated with Luxury or
| X cereal is a wholesome breakfast.
|
| What I hadn't seen until this was a marketing campaign that
| actually proselytized so many into proclaiming the message for
| free. On HackerNews, Reddit and in public places you're likely to
| find someone vouching for Apple's privacy practices sometimes
| with the same verbiage that's on the billboards! Maybe that's a
| testament to Steve Jobs's lasting marketing impact.
|
| I personally see the incentive structure which makes Apple more
| privacy-friendly than say Google. But I'm deeply suspicious of
| such a convenient message that the largest corporation in the
| world puts its resources behind. Also, being more privacy-
| friendly than Google and being privacy friendly are two different
| things.
| dilap wrote:
| It was quite a thing to see Apple's huge "What Happens on
| iPhone, Stays on iPhone" billboards up around town, at the
| exact same time they were announcing the rollout of a new
| content-side illegal-material scan-and-notify system.
|
| (I think they've since delayed the rollout of that system
| indefinitely, after public outcry.)
| misnome wrote:
| To be fair - wasn't that scanning on-device, and only
| uploading metadata on things that you yourself were already
| uploading to their cloud?
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| It was restricted to that for the time being yes. But still
| a big step in the wrong direction. I don't want my own
| phone spying on me. It's a bridge too far. Scanning _on_ a
| cloud service is a very big difference.
|
| Does it matter in practice? No. But it makes me feel very
| different about it. That's important too.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Same way I feel about it. When the data is on _your_
| servers, I fully expect it to be analyzed and checked to
| ensure it 's compliant with the host's standards. That's
| part of our agreement, as customer and service. When you
| move that software onto the device I use, now I have to
| be conscious of _everything_ I interact with. It 's a
| horrible sinking feeling that isn't easily mitigated by
| platitudes like "we promise not to abuse it!"
| freedomben wrote:
| The Apple philosophy though is to think of the phone as
| an _appliance_ , not a general purpose computer. The
| model of "ownership" is also a lot more gray with Apple
| devices. The idea that Apple has more control over the
| device than you do is the accepted norm. Given that, I
| think they could easily argue that your data is on
| _their_ device, so analyzing /checking is expected.
| They've been slowly iterating more and more to this model
| for years, likely because I think a lot of people will
| not go along with it unless the heat turns up slowly.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| That's exactly what they proposed to do.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I guess we have different definitions of "Apple's
| servers" then.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| When you sync or upload folder to iCloud, iCloud is
| Apple's property. They were scanning content before it
| landed on Apple's property to enable S2E crypto.
|
| Sounds like you're taking exception with the explicit
| parental notification, where a parent with a child
| enrolled in their iCloud "family" can request to be
| alerted when their minor child takes an action on the
| phone owned by the parent.
|
| The EFF wrote an awful blog that deliberately confused
| the already confusing release from Apple. Your privacy is
| almost certainly weaker as a result, as various entities
| can use a subpoena or warrant to access your files.
| falcolas wrote:
| The problem is that the data wasn't on their servers, it
| was just flagged to go to Apple's servers.
|
| And once you're scanning files with one flag set, nothing
| technologically prevents the scanning of files without
| that flag being set. And to quote myself from the Google
| Stadia brouhaha - "companies lie in PR statements" - so I
| have no reason to trust Apple's statement that they would
| never scan other files.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > And once you're scanning files with one flag set,
| nothing technologically prevents the scanning of files
| without that flag being set.
|
| You need to read up on how the system worked, because
| they picked a design that made absolutely no sense if
| they wanted to do that. They'd have to redesign it to
| work in a different way if they wanted to do that.
| smoldesu wrote:
| You can read up on it, if you want. I'm not going to use
| iCloud if it scans my data before it hits Apple's
| servers.
| scarface74 wrote:
| The phone was analyzing what you would be sending to the
| cloud.
| falcolas wrote:
| True. What stops it from analyzing other files on your
| phone? A policy block. It's simple to change policies (or
| be forced to change policies).
| JimDabell wrote:
| > What stops it from analyzing other files on your phone?
| A policy block.
|
| The phone would be literally incapable of determining if
| there were any matches. Please read up on how it was
| designed to work.
| scarface74 wrote:
| What's stopping them from doing the same with your
| unencrypted photos in iCloud?
|
| From a technical standpoint, at least you are protected
| from future policy changes if your files in the cloud are
| encrypted.
|
| Understand, I am playing the devils advocate role more
| than anything else.
| falcolas wrote:
| Nothing. And since it's uploaded, I've agreed that it's
| OK for them to scan and report on them.
|
| The key point I'm trying to make is that where the data
| is located matters for whether Apple (or Microsoft or
| Redhat or whichever company) has the ability or right to
| read and report on that data.
|
| > at least you are protected from future policy changes
| if your files in the cloud are encrypted.
|
| If, and only if, that data is never synced back to your
| phone (which Apples does currently).
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| Devil's advocate: "We kill people based on metadata."
| -Snowden
| handedness wrote:
| That statement was made by General Michael Hayden[0],
| former National Security Agency director, former Central
| Intelligence Agency director[1].
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/kV2HDM86XgI?t=1072
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hayden_(general)
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| Thanks for pointing that out! I'd heard it from Snowden,
| but didn't realize he wasn't the original source:
| https://twitter.com/theyesmen/status/652963715168534528
| dilap wrote:
| Yes, that's fair and true -- they promised the scanning
| would self-limit to content being synched with iCloud.
|
| But I think that's pretty thin gruel, since now you're just
| a feature-flag (or even a bug) away from all content being
| scanned. More broadly, the entire endeavor is very much at
| odds w/ the sentiment expressed in their public
| advertising.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > now you're just a feature-flag (or even a bug) away
| from all content being scanned.
|
| That's not true. The system didn't work the way you are
| assuming. The device had no knowledge of any matches. The
| "scanning" was a cooperation of client-side and server-
| side code, each with an extremely limited knowledge of
| the data involved.
| Clent wrote:
| The point the feature is lost here.
|
| They want to scan on device so they do not have to scan
| it in the cloud.
|
| Because people are in full FUD mode on this, we're stuck
| storing photos without full end-to-end encryption because
| Apple has do the scanning on their side.
| dilap wrote:
| Well, there is another option: Apple could actually
| respect your privacy, support end-to-end encryption, and
| not scan your content at all.
| lupire wrote:
| They do, if you choose not to push your content into
| their servers.
|
| If you don't want them to check for unwanted content,
| don't put your content on their machines.
| Jcowell wrote:
| How does this work in regards to a companies obligation
| (if there is one) to scan for illegal illicit material (I
| don't feel like typing that term out that we all know) ?
| dilap wrote:
| Sure, if the law requires it, then the company must do
| it. At that point, you are living under a rather
| intrusive government!
| yakubin wrote:
| I wouldn't trust a corporation of this size to make sure
| there aren't recurring bugs which cause scanning of things
| I have on my device, but do not upload to their servers. If
| the code for scanning, flagging me and reporting to
| authorities is on the device, then I expect bugs
| (intentional or not) which will trigger it, even though I
| don't use iCloud. Put the scanning in the cloud, then I'll
| be fine with it - I don't use the cloud.
|
| Also the scanning was calculating hashes based on content,
| not just metadata.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > If the code for scanning, flagging me and reporting to
| authorities is on the device
|
| It's not. The device has no idea if there are any
| matches. Everybody is assuming how it works without
| actually reading how it works.
| [deleted]
| tablespoon wrote:
| > To be fair - wasn't that scanning on-device, and only
| uploading metadata on things that you yourself were already
| uploading to their cloud?
|
| On-device scanning like that would be pointless, though.
| IIRC, stuff uploaded to their cloud is already accessible
| to Apple for server-side scanning. The controversial thing
| was the on-device scans would trigger some kind of upload
| of _un-uploaded stuff_ to Apple for further investigation.
| lupire wrote:
| Please provide a source for that claim.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > The controversial thing was the on-device scans would
| trigger some kind of upload of _un-uploaded stuff_ to
| Apple for further investigation.
|
| No, a load of people _assumed_ it would do that, but it's
| not possible with the proposed scheme because the device
| had no knowledge of any matches.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Actually that's perfectly in line with it "staying on your
| iPhone" that they were proposing to do content scanning on
| your phone. Not that I agree with it. But it is consistent.
| dilap wrote:
| But results about matches don't stay on the phone, which I
| think is clearly a violation of the statement (unless you
| are interpreting it in an _extremely_ literal way).
| scarface74 wrote:
| It only gets sent to Apple if you turned on iCloud photo
| syncing to send the photos to Apple.
|
| That means the alternative would be to send the photos to
| Apple and Apple scans the photo. Either way you send the
| photo to Apple and meta data gets generated about CSAM.
| It's just a matter of where the data gets generated.
|
| I'm also uneasy about it happening on the phone. But
| honestly, by it being processed on the phone, that means
| it can be encrypted before it gets to Apple's servers.
|
| I'm basically working under the assumption that scanning
| for CSAM is legally required.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| > I'm basically working under the assumption that
| scanning for CSAM is legally required.
|
| It is explicitly _not_ legally required in the US [1].
| Providers are required to report "apparent CSAM" that
| they find on their own, but they are not compelled to
| search their servers or private devices for its presence.
|
| And this is the case for a very good reason: if it was
| _mandated_ by US law, then prosecutions would be subject
| to much stronger 4th amendment review under the "state
| action doctrine" (i.e., the companies are searching your
| files without probable cause as compelled representatives
| of the government.) The current arrangement evades this
| review under the very thin fig-leaf that US providers are
| doing the searching on their own.
|
| [1]
| https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10713
| lupire wrote:
| FOSTA/SESTA and other law push back on that, wherein a
| neutral host (website, hotel) can be held responsible for
| crimes commited on their property if the government
| decides they are generally aware. Apple doesn't want to
| be an accessory. So even if they can't be required to
| scan, they can be punished for not scanning if something
| illegal turns up
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| IANAL and certainly don't want to defend those laws, but
| I believe FOSTA/SESTA ban providers from operating
| services _with the intent_ to promote or facilitate
| various crimes. In other words, the provider has to
| knowingly distribute the material. I 'm pretty sure that
| Apple encrypting its photo backup service would not
| satisfy these criteria, but _if it did_ and the only way
| to comply with those laws was enforced CSAM scanning,
| then many CSAM prosecutions based on it would probably be
| tossed out.
| dilap wrote:
| As far as I know, it's not legally required, at least in
| the US, though I wouldn't be surprised if suggestions
| from gov behind the scenes were the inspiration for this.
| I guess the EU is in the process of trying to mandate
| something like this.
|
| Which would be unfortunate. At that point, you won't be
| able maintain digital privacy from the govt w/o de-facto
| becoming a criminal.
|
| CSAM is, I think, simply the initial justification for
| these systems, since it's widely reviled. But the system
| itself is not CSAM-specific, and the temptation to expand
| its scope will likely be irresistible.
|
| If your goal was to become an authoritarian tyrant, you
| would be very happy to have this in place. :-)
| JimDabell wrote:
| > But results about matches don't stay on the phone
|
| Results about matches aren't ever on the phone in the
| first place. Only the server can determine if there are
| any matches.
| nonbirithm wrote:
| I don't think it's possible to exist as a public-facing
| corporate entity without some kind of content scanning
| mechanism. If that were possible, then every child abuser
| would simply move their data onto those platforms and they'd
| become untouchable.
|
| Even MEGA, which signals the virtues of privacy/security
| through the prominence of decryption keys on its UI flows,
| will still report illegal content to authorities and display
| a message saying so if content was removed for that reason.
|
| Any publicly traded company that touts perfect privacy cannot
| deliver what they are claiming, or they'd become the service
| of choice for every type of disenfranchised person -
| including child abusers.
|
| Apple has received much more flak than the average
| corporation over this issue because this fundamental
| impossibility of perfect privacy clashed with its own privacy
| signaling in a loud way, and the flurry of debate over the
| technical merits of the novel, widely shared on-device
| scanning solution caused much more scrutiny than the boring
| server-side scanning that has been ubiquitous for decades.
|
| But the fact is that no matter how Apple tries to approach
| the CSAM problem, it will ultimately have to weed out child
| abusers from its servers or be publicly and legally
| lambasted. That is what society has decided is best for the
| welfare of children, and as a result we will have to live
| with an imperfect level of privacy as provided by such
| entities.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Yup, and now your materials are in clear text on their
| service getting scanned routinely I'm sure.
|
| That particular issue was the privacy advocacy people run
| amok.
| ksec wrote:
| I remember Tim Cook said they are not in the Ads Business.
| Unfortunately I am too busy, Apple's PR has worked hard to
| delete those tracks of what Tim Cook said, or Google's search
| engine is longer showing what I am looking for.
|
| And I remember that "Apple is not in the Ad Business" before
| 2018 was the most cited defence and reason on HN. That was
| before the war on tracking, the submarine articles on ads, and
| the attack on Facebook.
|
| Because you know what? Privacy is a _Fundamental Human Right_.
| And because iPhone is the only smartphone that values your
| privacy, banning iPhone sales in your country is also against
| _Human Right_.
|
| >But I'm deeply suspicious of such a convenient message.
|
| I was probably the only few who was _deeply_ _deeply_
| suspicious of the "Dont be Evil" Google in the early 00s, in
| an era of "Dont be Evil", when everyone in Tech thought they
| were Saint. The self righteousness of Google, I thought nothing
| could be worse than Google's hypocrisy. I mean how can
| something be worse than "Dont be Evil"?
|
| Well here we are. The era of "Fundamental Human Right". A
| company that worked with CCP, invested $275B to build and
| improve the whole CE supply chain in China. Helping those
| companies to compete in area where CCP has a strategic
| interest, Continue to invest and help those companies to set up
| operation in India or Vietnam in the name of "Diversification
| from China" as PR headlines.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I remember Tim Cook said they are not in the Ads Business.
|
| Yes, he said that after Apple failed in the ads business,
| just as it was focussing on leveraging its platform control
| against the firms that had beat it to reshape the field for
| the next try.
| P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
| I degoogled long before it became popular to do so. And I was
| on gmail early enough to have needed an invite.
|
| But the writing was on the wall for anyone who knew what to
| look for. And it's the same with the likes of Paypal. I
| refuse to use these services because they're not banks and
| are not beholden to the same rules (they're getting more
| regulated, and my find themselves to be a bank equivalent
| eventually).
| kbenson wrote:
| > The self righteousness of Google, I thought nothing could
| be worse than Google's hypocrisy.
|
| I wasn't very suspicious at the time, but learned to be. My
| take on this is different though. I don't think it was a case
| of self-righteousness as much as extreme naivete of some
| postdocs that were just entering the business world. naivete
| in thinking a statement such as that couldn't be twisted to
| the point it meant less that it already does ("evil" is not
| well defined), and naivete to think _they_ wouldn 't be the
| ones twisting it, whether on purpose or subconsciously, as
| business needs slowly changed and they had to justify keeping
| their business afloat and profitable, and people in jobs, and
| shareholders happy.
|
| You either set up your business such that it's incentivized
| to align with your morals, or your business (the market) will
| incentivize you to change your morals to align with it.
|
| If nothing else, we've learned that practices that seem
| mostly benign one decade at low scale can become very
| troubling the next decade when done at a much larger scale
| and/or when additional consequences of the practice become
| known. Choices made that align with your morals at one time
| may have consequences that mean you were wrong, even if you
| couldn't really have known it, but now your business relies
| on this prior decision.
|
| Running a business is hard, making overreaching statements
| you can't live up to later is easy.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > I was probably the only few who was deeply deeply
| suspicious of the "Dont be Evil" Google in the early 00s, in
| an era of "Dont be Evil", when everyone in Tech thought they
| were Saint. The self righteousness of Google, I thought
| nothing could be worse than Google's hypocrisy. I mean how
| can something be worse than "Dont be Evil"?
|
| I don't think that's accurate or fair, and I think (as I
| often see) it misses a lot of context around where "Don't Be
| Evil" came from, and what it really meant.
|
| "Don't Be Evil" was basically to highlight and contrast
| Google's desired culture from Microsoft's at the time of the
| late 90s/early 00s. That is, at the time, and especially
| _early_ in Microsoft 's existence, MS was pretty famous for
| "dirty tricks". E.g look at the early history/origins of DOS,
| anti-competitive tactics WRT DR-DOS [1], how they fought the
| browser wars, the full history outlined in Microsoft v United
| States, etc. The icon for MS in Slashdot at the time was
| famously the Gates "borg" icon, and that is how a lot of
| people viewed MS.
|
| When it comes to Google, I think the whole idea behind "Don't
| Be Evil" is that they believed that you could make money
| withOUT dirty tricks, and up until 2010-2012 or so I think
| this was largely true. People flocked to Google and their
| products not because they were forced to, but because the
| products were genuinely much better than the competition at
| the time. Search, GMail, Maps, StreetView, Chrome - when all
| of these came out I remember thinking "holy shit this is
| amazing".
|
| The problem, though, is that at some point all very
| successful companies reach a size where I believe it's only
| possible to respond to your economic incentives, which are to
| grow at any cost. I mentioned 2010-2012 (maybe a little
| later, 2012-2014) because that's when I feel like I really
| saw Google's approach change to really squeeze the pennies
| from their existing business, e.g. when they made ads more
| and more indistinguishable from organic results, or when they
| made it so that any remotely commercial search term has an
| ENTIRE page of ads above the fold. Paying "the Google tax"
| became a real thing, e.g. you'd have to pay Google for an add
| JUST on your domain name because competitors might bid
| higher.
|
| Thus, if anything, I give Google props for "holding out" a
| good ~12-15 years before their growth and economic incentives
| made it "must increase revenue at all costs" and the
| beancounters took over.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code
| moonchrome wrote:
| >"dirty tricks"
|
| You mean like colluding with other big companies to
| suppress wages ? Your timelines don't check out since
| there's evidence of this going back to 2007.
| hero4hire wrote:
| faeriechangling wrote:
| I would argue Google turned evil quickly, pretty much the
| moment they released the surplus behavioural data they
| could glean off their users when they used their services
| could be extracted for profit which begun even before
| gmail, allowing them to "personalize" your services. And by
| personalize, I mean Google built a profile on you to better
| learn how they could poke and prod at your behaviour in
| order to manipulate you into doing things for their
| customers, the advertisers.
|
| I think the doubleclick acquisition hopped this into
| overdrive and also allowed Google to start screwing both
| sides by extracting larger and larger rents from
| advertisers with its near monopoly power and ad cartel with
| Facebook. We saw the Google tracking cookie spread like a
| plague shaking down users for data even if they did not use
| a Google service, as sites effectively needed to install
| googles tracking cookie on its customers computers to take
| full advantage of the Google ad monopoly, obliterating the
| pretence of consent you had with a service like gmail where
| you were at least consciously agreeing to data scraping.
|
| I honestly think it took them almost no time at all to go
| from pagerank and spiders to leap towards building their
| panopticon and the modern surveillance economy. I think the
| reason people didn't consider them evil is that what they
| were doing was so innovative and groundbreaking that people
| didn't fully understand the implications. The way their
| business operates shouldn't even be legal with them playing
| both sides of the ad market and their relentless spying
| being opt-out at best if you have sufficient technical
| knowledge. The spying of Google and companies like that
| it's undermining government privacy protections at this
| point as the government can acquire spy data it couldn't
| gather itself legally (for good reason) from private
| companies.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Wow ... it's insane how "Apple is not in the ad business" has
| been scrubbed from the internet.
|
| I've seen this happen before. But not with a big corporation.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| The modern internet gives me a strange sense of amnesia. I
| swear everything is heavily censored and redacted now, but
| how can I prove it when my primary view into this world is
| the search engines themselves? It feels a bit like the
| simulation hypothesis.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| carlineng wrote:
| > I remember Tim Cook said they are not in the Ads Business.
| Unfortunately I am too busy, Apple's PR has worked hard to
| delete those tracks of what Tim Cook said, or Google's search
| engine is longer showing what I am looking for.
|
| The first sentence of the actual article links to when Tim
| Cook said that.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| They're not in the search business because the potential is
| much more limited compared with selling hardware and
| services. People use YouTube and Facebook for many hours a
| day and the amount of revenue compared with what Apple can
| get from ads in app store, news, perhaps iPhone search and
| other Apple apps are orders of magnitude higher (hundreds of
| billions of dollars compared with single digit billions for
| Apple).
|
| Privacy is very different for most of the ads Apple are
| currently showing too. Search ads work without the need for
| tracking because when people are searching for something you
| show them ads for things they are searching for now, not from
| some model of their interests created from their tracked
| internet history.
|
| This is why Apple can have an ad business and also destroy
| Facebooks (and others) ad business based on tracking - they
| don't need to squeeze every dollar from targeted ads.
| Dangeranger wrote:
| There is a speech that was given at EPIC (Electronic Privacy
| Information Center) in 2015 that is likely to have the quote
| you are looking for.[0][1]
|
| There is a short clip of his speech at the event which was
| reported by NBC News, in which he states the boundaries of
| their advertisement program at the time.[2]
|
| EDIT: There is also this story from the Verge in 2014 which
| includes a lengthy quote about the advertisement program.[3]
|
| [0] https://archive.epic.org/2015/06/tim-cook-backs-privacy-
| cryp...
|
| [1] https://archive.epic.org/june1/
|
| [2] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/apple/its-wrong-apple-ceo-
| tim-c...
|
| [3] https://www.theverge.com/2014/9/17/6368669/tim-cook-
| talks-up...
| [deleted]
| yazzku wrote:
| 'Deeply suspicious' is an understatement. These corporations
| don't have your back, and if something benefits the user, it's
| only as a side effect. Sadly, many still buy into the
| messaging, which must be hard to avoid when Apple's marketing
| has always been around making you feel like the kool kid in the
| block. Anybody who has ever believed Apple's pro-privacy scam
| is living in a fairy tale.
| lupire wrote:
| No one has anyone's back, except if your mother loves you, so
| what's the point of that complaint?
|
| Alliances of mutual benefit are still good.
| yazzku wrote:
| Except that this isn't an alliance, and the point of the
| complaint is that they market themselves as pro-privacy
| when they are anything but.
| lupire wrote:
| It's called doing well by doing good, and earning a god
| reputation.
|
| If you do good, people will talk about it, and you get to talk
| about it.
| gigel82 wrote:
| Not only that, in my experience, the support is fanatical in
| nature. I often get downvoted and flagged for daring to state
| the obvious, which is that Apple is positioning itself to
| become one of the largest companies in the Ad space. It's
| probably more than just great marketing / PR (at least - of the
| usual kind).
| ouid wrote:
| apple uploads and modifies all photos you take on your device
| with the explicit stated intent of referring you for
| prosecution. That doesn't sound very private to me.
| addicted wrote:
| A huge part of Apple's positive incentive structure was the
| fact that they didn't do ads.
|
| But now that they are getting into the ad space that incentive
| structure benefit pretty much crumbles away.
| giobox wrote:
| I have huge concerns about this, I think it's really hard for
| any publicly traded company who gets into ad-tech not to end
| up making some questionable choices. The incentive structure
| in the ad business is such that no matter how strong a core
| org you think you have, it likely corrupts over time. While
| Apple's track record on privacy is commendable, Tim loves
| (and needs to keep shareholders happy) a good Services growth
| story.
|
| It's also clear at this point, the most profitable ads in the
| industry are the ones that most take advantage of personal
| data - this isn't a secret. The difference in profitability
| can be stark too, which is why I worry so much about the
| incentive structure.
| moreira wrote:
| You might be surprised to know that Apple has been doing ads
| for over a decade. [0] They've had ads for a long time, and
| still do - App Store search ads[1] and Apple News ads, to my
| knowledge.
|
| [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAd [1]:
| https://searchads.apple.com/
| indymike wrote:
| Also: both the App Store and Apple News cannot be
| uninstalled on MacOS.
| yazzku wrote:
| I don't get where people get that 'Apple didn't do ads'.
| I'm not even an iOS user and I know that much. Must be
| drinking unreal levels of kool-aid.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Apple was and is so bad at advertising that people think
| they didn't do it until recently.
|
| Part of it just comes with the territory. Apple is a
| computer company that prides itself on not only having a
| sense of _taste_ , but being able to impose that sense of
| taste on its business partners. This is contrary to the
| goals of advertisers - tastelessness kind of comes with
| the territory and advertising inherently messes with the
| user experience.
| nvrspyx wrote:
| Let's not forget that App Store search ads replaced iAds,
| which was an in-app ad network. I assume that it was shut
| down because of too much competition in the space, but
| perhaps we'll see it come full circle as Apple diminishes
| the "effectiveness" of third-parties.
| lancesells wrote:
| And there was the Steve Jobs era ad network that has big,
| interactive type flash ads that Apple had to approve as
| being "good". I don't remember much except working on a
| video component of a Geico ad that was mobile only in
| ~2009.
| fragmede wrote:
| They were always a marketing company though. See this more as
| the prodigal son returning to his roots.
| pb7 wrote:
| How is it a marketing company?
| factorialboy wrote:
| Few months ago when launching apps on Mac Os became sluggish
| because their telemetry service had high latency -- that was
| the moment I lost faith in all of Apple's privacy claims.
|
| PS: Still use a MBP, iPhone and an Apple Watch. :(
| Spooky23 wrote:
| They didn't say what happens on MacOS stays on MacOS.
|
| That type of capability is core to most general purpose OS's
| today. Any significant company is running EDR, etc that's
| even more intrusive
| user3939382 wrote:
| If you just put macOS on a proxy you can see the it basically
| never stops phoning home. Privacy my ass.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| On a laptop not on WiFi what happens?
| gumby wrote:
| That telemetry could easily -- more easily in fact -- have
| been done in a privacy protecting way: have your machine ship
| with a signature database and then have it randomly and
| frequently download deltas. Then check the signature database
| locally. It would be faster too. Especially on the mac we're
| not talking about an enormous database.
|
| Rather disappointed that Apple didn't take this route. They
| do do something similar with their virus database (XProtect).
| e40 wrote:
| That "telemetry" (which is misleading in the current context)
| was about checking for malware. I'm talking the specific case
| of launching apps on macOS.
| Zagill wrote:
| Part of the issue IIRC is that application names were
| exposed in the request, not encrypted in any way. So there
| are legitimate privacy/security concerns in publicly
| announcing every application that you open on your
| computer.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| that is still very much the same thing
| clairity wrote:
| > "Also, being more privacy-friendly than Google and being
| privacy friendly are two different things."
|
| in theory, that's ok, if we have healthy, functioning markets
| that are free from undue influence of any individual
| participant. the "invisible hand" of the market would drive it
| iteratively toward more privacy (assuming this is valued by
| more than minor segment, greater than ~15% of the market). the
| market would (and should) be an ongoing conversation between
| suppliers and consumers to reach all the profitable corners of
| supply and demand, rather than a couple behemoths with
| megaphones telling us how great they are, rather than showing
| it through their products and practices.
|
| p.s. - has anyone else noticed adguard doing port-scans on your
| gateway from their dns service IPs? i haven't dug into it yet,
| so i don't know whether it's spoofed or whatnot.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > functioning markets that are free from undue influence of
| any individual participant. the "invisible hand" of the
| market would drive it iteratively toward more privacy
| (assuming this is valued by more than minor segment, greater
| than ~15% of the market)
|
| The market is for advertisers, and advertisers - whether they
| are small or large businesses - value tracking and
| measurability of their advertising investments.
| clairity wrote:
| advertisers value a way of determining ROI, which doesn't
| necessarily require pervasive tracking (see: nielsen
| ratings of yore).
|
| in any case, my point was about the consumer electronics
| market, which is apple's core industry, and which, in a
| healthy and well-functioning market, also has a key stake
| in this conversation (driving it toward non-distorted,
| optimally efficient outcomes).
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > doesn't necessarily require pervasive tracking
|
| I disagree. Incrementality studies (which measure ROI) as
| advertisers want them are basically impossible with ATT.
| You need to be able to pass an ID between apps.
| clairity wrote:
| yes, but you haven't shown that that translates into more
| precise and accurate ROI. marketers and advertisers
| believe it should, but there's no solid proof. that's
| because markets (and any human endeavor) is complicated
| beyond our ability to model (and solve) it
| deterministically. attribution models (such as
| incrementality studies) can sometimes give you clues, but
| can't really tell you why any given person bought
| something with any certainty. it's the old adage of half
| of advertising dollars are wasted, but you don't know
| which half.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Before ATT happened, FB has a tool that would run
| experiments to assess incrementality of your advertising.
| It's possible, but there are a bunch of privacy trade-
| offs..
| clairity wrote:
| right, but again, those are very likely probabalistic,
| population-level models that make assumptions about how
| to attribute credit--does it all go to the first
| view/click? how likely is the first view/click really the
| first view/click? do you instead apportion credit across
| clicks/views? how? it's somewhat useful at a population
| level, but not at all at an individual level, especially
| not for the tradeoff in privacy, anonymity, and autonomy.
|
| but the kicker is, is it better than just doing studies
| without the more invasive attribution data, especially in
| relation to the higher price and market consolidation?
| very unlikely. ad monopolization means more of the value
| in the value chain goes to the monopolist regardless of
| the proportion of value they provide in the chain.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > is it better than just doing studies without the more
| invasive attribution data,
|
| Absolutely, as the controlled incrementality study is
| impossible without either attribution or some group-based
| approximation of attribution (ie. federated cohorts,
| etc.)
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > there's no solid proof
|
| I think modern incrementality studies give solid proof of
| the value of an ad on the basis of a good model of how
| the world works. Of course, models can be wrong - it
| could turn out that solipsism is true, physics is false,
| and the world outside of your own mind is a figment of
| your imagination!
|
| That the world is complex and models are inherently wrong
| does not mean that nothing of value to businesses was
| lost with ATT.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > the market would (and should) be an ongoing conversation
| between suppliers and consumers to reach all the profitable
| corners of supply and demand, rather than a couple behemoths
| with megaphones telling us how great they are
|
| I agree but where do we see this? Everywhere I look it's mega
| corps. Food, fuel, power, electronics, clothes. I can't think
| of a good example of the ideal relationship.
| clairity wrote:
| mostly in commodities markets (almost by definition, ha).
| if we had an anti-trust division with any teeth, we'd have
| many more markets like this, as that's the whole point of
| anti-trust enforcement--to un-distort markets to drive
| greater efficiencies and maximize value across the economy
| (not just in large corps and solely for the already
| wealthy).
| lupire wrote:
| Monopolies are optimally efficient across the economy, as
| long as the monopolist doesn't get too greedy.
| Competition is wasteful -- competition is why the
| deadweigh loss ad industry exists!
| clairity wrote:
| monopolies seeming to be efficient like that is only true
| in a limited static analysis. in a dynamic and complex
| economy, there's great value in the flexibility,
| ingenuity, resilience, price discovery, and creative
| restructuring provided by multiple competitors in a given
| market.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| cormacrelf wrote:
| > On HackerNews, Reddit and in public places you're loath to
| find someone vouching for Apple's privacy practices
|
| FYI loath means "unwilling", so it doesn't make sense here.
| "Loath to X" is like "I would loathe doing X". The word you're
| looking for is "likely".
| [deleted]
| lbotos wrote:
| Not op, but I wondered if this was a Britishism. My partner
| recently introduced to me to "lousy with" meaning
| "abundance"...
| mgerdts wrote:
| My mom who is not British and has spent almost no time
| outside of the Great Plains uses this term. I think the
| "lous" come from louse, the singular form of lice. A great
| abundance of not a great thing.
| lbotos wrote:
| TIL! But my partner has heard it used in the UK like "I'm
| lousy with options" as in, I'm overflowing with choice.
| That was a fun convo as I was like ... What??
| [deleted]
| diputsmonro wrote:
| "Lousy" also has a definition of being infested with lice
| (the singular form of which is louse); according to the
| Etymology Dictionary this may be the original meaning
| (https://www.etymonline.com/word/lousy)
|
| From there, it seems to have developed as an _American_
| slang to describe "infestations" of other kinds.
| Xeronate wrote:
| I see you were right, but I think both choices (loathe and
| likely) are acceptable. I originally thought jack was saying
| "its unfortunate to find" or "it's disgusting to find".
| jackconsidine wrote:
| Had my negatives flipped- thanks for pointing out!
| tootie wrote:
| I like to say that Apple is a marketing company that makes
| decent tech products. They absolutely played this market like a
| fiddle. They sat back and watched Google and FB absorb tons of
| bad press and I'm sure they were feeding it behind the scenes.
| It always felt to me like a ploy. As much as ads and the SEO
| game had their problems, they were there to support the open
| web. Apple kept tapping the breaks on improving their web
| browsers and driving users to apps because that was their
| walled garden. Owning an iPhone now is essentially a status
| symbol, owning an Android means you're poor. The privacy rules
| designed to kill ads was only ever designed to hurt Google, not
| to protect users.
|
| As a counter example of marketing gone wrong, Amazon has very
| steadfastly never sold their customer data to anyone. No one
| ever thought for a second that they did this because they were
| interested in privacy.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| "Selling data" means nothing. Amazon trades in data services
| all of the time. Facebook is serving up retargeted Amazon ads
| in near real time.
|
| Apple usually designs their experiences around things they
| control end to end.
| lupire wrote:
| Google also has never sold customer data. Amazon has been in
| level trouble several times for stealing customer (product
| seller) data.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| I propose a law, that states that advertising is only permitted
| in certain locations, in certain industries (phonebooks, highway
| ads, TV stations), and that anywhere else, it is completely
| illegal to advertise, full stop. Do not even think about
| advertising there if it's not on the short list. If you want to
| advertise on a product, no money must exchange hands, or Congress
| must pass an amendment.
|
| EDIT: Forgot when writing this down (been thinking about this for
| a while), but this would only apply to Publicly traded companies.
| andsoitis wrote:
| Wouldn't it be better to enumerate what's prohibited rather
| than what's allowed?
| tzs wrote:
| So if a publicly traded company wants to advertise on TV they
| either have to find a TV station that will run their ad for
| free or they have to buy a TV station, because of the
| requirement that no money change hands for the ad?
| mateo411 wrote:
| I think we would have to change the 1st Amendment to make this
| type of law constitutional.
| ccouzens wrote:
| How do you tell if something is advertising? Is a sportsperson
| wearing a brand because they like it or because they're being
| paid to wear it?
| elicash wrote:
| So you start a t-shirt business online, and you can only
| advertise in those places instead of Instagram? Seems bad for
| the business.
|
| Would be very profitable for tv stations, though! And we'd see
| a ton more billboards covering everything.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Well, in that case, I would just say that my law only applies
| to Publicly traded companies.
|
| That would cover all the Apples, Samsungs, Rokus, and so
| forth of the world which is what we care about most, I think.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Since you're already making carve outs, here's $100,000 for
| your reelection campaign if you exclude Apple, too.
|
| Ethical marketing is a hard problem to solve, I don't think
| the best solution is focusing on where it happens, instead
| it should be focused on how it's happening (targeting) and
| what the content is.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Highway ads are bad because they distract drivers. Some states
| like AK and VT have banned billboard already.
| amelius wrote:
| Let's also ban professions in advertising.
|
| I mean, we did it for prostitution, so it could work?
| seydor wrote:
| good. let's run some ads to pass that law
| cwkoss wrote:
| Highway ads are a public safety risk and should be banned, IMO
| amelius wrote:
| Also just about any type of advertisement stimulates
| overconsumption.
|
| Banning ads right now seems like a sensible thing to do if we
| want to reach climate goals.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| That'll never stand up to a First Amendment lawsuit
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| I'm not so sure about that. In many states, if you sell a
| product, the government can compel you to put speech on your
| product (such as, for tobacco, giant warnings about
| addiction.) In my home state, Minnesota, advertising certain
| products (like adult-themed stores) is banned on highway
| billboards. If that is legal, you could maybe _at least_
| force a giant black-and-white text warning covering up half
| the side of TV saying, "Warning: Contains non-removable
| built-in advertising and user behavior tracking features." If
| you were really nasty, you could force a "sin tax" on the
| manufacturer for doing so - just charging 10% per product
| with built-in advertising would quickly end the practice.
| Treat advertising like tobacco - even that would be a start.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| Treating advertisements like tobacco would mean giving the
| FDA control over what people and read. Definitely a First
| Amendment problem.
| anotherman554 wrote:
| Well first of all tell us how we should read the first
| amendment. Do we do it based on what the FOUNDING FATHERS
| believed or what the language of the amendment says, or
| some other doctrine?
|
| Because if we do it based on what the FOUNDING FATHERS
| believed, unless you can find a quote where they said the
| first amendment would apply to advertisements, then we
| can conclude that the first amendment doesn't apply at
| all.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| > Because if we do it based on what the FOUNDING FATHERS
| believed, unless you can find a quote where they said the
| first amendment would apply to advertisements, then we
| can conclude that the first amendment doesn't apply at
| all.
|
| That's an unreasonable view. The First Amendment says
| _nothing_ about text on computers or lyrics in music
| being protected speech, yet we accept that they are and
| the Supreme Court agrees.
| [deleted]
| anotherman554 wrote:
| I think you mean "certain Supreme Courts in certain time
| periods agree..." The 1942 Supreme Court said in
| Valentine v. Chrestensen commercial speech isn't
| protected by the first amendment at all.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| > Because if we do it based on what the FOUNDING FATHERS
| believed, unless you can find a quote where they said the
| first amendment would apply to advertisements, then we
| can conclude that the first amendment doesn't apply at
| all.
|
| A dangerous line of thinking. If we're just going to keep
| what the Founding Fathers said as the only standard for
| the First Amendment, then only the Federal government
| would be bound by it. States could could still pass their
| own laws that punish the exercise of individual rights,
| free speech included.
|
| https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughter-House_Cases
| anotherman554 wrote:
| I agree that sticking to what the founding father's said
| will greatly roll back civil rights, but this is what
| conservatives frequently claim they want to do.
|
| Curiously, conservatives say this is more democratic
| since people will get to vote on anything they want
| without judges getting in the way, even though there's no
| right to vote in the constitution.
| [deleted]
| magic_hamster wrote:
| This is a brilliant idea, however there are a few problems. The
| first is that for better or worse, you could bring down a lot
| of services, businesses, content creators (i.e. YouTube) and
| most likely a great many people will lose their job.
|
| The second problem is, this is probably not going to fly
| against freedom of speech, because it's effectively censorship
| of a certain kind. And if it does pass, what could be the next
| flavor of communication to be outlawed? Maybe it's not
| something you're going to like.
|
| I much prefer blocking ads (which I've come to be incredibly
| effective at), and still have the law allow people to
| advertise. And I hate ads with a passion! But the alternative
| could be worse.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| If Apple starts running invasive ads or other bad practices, it
| will further the development of the PinePhone / LibrePhone. It
| will also cause a lot (possibly even the majority) of developers
| to switch from iOS / macOS to open-source OSs. In this sense,
| invasive advertising would be a bad idea economically.
|
| A lot of developers who value "open-source" still use iOS and
| macOS. A big reason is because, despite being proprietary, this
| software is _good_. The minor flaws (macOS harder to modify, iOS
| being locked-down, both platforms being not open-source and less
| compatible with open-source than Linux /BSD) don't outweigh the
| work of creating a new OS which has the benefits (seamless user
| experience, fast, good design, efficient for productivity). A big
| reason PinePhone and LibrePhone are far behind iOS is simply
| because there isn't enough motivation - the hardware is there,
| it's the software (e.g. smooth gestures) which are lacking.
|
| Apple would not lose much of their _userbase_ , as a minority of
| "non-developer" people don't care about invasive ads. But a lot
| of developers do, and having developers move away is still really
| bad because it affects Apple's ecosystem. Devs don't just use iOS
| and macOS, they make software for these platforms and even
| directly contribute to open-source Apple code. If everyone is
| making software and fixing bugs for Linux and LineageOS instead,
| they will get better and cause more developers and eventually
| ordinary users to migrate away.
| pid_0 wrote:
| frankfrank13 wrote:
| I get why people are so suspicious of this, but I personally
| still feel like Apple is going to handle this much better than
| Google or Meta. Meta and Google are 1-trick ponies, and those
| ponies feed off of transforming user data into ads. Apple doesn't
| _need_ ads, and therefore can do them on their own terms.
| SpectralTheory wrote:
| Where are these ads being delivered? Just the App Store, or are
| they expanding into somewhere else?
| hankchinaski wrote:
| App Store, News app, Stocks app, Maps app, Books app, Podcast
| app it mentions in the article
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The only app of value here is maybe Maps. The rest is garbage
| already so won't be a major difference.
| jscipione wrote:
| Better Apple make money off data than it being collected by
| Facebook and sent to the FBI.
|
| https://nypost.com/2022/09/14/facebook-spied-on-private-mess...
|
| At least Apple has a record of keeping their users safe from
| government.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/apple-refuses-barr-request-t...
| r00fus wrote:
| What makes you think Apple isn't doing the same? They were
| involved in PRISM as well. Honestly, I really doubt Apple could
| continue to do business without being at least somewhat porous
| to law enforcement and government snooping (maybe better than
| others but definitely not stiff-arming them).
| moolcool wrote:
| Having the data exist on somebody's servers in an unencrypted
| state at all is enough to make me uneasy.
| mywacaday wrote:
| I recently signed up for the duckduckgo anti tracking protection
| beta. I guess I always suspected on some level the amount of
| tracking but seeing the the blocking in real time of apps I
| haven't used in weeks really brings it home.
| simonh wrote:
| To be clear, this is entirely about advertising within Apple's
| App Store (that's what Apple Search Ads is). It has nothing to do
| with ads on the internet or in Safari, or even within third party
| apps.
| amelius wrote:
| pavlov wrote:
| And Google ads used to be only unobtrusive text inlined with
| search results until it wasn't.
|
| If there's growth in a segment of business that's moving the
| needle at a multi-trillion market cap corporation like Apple,
| there are executives and product managers all over the place
| hoping to get on board.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| I agree, I think you mean that they were NOT inline. They
| were out of the line, in an entirely separate column. With a
| different background color. With the words "sponsored links"
| added to their box.
| simonh wrote:
| Maybe, I suppose we'll see, but people have been saying this
| ever since the Google/Apple bust up over user data in Google
| Maps back in 2009. If we condemned everyone for things they
| might do one day we'd all be in jail for life.
| kuratkull wrote:
| Google search ads used to be in a separate box to the right
| of the search results.
| drawingthesun wrote:
| Incorrect I just checked that the stocks app on Mac OS does
| indeed have unrelated adverts.
| jdgoesmarching wrote:
| I feel like the real outrage here should be for developers who
| already pay a fee for the privilege of being Apple developers,
| give up 30% of their revenue for the privilege of being
| inconsistently judged by app review, and now need to fork over
| extra money just to have their exact app name appear when
| searched.
|
| It's insulting to the dev community who drove the success of
| the app store and arguably iOS in general. No amount of "we
| love our devs" PR can reconcile this.
| thr0wawayf00 wrote:
| > It's insulting to the dev community who drove the success
| of the app store and arguably iOS in general. No amount of
| "we love our devs" PR can reconcile this.
|
| Apple built this market to control it completely, you could
| see it coming from miles away. It seems like the big move
| nowadays is build your market (i.e. "platform") and you get
| to be judge, jury and executioner. How did you see something
| like this playing out? I just don't understand how people
| still aren't cynical enough to see this kind of thing coming.
| datadata wrote:
| People might be able to see it coming, but could still be
| enticed by the riches to be made for a while by playing the
| game even while knowing how it ends.
| munificent wrote:
| Or simply be making the rational economic choice given a
| lack of better alternatives.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >you get to be judge, jury and executioner.
|
| This has been the case with every single instance of
| software repositories (aka app stores). Remember the whole
| ffmpeg and libav schism that was fueled in part by repo
| maintainers imposing their dogmatic will? Or more recently
| Debian and whether to include non-free code in its
| installers (aka local repository)? I can't quite grasp why
| this doesn't appear immediately obvious to anyone.
|
| The only truly free ecosystem is something like Win32,
| where developers are free to write whatever they want,
| publishers are free to sell whatever they want where- and
| however they want, and the operating system is dependent on
| that free ecosystem for continued relevance.
| skc wrote:
| They're gonna print even more money. You literally don't get a
| much more captive audience than macOS/iOS users.
| bndr wrote:
| I'm not sure how the anti-trust / anti-monopoly laws work, but
| isn't it conflict of interest, if you limit others in how they
| can use your platform, but allow yourself to do the same things
| you're limiting others in? Or am I wrong?
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| They've been doing it for years now with Apple music, and other
| stuff. Why do you think they will be stopped now?
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| You seem to be suggesting there isn't a level playing field:
| can you explain why?
|
| Apple doesn't limit anyone from advertising; they just limit
| third-party tracking, no?
| JimDabell wrote:
| > Apple doesn't limit anyone from advertising; they just
| limit third-party tracking, no?
|
| They don't limit third-party tracking either. They limit
| third-party tracking _without the user's consent_. The only
| thing advertisers need to do is ask the user for permission
| to track them.
| fossuser wrote:
| They're a little disingenuous about this.
|
| You can compare the pop-up language Apple shows for an app
| like FB and the one they show for their own personalized
| ads to see what I'm talking about. They've also run
| misleading ads and have made comments that confuse people
| about what's actually going on.
|
| I'm no apologist for ads, but Ben Thompson is right to
| point out that this hurts small companies that rely on
| these targeted ads in order to exist a lot more than it
| hurts large players like FB.
|
| For example - a grocery store doesn't want to manage 'first
| party' user data to track what you purchase (and you
| probably don't want them to), they're bad at that and more
| likely to do it poorly. They'd rather rely on an ad company
| they can use instead. This applies to most small businesses
| that rely on targeted advertising to get their business in
| front of users that would want it. In Apple's model Amazon
| doesn't need to say they track you because all purchase
| data happens on Amazon, but FB does because others use FB
| to target third party ads. The data doesn't leave FB though
| so a reasonable person could argue why is this worse?
|
| My personal opinion is that we'd be better off in an
| equilibrium where these ad driven models are not viable
| because the models that would replace them would be better
| on net with incentives more aligned between user and
| product.
|
| There is a problem here with how user data is handled in
| some cases, but Apple is also being at best misleading
| about the issue in a way that benefits themselves and
| reasonable people could think they're doing the wrong
| thing.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > The data doesn't leave FB though so a reasonable person
| could argue why is this worse?
|
| Because the user has a relationship with the grocery
| store application and as far as they are aware, only
| interacting with the grocery store application. They
| aren't given the knowledge or opportunity to decide
| whether to send their data to Facebook or not. All Apple
| are requiring is that the user be given that knowledge
| and opportunity.
| [deleted]
| onepointsixC wrote:
| This is misleading.
|
| Apple limits third party tracking without user's consent by
| both calling it as third party tracking and having it opt
| in, while Apple's tracking is "personalization" that is opt
| out.
|
| It's absolutely a dark pattern meant to destroy non apple
| advertising while making the owners of the OS the only real
| way to advertise on it. It should be clamped down hard.
| malshe wrote:
| > while Apple's tracking is "personalization" that is opt
| out.
|
| For about a year this is no longer true.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > Apple limits third party tracking without user's
| consent by both calling it as third party tracking and
| having it opt in, while Apple's tracking is
| "personalization" that is opt out.
|
| You just seem to be skipping over the fact that Apple is
| not a third-party here. The user has a direct
| relationship with them.
|
| > the only real way to advertise on it.
|
| The advertising industry has existed for over a hundred
| years without pervasive third-party tracking. Pervasive
| third-party tracking is _not_ "the only real way to
| advertise on it".
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Rules for thee not for me (Apple Advertising).
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| You can enable and disable personalized adverts from Apple
| in the settings
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| But they're not set to disabled by default like 3rd party
| tracking is.
|
| Gee, I wonder why...
| Nextgrid wrote:
| On the other hand, third-party tracking is not silently
| disabled either - instead, it prompts the user on first
| run and the user is given the choice to opt in or out
| _per-app_.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| It's:
|
| Non Apple ads: Opt In for scary third party tracking
|
| Apple Ads: Opt Out for a "less personalized" experience
| JimDabell wrote:
| If I use an Apple device then I am clearly using an Apple
| product and I have a relationship with Apple.
|
| If I use an application then I am clearly using their
| product and I have a relationship with the application
| developers.
|
| If that application embeds third-party tracking, I am not
| clearly doing anything with the third party and I don't
| have a relationship with that third party. Therefore
| Apple requires that the application developers ask for my
| consent first.
|
| Only one of these needs the user's consent, and it's
| clear why. Apple can act fairly and still hold third-
| party tracking to a different standard.
| lovecg wrote:
| But that argument is not limited to tracking, isn't it.
| For example if I use an application that integrates with
| Shopify or Stripe, by that logic Apple would also be in
| the right to ask for consent (while the integration with
| Apple Pay would be pop-up free). In fact I don't see any
| reason why Apple shouldn't go after those businesses next
| - there's a clear privacy angle they can play here too.
| As much as I like Apple Pay as a consumer, I don't think
| Apple should get a blanket pass on favoring its own
| infrastructure over any third-party integrations just
| because the user is less confused about their
| relationship with Apple.
| falcolas wrote:
| They limit cross-application tracking.
|
| Which I'm fine with.
|
| Is there any evidence that Apple themselves are tracking
| across 3rd party application advertisements (this is me
| assuming that they do track across 1st party apps, which is
| _not_ fair).
| pier25 wrote:
| You mean like Apple not allowing third party browser engines?
| amelius wrote:
| If you really wanted to rule out conflicts of interest, you
| would have to break up the company in several hardware and
| several software companies.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| No, you're not wrong. If Apple follows through with this it's
| pretty much the textbook definition of an antitrust violation:
| leveraging their market power in one market to circumvent
| competition in the target market.
| scarface74 wrote:
| When I watch Netflix, I have no reason to be surprised or
| shocked that Netflix is using that information to target
| movies I want to watch. It's the same with Amazon and
| Facebook.
|
| What I don't expect is that when I shop on Amazon I get ads
| showing me what I searched for and bought on Amazon to show
| up on Facebook (which of course does happen).
|
| What would be the consumer friendly thing for the government
| to do? Allow more cross app data sharing? Refuse to let any
| company use the history of what a consumer does _at that
| company_ for targeting?
| aierou wrote:
| Regulators could kill several birds with one stone and
| allow alternative app markets on iOS devices.
| scarface74 wrote:
| I can see the marketing aspect now "if you install this
| third party App Store, the apps you can install can
| ignore the privacy guards and advertise and track you
| better!"
|
| Or a company like Facebook can once again encourage users
| to install a VPN that allows them to track all of the
| traffic to and from your phone.
|
| https://mashable.com/article/facebook-used-onavo-vpn-
| data-to...
| scarface74 wrote:
| Yes, just like Facebook can't limit others from scheduling ads
| and Google can't limit other search engines from just being
| plugs in.
|
| Also cable companies can't limit others from carrying channels.
|
| Do you think advertisers on Facebook, Google or Amazon get
| access to all of the data that the platform vendor has?
|
| Do you also want everyone to get access to Google's search
| algorithm?
|
| If I had a dollar every time someone on HN yelled "anti trust"
| about anything no matter how little legal sense it made, I
| could be my own VC.
| jannes wrote:
| Par for the course in big tech. They love walled gardens.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| I don't deliver Apple is offering anything different that third
| parties can't see.
|
| Anyone confirm or deny?
| loeg wrote:
| My hearsay impression is that Apple can and do track in ways
| they prevent 3rd parties from doing on their platform.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| They ABSOLUTELY do.
|
| They track everything about the device - and the user has
| almost no control over it.
|
| Sure, they aren't tracking what you're doing INSIDE the FB
| app. But they track every time you use it, where you use
| it, the context that led to that usage, etc.
| falcolas wrote:
| > Sure, they aren't tracking what you're doing INSIDE the
| FB app. But they track every time you use it, where you
| use it, the context that led to that usage, etc.
|
| So does Facebook (as much as they're able and allowed
| to), being fair.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| FB can't track every time you open Pinterest on an
| iPhone.
|
| Apple can and does.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| FB absolutely can and does correlate events and various
| metadata sent by the "Facebook SDK" spyware which litters
| most mainstream apps. ATT does not prevent that because
| the fingerprint it collects, combined with your IP
| address is sufficient to link all the separate instances
| of the SDK by correlating enough events.
| falcolas wrote:
| To be clear, I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm just
| saying that individual applications can track those
| metrics for their own properties.
|
| And, to be fair, while I don't want Apple tracking that
| data (however useful/useless it may be), I wouldn't want
| Facebook tracking it either.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Every (smart) merchant uses information from its
| interaction with its customers to target better. What
| overall law do you want the government to pass?
| bolt7469 wrote:
| My understanding of a "conflict of interest" is that they
| happen when a personal interest interferes with a duty. Ex: a
| company executive receiving a gift from a potential supplier.
|
| This situation would not be a conflict of interest because
| Apple has no duty to third party advertisers
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Apple isn't the only online advertising platform, and they
| don't have anything close to a monopoly there. They are free to
| build their own ad tech and keep it to themselves, or give
| themselves preferential access.
| shrewduser wrote:
| That's missing the point, Apple owns the platform and are
| using that dominance to push people out while pushing
| themselves in.
|
| Using your dominance in one industry like that could fall
| afoul of anti monopoly laws.
| paulmd wrote:
| > That's missing the point, Apple owns the platform
|
| People make a lot of to-do about it, but, that's not really
| an unusual thing in the market anymore. Sony has exclusive
| control of their store, does not permit sideloading, and
| no, the hardware isn't subsidized.
|
| https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/325504-sony-finally-
| turns...
|
| Regardless of whether you feel that's _also_ bad, it goes
| to establish that this is not unusual or particularly
| noteworthy behavior.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Is there any evidence anywhere that Apple is doing, or is
| intending to do, the same things they've blocked others from
| doing?
|
| Apple hasn't stopped anybody from advertising, they've only
| stopped them from doing overly-intrusive cross-app personal
| tracking. They don't seem to intend to do over-intrusive cross-
| app personal tracking themselves, so it seems to be a level
| playing field. So far, at least.
| yazzku wrote:
| You've pretty much defined the anti-trust case in your own
| sentence.
|
| Microsoft did not prevent other browsers from being
| installed; it just shipped IE by default and made it annoying
| af to uninstall.
| dwaite wrote:
| > ...they've only stopped them from doing overly-intrusive
| cross-app personal tracking.
|
| They've required consent for cross-organizational tracking.
| For a single organization, they have only required disclosure
| in apps (via the privacy nutrition labels).
|
| For instance, Google can still push you to sign into a Google
| account so they can add all your interactions across
| services/devices to your profile. They also can still share
| information between Google native apps for unauthenticated
| users. This would include if they start to move over apps
| from other acquired companies under the Google umbrella.
|
| The difference is that I can make an opt-in choice (if
| possibly a difficult one) on whether I want to interact with
| Facebook services directly, but I couldn't make a such a
| choice before on what information Facebook was gathering
| about me without my consent or knowledge via tracking.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Let's be clear though, the information FB got was always a
| subset of what Apple got, so it's a little invidious of
| them to ban cross app tracking for everyone else except for
| them.
| badwolf wrote:
| >they've only stopped them from doing overly-intrusive cross-
| app personal tracking.
|
| It's important to remember, they aren't stopping them from
| doing the overly-intrusive cross-app tracking, they just make
| you _actively consent_ to an app allowing that tracking.
| hn92726819 wrote:
| I'm not familiar -- do you have to actively consent to
| Apple's tracking too? As in, do they give themselves some
| advantage over other ad platforms?
| novok wrote:
| You do have to consent, but there are many parts where
| they don't let you say no and continue using, while all
| third parties are forced to make you say no and to
| continue using.
|
| Apple is doing the classic "we don't share with third
| parties, we just collect a shit ton of data from
| everywhere and then make people buy our data indirectly
| via our ad sale services" like google and facebook do
| today. So it's not shared with third parties, but because
| of their scale it might as well be in effect size .
| pkaler wrote:
| > I'm not familiar -- do you have to actively consent to
| Apple's tracking too?
|
| It's called App Tracking Transparency and there is a
| scary prompt when Facebook/others do it. It's called
| Personalization and a friendly prompt when Apple does it.
| selsta wrote:
| These two are not the same thing. Every app is allowed to
| serve you personalized ads, without asking. ATT is about
| cross app/site tracking between other companies, which is
| something Apple has never done.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| They can target you in app store based on your activity on
| the Kindle app - is that not tracking?
| WoodenChair wrote:
| > They can target you in app store based on your activity
| on the Kindle app - is that not tracking?
|
| It doesn't say that in the article and that's patently
| false. Apple does not have access to Amazon's data about
| your activity in the Kindle app. Can they potentially track
| you in the Apple Books app? Perhaps, but if you trust what
| they're saying, you're presented first with an opt-out
| dialog about ad personalization.
| novok wrote:
| Apple does have access to the amount of time you open
| that kindle app although ;)
| ec109685 wrote:
| This part of the article is wrong:
|
| "While Apple effectively tracks users on its own platform, the
| pre-installed apps are exempted from displaying a message asking
| permission to track users.
|
| This is because Apple's Anti-Tracking Transparency only applies
| to the apps that use third-party data to track users. Since
| Apple's tracking stays within its own ecosystem, the company's
| native apps are not subject to the policy. An exception Apple
| made for itself drew backlash, with some comparing the
| "nefarious"-sounding prompt third-party developers have to show
| to a far less ominous "personalized ads" pop-up Apple has to show
| itself."
|
| Apps like Facebook can track the user any which way they please.
| They can't track users in other apps without consent.
| [deleted]
| travisgriggs wrote:
| I've been a big Apple fan over the years. They continue to grow
| more tarnished for me.
|
| But my big problem is... where do I go? It's not like Android
| phones are better--I write native apps on both, I have 9 Android
| phones sitting to the left of me right now, and 6 iDevices to my
| right--they're worse to use. They're a night mare to code for
| compared to iOS.
|
| I write Linux, Windows, and Mac code from post Ives 16"MBP. The
| OS is as good as any Linux I use (it's worse in some ways, but
| better than others). The hardware is impressive. I have tried the
| Linux on Windows stuff, Windows is the worst.
|
| It's not like it was 20 years ago, when MacOSX was in its
| infancy, and Linux was awesome, and you could reinstall Sawfish
| WM on Linux running on the Windows laptop the company gave you.
| Apple hardware/software has its warts, but overall it's pretty
| good stuff all things averaged. So I'd love to escape their
| growingly evil ecosystem of services, but it's not clear what the
| development rig better and more free/enabling than this would be.
| rtpg wrote:
| It's so frustrating that Android isn't better. I ... think that
| it's mostly due to app design not being so great.
|
| But the super glib part of me is unable to escape from the idea
| that there is an original sin with Android, with its
| complications around activities and the like, and the JVM, that
| make the weird jittery lagginess inevitable. I know that in
| theory you should be able to have a high perf layer for
| graphics and animations, but where is it?
|
| It's just embarassing that somehow we've ended up in a
| situation where there is so much money poured into an "open"
| (yes I know it's not open but) system and yet it still feels so
| bad compared to iOS on a... 4 year old device
| laumars wrote:
| It's been a few years since I've ran Android but I remember
| it was possible to have silky smooth animations via custom
| ROMs. The problem was a lot of OEMs slapped crap loads of
| bloat on an underpowered handset.
|
| This might not be the case any more, it's been years since
| I've ran Android, but there once was a time when running
| cyanagenmod (I think it was called) on a HTC handset gave you
| a better experience than iOS on an iPhone.
| [deleted]
| lupire wrote:
| Your 20 year old Linux still works. All you have to do is not
| be greedy about wanting all the inventions that evil
| corporations made in the past 20 years.
| smoldesu wrote:
| The goal shouldn't be to 'escape', but rather encourage our
| businesses to do the right thing so people aren't hostages in
| the first place. If Apple simply played fair, I don't think
| anyone would feel the need to leave (or fear that they need
| to). Perhaps this will be the ultimate test of Apple putting
| their customers before profits...
|
| In any case, I think Linux replaces MacOS without much protest.
| I hated working around Mac-specific idiosyncrasies anyways, and
| while a number of devs might protest, Apple hardware makes for
| fine Linux machines these days. You're right to identify that
| iOS is harder to replace, but it's hard to imagine a long-term
| solution that doesn't involve Apple allowing sideloading. I
| really hope they do the right thing here, but that's all we can
| do.
| andai wrote:
| I'm often reminded of Stallman's message that Free Software
| would be the right thing to use, for reasons of ethics and
| preserving freedom for ourselves and others, even if it were a
| worse experience. (He argues that it isn't worse, but that's a
| different conversation.)
| sylens wrote:
| I see more and more people getting into this mindset. They want
| a little more openness than what Apple provides, but they want
| a little more structure and direction than Android.
|
| I really do wonder what would happen if Microsoft made a fork
| of Android with a replacement for Google Play Services (maybe
| something that emulated many of the APIs, putting Google in an
| ironic situation to say that its APIs are protected under
| copyright law)
| gerash wrote:
| In terms of data protection I have friends who work at Google and
| at Apple. The one working at Apple was able to check their
| spouse's spending trend on App store (granted they were working
| in a relevant department) while at Google reading your own data
| is not even granted without justification let alone an external
| user.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| To be honest I'm not that worried about individual employee
| access. I'm much more concerned about systematic organisational
| access.
|
| Apple might have a handful of employees misuse data. Google
| will do it on purpose, at scale.
| throwaway__122 wrote:
| cromka wrote:
| Sounds like something worth whistleblowing to relevant
| authorities. Depending on where are they located, they could
| even be rewarded for it.
| pyentropy wrote:
| Sounds believable to me. Google is really good at data
| warehouse & database tech (BigQuery, BigTable, Spanner) and
| access management systems, as well as sturdy custom-built tools
| for internal use by employees.
|
| Even though it might not be intentional, Apple is lagging at
| such tooling.
| MisterPea wrote:
| Yep. As another user pointed out, privacy tooling is a very
| hard problem across a large company. When you have a cloud
| platform, you're especially incentivized to build a robust
| solution for this.
|
| I would imagine AWS and Microsoft also have a thorough
| tooling solution.
| summerlight wrote:
| Can't say for Apple, but can confirm that it's quite
| challenging to access arbitrary user data in Google without
| giving good justification and all the log accesses are subject
| to audit. This is not just a mere possibility; also heard that
| a few cases were actually escalated and resulted in termination
| because of inappropriate access.
| frankfrank13 wrote:
| Idk if thats super relevant is it? Will Apple employees be
| handcrafting ads for the users they can see?
| friedman23 wrote:
| It means that Apple's care of user data is surface level.
| Google is under much more scrutiny than Apple and thus takes
| better care of your data.
| justapassenger wrote:
| Talking from experience - having a real privacy program at a
| big company is really hard. Like thousands for people and
| billions of dollars hard.
|
| And speculating - wouldn't surprise me too much that Apple is
| actually weak there. Apple's approach to privacy seems to be
| mainly "we just don't get your data on our servers", which
| could be resulting them in ignoring how to build an actual
| robust privacy program on their side for other things.
| null_object wrote:
| > The one working at Apple was able to check their spouse's
| spending trend on App store
|
| You obviously could back this hearsay up with actual evidence I
| assume?
| summerlight wrote:
| How could they? They obviously don't want to face C-suite
| level retaliation who can make their life miserable over the
| next 10 years.
| gerash wrote:
| This was a few years ago and I actually don't want to get
| anyone in trouble
| novok wrote:
| IMO this is just an indicator of a bunch of incomplete
| policies, usually something you see in smaller immature
| companies. I would think apple would've tightened that up
| by now, not being allowed to look up info for people you
| know or personal things is usually explicitly against the
| rules and can get you fired at most places!
|
| The only time these rules might be able to be 'broken' is
| to get data to fix bugs with the person's consent.
| Quarrel wrote:
| "Sure, here's the screenshots I took of my wife violating her
| NDA, while handing them to me to post to HN."
|
| Like, sure it is hearsay, but what do you want from the guy?
| Most of us are sharing anecdotes that we hope we be helpful
| to other HNers, most of the time. If anything, I think a lot
| of people look to the experience of other users here as the
| advantage.
| CharlesW wrote:
| "Sure it's complete hearsay, but it plays well with HN
| readers so..."
| [deleted]
| viridian wrote:
| Most points of plot are hearsay, and Hacker News isn't a
| court of law.
|
| If I tell you that while working at unnamed multi-
| national finance company we wrote software used for what
| I would consider incredibly immoral, but not illegal (in
| the US) purposes, I don't have any right to be believed,
| but I also expect most people would believe me, because
| they know how these things go in real life, oftentimes in
| their own organizations.
| CharlesW wrote:
| The difference between "a friend who worked at Apple said
| he could see his spouse's purchases" and "I worked at a
| company which wrote software used for immoral purposes"
| is that one is hearsay and one is not.
| oliveshell wrote:
| One is hearsay _to the speaker_. Unless proof is
| provided, they're both hearsay all the same to the
| receiving audience.
| _joel wrote:
| Sounds like they also breached laws, way to go.
| [deleted]
| verisimi wrote:
| Apple = a big sandbox Google, Meta = also big sandbox Government
| surveillance = Apple + google + meta = the biggest sandbox
|
| Which sandbox do you like to play in? Does it even matter?
| Calvin02 wrote:
| Tech community's response summed up in two lines:
|
| Targeted ads from Facebook, Google, Amazon (and soon Netflix):
| fuck em! Targeted ads from Apple: well.. better Apple than
| others.
|
| Mean while it is the businesses (and, in the end, consumers) who
| bear the brunt because as ad relevancy goes down, the cost of
| acquisitions and sales go up.
| moolcool wrote:
| As a consumer, I do not want ad relevance. In fact, I hate
| targeted ads. I do not feel served when mega-corporations
| unscrupulously track literally everything about me so they can
| try to sell me crap I don't need. I play the worlds smallest
| violin for the businesses who have to "bear the brunt" of not
| knowing how many steps I've taken today, or what times I went
| the bathroom.
| hownottowrite wrote:
| What about small mom and pop businesses that leverage
| targeted ads to compete against mega-corporations?
| moolcool wrote:
| I have seen the opposite happen way more often. I was on
| the market for a new wallet, specifically one made by a
| one-man operation in France. As soon as I started looking
| for reviews, targeted ads from larger brands like Fossil
| and Ridge started following me. The current ad landscape
| isn't giving the little guy a kick at the can, it's just
| letting them into the same extortion based ad markets the
| big guys compete in.
| Calvin02 wrote:
| I think another way to look at it is: value exchange.
|
| What do I get in exchange for what I share. To me, learning
| about new products and services from companies that I don't
| already have an existing relationship with is far more
| valuable than the data shared. I want the inventor of a
| better mouse trap to reach out to me and let me know of their
| product.
| moolcool wrote:
| We're looking at asymmetrical warfare between incredibly
| advanced targeting algorithms, and our monkey-brains. It's
| all fun and games when you're selling moustraps, but what
| about when the algorithm finds out you have a
| predisposition towards addiction and realizes it can profit
| from that by showing you ads for alcohol and
| pharmaceuticals?
|
| What happens when it learns that you have a gambling
| problem?
|
| What happens when it learns that you're a hypochondriac?
|
| What happens when it learns that you have a retail
| addiction?
|
| What happens when your ad profile identifies you as
| somebody who has had an abortion in one of the states where
| it's illegal? Can the ad company be subpoenaed?
|
| What happens when an insurance company goes to a data-
| broker and finds out that you've been googling cancer
| symptoms? Would their access to this information change
| your premiums or eligibility?
| Calvin02 wrote:
| > What happens when it learns that you're a
| hypochondriac? > What happens when an insurance company
| goes to a data-broker and finds out that you've been
| googling cancer symptoms?
|
| 1) We cannot solely rely on Apple's selective definition
| of privacy to resolve these. As an example, what if your
| health insurance company offers an app and you use that
| app to search for cancer? Should the insurance company be
| able to use that data? We need very strong legal
| protections as a more comprehensive solution that works
| across all types of data companies can gather to make
| medical decisions.
|
| > What happens when it learns that you have a gambling
| problem? > What happens when it learns that you have a
| retail addiction?
|
| 2) You need to consider that (1) advertisers don't need
| to learn this! People willingly give them this data (e.g.
| by signing up for a sports betting app), and (2) this
| also opens the door to reach people to help them. No
| targeted advertising does not mean that these societal
| issues just disappear. These are still there but just
| harder to see.
|
| > What happens when your ad profile identifies you as
| somebody who has had an abortion in one of the states
| where it's illegal? Can the ad company be subpoenaed?
|
| 3) While I abhor the decision on Roe vs Wade, let's flip
| this to: what if the ad profile identifies you as a
| seller of fentanyl? Would you want the ads data to be
| eligible for use in prosecution? I would. Saying that
| banning targeted ads protects women's privacy is security
| through obfuscation. That is not a solution.
| moolcool wrote:
| 1) So from the jump, you're counting on legislation to
| work against the interest of big insurance. You might be
| waiting a while.
|
| 2)This position presents a pretty messed up vision of the
| world IMO. As if the ideal state of things is that
| Google/Apple/Meta holds auctions where Draft Kings, Poker
| Stars, and a gambling support line can bid on a gambling
| addict's attention.
|
| 3) Asserting that targeted ad sales are good because they
| identify criminals is a big stretch imo
| viridian wrote:
| I think that we as a society decided that our solution to
| people with addictive personalities is to let natural
| selection take its course. There's way too much money to
| to made in the misery to try to apply those brakes.
| htrp wrote:
| > What happens when an insurance company goes to a data-
| broker and finds out that you've been googling cancer
| symptoms? Would their access to this information change
| your premiums or eligibility?
|
| Gattaca happens
| bee_rider wrote:
| If you are a fan of Apple, this is pretty bad news I think,
| they are getting deeper into a dirty market, and will probably
| get hit by the ad curse as well. But, as someone who doesn't
| particularly care about them, it will be pretty funny to see
| them blatantly eat Facebook's lunch.
| hownottowrite wrote:
| Yup. The advertising apocalypse has been a complete horror show
| for many small businesses. But super excited people have their
| privacy so that only the bigoted of the big can afford to show
| them ads.
| api wrote:
| I really hope Apple doesn't turn its products to shit chasing ad
| revenue like almost everything else.
|
| Advertising is cancer.
| bumblebritches5 wrote:
| subsubzero wrote:
| This is by biggest concern and one of the reasons I use apple
| products. absolutely ads, and now I heard that they are
| injecting them into apple maps, I may have to switch to google
| maps if this happens.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Google Maps has had ads and "Sponsored Content" for quite a
| while now.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Yes, but if they are using a worse product because it
| doesn't have ads, now that the worse product ALSO has ads,
| they may as well switch back.
| subsubzero wrote:
| good to know, I haven't used google maps app in over 5+
| years. Maybe I will have to go with a TomTom now s/
| badwolf wrote:
| You might check out Here WeGo (formerly Nokia Maps) I've
| found their offline maps support is pretty great.
| adra wrote:
| They're reinvesting like 5-10% of profits on r&d? Something
| tells me they're already living fat off their existing wins.
| Ads would only further send apple into the realm of unicorn
| money printing behemoths.
| alphabetting wrote:
| As much as advertising can suck, I highly prefer not having all
| news sites hard paywalled and not needing premium subscriptions
| for essential services like search, email and YouTube.
| bee_rider wrote:
| eMail pre-dates the ad ecosystem; search is actually pretty
| nice but Google is slowly losing ground to SEO, a new
| paradigm might be necessary; and YouTube is basically bad.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| They can't charge any more for their phones.
|
| How are they supposed to make more money from phones if not
| taking a cut of FB's advertising money?
| jesuscript wrote:
| This is a company that sells 2000 dollar monitor stands. They
| are into a whole different game.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| It was $1000, and actually a brilliant move because actual
| Pro users don't use fixed stands (and so aren't offended),
| while wannabe-Pro rich people will buy it in droves. Thus
| increasing the luxury branding without actually offending
| actual Pro users. For those people, the $1000 stand price is
| a conversation starter and a reason to buy in itself.
| goosedragons wrote:
| I mean the VESA mount itself is still $200...
|
| I get that work is probably paying for most people's but
| it's not really usable out of the box without a pricey add-
| on. You can literally buy an entire monitor (with stand and
| VESA mount) for $200.
| api wrote:
| I will happily buy into an ecosystem with stupidly priced
| accessories if it has no ads and solid protection for
| privacy. As soon as I see ads (in anything) it's shit. If
| it's loaded with spyware and constantly invades privacy it's
| shit. These are things I associate with low-end trash.
| ProAm wrote:
| This is also a company that stopped including chargers and
| cables so they could make additional revenue from people
| already buying $1000 phones. [1]
|
| [1] https://hypebeast.com/2022/3/apple-made-6-5-billion-usd-
| by-r...
| falcolas wrote:
| Apple's news app is unusable for me because of the ads. Their
| app store is just this side of unusable because of ads.
|
| To be clear: I have adhd. Ads are intentionally designed to
| catch the attention of your average person with reasonable
| control of their attention. I have no chance in hell of keeping
| my attention on the article when I have to blast past 6-7
| unblockable ads per article.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| If it is cancer, it's very lucrative cancer. But actually it's
| not cancer, because it powers a lot of things. 99% of all
| interactions that people have on the internet today is due to
| advertising. Email, chat, videos, search, games, apps, news...
| all created, popularized, and funded by ads.
|
| I would prefer it if we weren't a consumer society, if our
| entire way of life wasn't powered by selling things, with
| advertising being the biggest underlying aspect. If Apple is
| smart they will retain their brand image of quality and elite
| lifestyle, because that's how _they_ advertise their products.
| But they certainly aren 't going to abandon ads.
| MBCook wrote:
| I'm scared they've started doing that and the customer
| experience fall is just a matter of time.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| This is bad news for Apple.
|
| I think that relying on adtech is poisonous in the long run.
| gloryjulio wrote:
| Apple pretends iOS is not Android, and turns it into Android
| eventually. The irony
| progbits wrote:
| Except without 3rd party browsers and system-wide adblockers.
| olliej wrote:
| Sigh, I don't believe Apple's ad network tracks people to the
| same extent as Google, Facebook, etc.
|
| But the mere _existence_ of it undercuts the privacy claims _and_
| creates a giant moral hazard (if AppStore search is lousy then
| people have to buy ads /sponsored keywords, and the clear desire
| for ad businesses to start invading privacy).
|
| I really wish it didn't exist :-/
| [deleted]
| secondcoming wrote:
| I, for one, did not see this coming at all. I genuinely believed
| that Apple's privacy strictness was for the greater good.
|
| /s
| idk1 wrote:
| This is what the Stocks app on MacOS looks like if you scroll
| down for the smallest time - https://i.imgur.com/1j7ykDw.png
|
| So Stocks app in MacOS, no stocks when you open it, but the news
| and ads is what you see.
|
| I do hope we don't see ads in the Weather app at some point, that
| would be a shame.
|
| Edit - I was curious, if you select APPL on the side and scroll a
| little, you get ads too, so they're on all side tabs -
| https://i.imgur.com/2X3Et0l.png
| [deleted]
| rglover wrote:
| If that's legitimately Apple, Steve Jobs is rolling over in his
| grave. Good lord.
| raz32dust wrote:
| Wow, that's eye-opening as an Android user and helps to put the
| anti-tracking initiative into strategic perspective. Apple is
| leveraging user trust to claim that it's ok for them to track
| users, not not ok for anyone else.
| warning26 wrote:
| What I find particularly egregious is that when Apple
| requests to track users, they use the text "Allow Apple to
| _personalize your experience_? ", while for 3rd parties they
| use the much scarier "allow this app to _track you_? " prompt
| PcChip wrote:
| That's straight up shady / bad faith
| wafriedemann wrote:
| Is this exclusive to the US? Mine does not look like that.
| idk1 wrote:
| This is the Stocks app in the UK.
| bpye wrote:
| I see it in Canada too. Really quite disappointing.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| Imagine paying top dollar for a premium Apple product, only to
| get a soup of ugly ads in the native applications of your
| device.
|
| As far as I know, this is the case for low end models from
| vendors like Xiaomi. And even there you can turn it off. I
| never dreamed of Apple doing something so detrimental to its
| famed User Experience that feels so cheap and disrespectful.
| cma wrote:
| > And even there you can turn it off.
|
| Does Apple's System Integrity Protection protect apps like
| Stocks?
| franczesko wrote:
| What is worrying is that there is no true alternative. Full-
| privacy might be a very lucrative business opportunity.
| whywhywhydude wrote:
| I know everone hates ads, but isn't targeted ads better than
| wholesale bombardment? Did Apple's blocking of facebook's
| targeted ads improve the consumer experience? Or did that just
| make advertising more inefficient which then led to just more
| irrelevant ads. A good example would be American tv. Everyone has
| to suffer to through those stupid viagra and antidepressants ads
| because there is no targeting.
| addicted wrote:
| I strongly disagree. Targeted ads are significantly worse than
| generic ads.
|
| The entire point of advertising is manipulating human beings.
| Targeted advertising means you have even more data specific to
| an individual making it easier to manipulate the individual.
| More generic advertising (for example, TV ads) means all you
| have is the general area they live in, or the general interest
| of the individual (magazine ads). You cannot manipulate people
| based on their personal traits anymore.
|
| The focus of the advertising shifts immediately from the
| consumer of the ad to the product and/or message of the ad,
| because you simply do not have enough information about the
| consumer.
| adrr wrote:
| Targeted ads is why we see an explosions in new companies.
| With traditional marketing, new companies had no way to reach
| an audience effectively. You could start a company but
| couldn't build a customer base. With targeted advertising, it
| gave us things like free trading with Robinhood that
| leveraged targeted ads to buy installs. It gave us a bunch of
| new banking options that offer zero fees. It gave us new
| clothing brands, razors, workout equipment, cosmetics and
| washable rugs.
|
| Killing targeted ads will just mean the incumbents will
| dominate and without competition, consumer prices will rise.
| Gillette did their first price reduction because of dollar
| shave club is an example.
| pdntspa wrote:
| You seem to say that as if it were the only way to build an
| audience. There have been disruptors and innovators out
| there long before targeted advertising became a thing.
|
| Targeted ads gave us none of the things you mentioned, it
| merely gave them highly-effective ad targeting. But a
| company can still buy TV ad spots, they can still spread
| via word-of-mouth or grassroots campaigns, they can still
| hire people to canvas and pitch, nowadays they can still go
| viral.
|
| I agree with GP that ads are manipulation, and that we
| cannot give ad people (or any people, really) tools that
| are too good in this area.
|
| Literally every big company in existence today started
| small, disrupting or innovating or just effectively
| competing at something. Yet somehow they managed to become
| what they are without targeted advertising?
| amelius wrote:
| You can have targeted ads without user tracking. E.g. you
| can show job openings on a website where hackers meet.
|
| User tracking is absolutely despicable and must be killed.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > The entire point of advertising is manipulating human
| beings
|
| The entire point of your comment is manipulating human
| beings.
|
| Advertising often just seeks to make a consumer aware of a
| certain product. If that is manipulation, so is pretty much
| any content that seeks to change what people know.
| tines wrote:
| I think the difference is in what the two are trying to
| manipulate you to do.
|
| His comment is trying to manipulate the reader into
| believing something that he believes is better for mankind.
| He doesn't materially benefit, and the reader doesn't lose
| anything.
|
| Ads and advertisers are not trying to manipulate the
| viewers into buying a product. They are manipulating
| viewers into _becoming_ the type of person that buys
| products impulsively and with little research. The product
| of the advertiser is not an ad; the product of the
| advertiser is you. This is not to your benefit.
|
| So, trying to reduce gp's comment and ads in general to
| equivalence is misguided imo.
| fragmede wrote:
| What if an advertiser truly believes in their product and
| thinks it will better mankind? What if they've done a
| bunch of research into the product and theirs is actually
| the best on the market? I think the two are closer than
| you'd like to admit.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Most companies brainwash themselves into thinking they
| are making the world a better place.
|
| Selling snake oil becomes no more socially good when the
| salesman deludes themself into believing the pitch.
| bolt7469 wrote:
| What is your definition of "a better place"?
|
| The vast majority of products people buy help them solve
| problems of all kinds. An economic transaction is a win-
| win for both buyers and sellers. Look at products like
| the computer, the car, the telephone, etc. I think the
| world is becoming a better place as a result.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Silicon Valley had a great bit about this kind of
| thinking:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8C5sjjhsso
| pb7 wrote:
| Most people brainwash themselves into thinking their
| opinions are right and others' are wrong.
| tines wrote:
| That's not really how things work in a modern context.
| Today we have to distinguish between the people making
| the stuff, who really may "believe" in their product, and
| the people advertising those same products, who don't
| care, and who aren't the ones creating anything of value.
|
| As a shoemaker, you might think your shoe is the best
| shoe on the market. Google doesn't care which is the best
| shoe. Google simply sells a product, namely, a credulous
| audience, to the shoemakers, who want buyers. And their
| ecosystem is bent toward improving that product. The
| shoemakers' noble ends don't justify the evil means of
| the advertisers.
|
| This is kinda what I take the old adage to mean, "If
| you're not paying for the product, you are the product."
| You might think that Youtube, Facebook, Instagram,
| TikTok, etc. are free services because they don't cost
| you money. But that's like saying that a stay at the
| butcher's is free for the cow. They're not free at all;
| advertisers have to pay good money for access to their
| product, which is you.
|
| Or so my view goes :) I could be wrong though.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| > Advertising often just seeks to make a consumer aware of
| a certain product. If that is manipulation, so is pretty
| much any content that seeks to change what people know.
|
| That's what advertising used to do before tracking was a
| thing. When this was introduced the industry realized that
| targeting and manipulation is far more profitable and this
| made ad campaigns that don't do this unviable. Because
| nobody ever wants to go back to a lower profit margin.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| PS Not sure why I get 0 points here :) I have it on good
| authority from some webmasters that were trying to offer
| non-tracked ads that advertisers simply don't want them
| anymore.
|
| They're so addicted to tracking, and 'retargeting'
| (meaning repeat ads) that they're just not paying for
| untracked anymore. Not nearly enough to make an ad-
| supported website work anyway.
|
| Due to GDPR and the cookie ban, things are turning in
| Europe though. Because now they no longer have the
| choice.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "Advertising often just seeks to make a consumer aware of a
| certain product."
|
| And this is why _shiny new product_ is often placed along a
| half naked beatiful women or alike? Sex sells?
|
| Some marketing indeed exists, that just tries to make a
| consumer aware of a product. But most marketing campaigns
| try to associate a certain product with certain attractive
| person/livestyle/object.
|
| The Malboro Man, the Taste of freedom. Etc.
|
| It is highly manipulative to its core. And with targeted
| ads, you can play with the target persons fears and desires
| in a automated way. So far this likely not happening (very
| well), but the potential is very real and dark.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > And this is why shiny new product is often placed along
| a half naked beatiful women or alike? Sex sells?
|
| If anything, this was more common in the pre-internet
| advertising age. Can't remember the last time I saw an ad
| like this.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| It is still totally a thing, it just takes effort to
| notice it, since it is so common. Also there is still
| nondigital advertisement.
| airstrike wrote:
| > The entire point of your comment is manipulating human
| beings.
|
| The difference is in the intention for said manipulation.
| His comment isn't trying to get us to part with our hard-
| earned income for ultimately frivolous goods.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| "frivolous goods"
|
| Sure, if the good or service is actually frivolous, but
| what about the case where the human is actively searching
| for some good or service that offer some actual value?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Is there no such thing as a win-win? If the business
| makes money off of a sale and the consumer gets a product
| they actually wanted?
|
| Or is the default mode of operation always the consumer
| losing and the business winning?
| airstrike wrote:
| If I actually wanted the product, I probably didn't need
| the ad. I just needed to know about it in a very factual
| manner
| crakhamster01 wrote:
| There's so much noise online now, ads are necessity for
| me to eventually find something I like.
|
| As an example, a couple of months ago I was searching for
| some new summer outfits. Went through Google, Reddit,
| various clothing blogs, catalogs, etc. but didn't find a
| lot that I liked. After a week more of targeted ads on
| Instagram, I was finally able to discover brands that fit
| my tastes.
|
| Unless I'm buying something well-defined like a TV or
| Airpods, passive exposure via targeted ads has been one
| of the best ways for me to find something worth
| purchasing.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Sometimes ads do that. I recently had a purchase that I
| got a lot of value off of based on an Instagram ad to my
| partner. I would not have known about the product
| otherwise.
| airstrike wrote:
| The issue is "sometimes" probably amounts to ~1% of the
| time, based on my made up anecdotal observations.
| buttersbrian wrote:
| Hard disagree.
|
| You may want a THING, but you don't know about a
| particular brand or style of said THING. Just by making
| you aware of them can be a win win.
|
| Say you've been researching "THINGS" for a couple weeks
| and narrowed it down to 2 brands. An Ad pops for a brand
| you'd never heard of. Naturally you check it out, only to
| find out its better than either of the options you were
| previously considering.
| pb7 wrote:
| What's frivolous about a wallet or a sweater? Ultimately,
| all your hard-earned income is to make your life easier
| via goods and services, some of which may be frivolous.
| If you can't trust yourself not to make all frivolous
| purchases, that's a problem you can try to solve on your
| own.
| airstrike wrote:
| How many wallets or sweaters does one need? That is the
| reason I included the word "ultimately" in my comment
|
| I'm not arguing we don't need to buy anything ever. I'm
| arguing most ads are either pushing stuff you don't
| _really_ need 99% of the time or selling outright junk.
| And let 's not get into how close some ads are to plainly
| false advertising (I'm looking at you, wellness /
| nutrition)
| Brusco_RF wrote:
| Sounds like you are experiencing poorly targeted ads if
| 99% of yours aren't things you need :)
|
| Question. If your ads were perfectly targeted in that
| 100% of advertised products were something that you're
| interested in, is that not ideal? Isn't that what
| companies like Google and Facebook are trying to do?
| Wouldn't you be happier if you didn't get the Wellness /
| Nutrition / Viagra ads?
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Advertising often just seeks to make a consumer aware of
| a certain product.
|
| It wants to get me to buy. Any stated aim less than this is
| a waste of their money.
| freedomben wrote:
| I studied and worked in marketing for a little while
| before becoming disgusted by it and leaving. The vast,
| vast majority of ads have a primary goal of raising
| awareness, not triggering a purchase. It's extremely hard
| (and often ineffective) to trigger a purchase, unless the
| ad is seen while literally standing in front of the
| product at the store. The best marketing technique is to
| raise awareness of the product, so that when the user
| thinks about their own need, your brand/product is the
| one they think of as a solution.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Perhaps a consumer who is aware of a product is more
| likely to buy it?
| buttersbrian wrote:
| I disagree. Manipulate is not only loaded, but it is the
| wrong word.
|
| Ads attempt to persuade. They can be implemented in
| manipulative ways, but ads aren't inherently that IMO.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| > The entire point of advertising is manipulating human
| beings.
|
| That's quite cynical. No the point is to connect products to
| interested consumers. Case in point: we recently had a baby
| so I've been googling for baby stuff. Now I get some ads for
| more baby stuff. It's relevant to my life far more than
| Viagra ads or whatever other generic ads could be shown to
| me. It's not exactly manipulation because I do need lots of
| baby stuff.
| amelius wrote:
| The problem is that advertising never gives you balanced
| information.
|
| You would be better served by talking to other parents, by
| reading information from consumer organizations, by reading
| reviews, even by talking to shop personnel (where multiple
| brands are sold).
| jahewson wrote:
| Counterpoint: what makes you think you need lots of baby
| stuff?
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Well, we have relatively little baby stuff compared to
| some parents, it's still enough though. Some monitoring
| tech, stroller, car seat, bassinet, diapers, clothing,
| some early age books to help develop eyesight
| (supposedly), plus bath stuff.
|
| I guess we could raise him in a cardboard box, bathe him
| in the sink and not have half this shit that's really for
| our convenience, but it is all convenient. We're
| definitely not going that crazy compared to the typical
| American/Canadian parent...
| hn92726819 wrote:
| Wouldn't you prefer to realize you need something, and
| then you actively go and get it? I don't want to be
| manipulated into thinking I need something subconsciously
| just because I've seen it a bunch of times.
| a11r wrote:
| It depends. Sometimes you don't know that a solution
| exists for your problem.
| amelius wrote:
| I think it would be more healthy for your kid if you
| talked to other parents (and not just for finding
| solutions to problems).
| Drakim wrote:
| Deodorant became popular after advertisements started
| emotionally negging people by implying that they were
| stinky and everybody around them were laughing behind their
| back.
|
| Connecting products to interested customers often involve
| manipulating the customer into being interested. Think
| about sugary cereals targeted at kids with songs and
| colors.
| Brusco_RF wrote:
| As usual with matters of opinion, there is a positive and
| negative way to frame everything. You framed the
| negative. Allow me to frame the positive:
|
| The human condition has been improved now that we all
| spend $3/mo on deodorant.
| amelius wrote:
| You highlighted an important point: ads only frame one
| side of the story.
|
| If you want the full story, look elsewhere.
| lumb63 wrote:
| I think an important part of your statement is "interested
| consumers". A consumer who is not interested should not
| have to be bombarded with advertisements. At this point
| (making someone do something they do not want to), is where
| it becomes manipulation.
|
| For instance, I have no interest in receiving snail-mail
| ads for credit cards. I am happy with the ones that I have
| right now, and regularly research on my own via trusted
| third parties to see if any are available which would be of
| interest to me. Still, I am unable to stop receiving mail
| advertising credit cards to me. There is not even recourse
| I can take because states have fallen for the same
| "connecting producers to consumers" argument as above, in
| the most broad sense, where every human is a potentially
| interested consumer for every single product.
|
| The business is worse off (because they pay to advertise to
| me, and I will not get one of their credit cards), I am
| worse off (because I am upset I receive this mail), the
| planet is worse off (deforestation), others are worse off
| (perhaps the time spent by postal workers delivering me
| junk mail could improve service to others or reduce costs).
|
| So while I agree that advertising is not inherently
| manipulative, when the audience is captive and
| uninterested, it becomes manipulation.
| invig wrote:
| Captive? At what point does personal accountability
| matter? Everyone's choosing to be there and look at this
| stuff.
| amelius wrote:
| Psychological manipulation is a thing. People write
| dissertations on this stuff. These people are then hired
| by advertising companies. Often the people they target
| are children or adolescents.
| lumb63 wrote:
| It matters at the point when an individual is accountable
| for having seen the ad. There are countless situations
| where you cannot possibly perform any normal function of
| life (shy of sitting in the house and having someone else
| do all interaction with the outside world):
|
| - Billboards. You cannot possibly keep these out of your
| peripheral (or center of) vision while driving without
| endangering everyone else on the road. - Mailed
| advertisements. You have to check your mail, for example,
| for legal summons, that you are required by law to
| respond to. - Public transit (lest I be auto-shamed). You
| cannot, where I am, even look toward where a train
| arrives, without seeing ads.
|
| To remediate just these three advertising venues, you
| have to drive and board public transit with your eyes
| closed and not check your mail. These aren't even
| activities I'd consider voluntary - people need to get to
| work to support themselves, and check their mail for
| legal purposes. Unless your argument is that we all make
| choices to participate in our sovereign nation's legal
| structure and to have jobs that require leaving the home
| (not everyone can work in a cushy remote role).
| bagacrap wrote:
| "making someone do something"? what kind of ad does that
| describe?
| lumb63 wrote:
| Any ad that is sent to a person does not want to see it,
| in an intrusive way such that they cannot avoid it. The
| "something" is "looking at it."
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Fun fact: the original word used for 'advertising' was
| 'propaganda', and advertising uses several propaganda
| techniques. There's nothing cynical about that, it's just a
| fact.
| Terretta wrote:
| Imagine a world where, if interested in baby stuff, you
| paid money for articles on baby stuff, and advertisers knew
| to buy pages of ads among those articles; or if you watched
| TV shows about people doing baby stuff, advertisers knew to
| bookend those shows with baby stuff?
|
| Research shows _contextual advertising_ (the way it was
| done for ever before retargeting became a thing) beats
| retargeting for both purchases per dollar of ad spend and
| consumer appreciation / satisfaction (versus annoyance).
| amelius wrote:
| I'm reminded of the time when I bought BYTE magazine, and
| when holding it sideways a huge pile of ads fell out of
| it.
|
| But, yes, you are right. Even this was infinitely better
| than the current situation with ads.
| pb7 wrote:
| I've purchased a handful of things that I have scoured the
| internet for hours and couldn't find because they later
| came up in an ad randomly. I am extremely satisfied with
| the products. In fact, the only thing I'm not satisfied
| about is how much time I've spent fruitlessly which shows
| search is still an unsolved problem.
| tomxor wrote:
| That something has some positive utility does not justify
| all negative consequences.
|
| For instance installing publicly accessible cameras in
| all rooms in all homes would help reduce domestic abuse,
| however that obviously does not mean it's a net social
| good. In the same vein helpful target ads do not make up
| for all of the other shenanigans in manipulating people
| politically.
| amelius wrote:
| You should opt-in then to the silo where we will put all
| ads after we ban them from public view.
| ohwellhere wrote:
| > > The entire point of advertising is manipulating human
| beings.
|
| > No the point is to connect products to interested
| consumers.
|
| You're both right in identifying points of advertising, and
| they're not in conflict.
|
| Advertising has _two_ points, which I phrase as:
|
| 1. Increasing consumer awareness
|
| 2. Increasing consumer demand
|
| Increasing consumer awareness generally feels useful:
| that's finding out what baby products exist, or showing
| people a new invention or service.
|
| Increasing consumer demand generally feels manipulative:
| that's showing sugary cereals and crap toys to children, or
| associating vaping with success, etc.
|
| The two goals usually are working together -- but I find it
| useful to separate which parts of the advertisement are
| doing what.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| It _is_ manipulation of you, towards specific product,
| within domain you look for. So you and your
| subconsciousness are outright attacked to buy product whose
| manufacturer paid the most, regardless of actual quality.
|
| (ie we also buy baby stuff but sure as hell the best
| products are not ie 'pampers' which are in every freaking
| ad block on TV I ever saw, probably... same for thousand
| other household products, advertised ones are very rarely
| proper high quality within their category, since so much is
| spent on pushing them down everybody's throat).
|
| I can't comprehend how otherwise smart folks can't grok
| this basic principle of advertising, its pure logic and
| simple follow-the-money principle. Its fight for your
| wallet, and your brain controls the wallet. Maybe it
| doesn't insult your intelligence to be manipulated like a
| sheep, but it sure does mine.
| lioeters wrote:
| I think the field of advertising successfully whitewashes
| its own public image as innocent and neutral, "connecting
| products to interested consumers". It's the same as in
| politics, religion, finance, insurance, and other kinds
| of mass fraud and racketeering - hypnotizing people with
| smoke and mirrors, make belief, a theatrical performance.
| It's insidious and sneaky how it masquerades as normal,
| how entire individual lived experiences are spent in
| manufactured illusion, a system of exploiting human
| beings through psychological manipulation, and extracting
| value.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > Everyone has to suffer to through those stupid viagra and
| antidepressants ads because there is no targeting.
|
| This is no worse than suffering through "Raid Shadow Legends"
| ads because I have a "gamer" bit flipped somewhere in Google's
| profile of me. 99% (or even 100%) of stuff advertised to me is
| hot garbage, even if I'm in the right demographic for the
| product.
|
| The problem is that targeting is only part of the equation of
| what you see. The other part is the advertiser's budget. And
| companies that spend big on marketing are often either selling
| digital crack (e.g. gacha games, scams, gambling) or simply
| have the most capital investment (startup of the week,
| manscaped, Nord VPN, etc.). Neither scenario is a good signal
| of quality. As a result, the safest approach as a consumer is
| to ignore _all_ ads.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| when I am on a kiteboarding forum I prefer to see ads that are
| relevant to kiteboarding and not ads for hand mixers just
| because I looked at or bought one last week.
|
| I also think targeted ads are really bad for society in
| general. They have incentivized the building of companies that
| have created massive surveillance and manipulation systems on a
| scale nobody would have dreamt of some decades ago. Think about
| Stalin or Hitler having the datasets Google or Facebook have
| built up and how they could have used them. I can't see
| anything good about targeted advertising unless you buy into
| the vision that people's only purpose in life is to buy things.
| buzzy_hacker wrote:
| No. Because targeting means you've built a profile on me by
| collecting data about my habits and interests without
| permission and will sell/leak that to god knows who. Websites
| can tailor their ads to the audience likely to visit them.
| makestuff wrote:
| I would be fine with paying for youtube premium, etc. if they
| did not track and build profiles on paying customers. I get
| mining my data in exchange for using it for free, but I do
| not think it is fair to mine data on paying customers without
| giving them some discount/opt out.
| andsoitis wrote:
| You can turn off personalized ads on iOS
| https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/control-how-apple-
| del...
|
| Turn personalized ads on or off Go to Settings > Privacy &
| Security > Apple Advertising, then turn Personalized Ads on
| or off. Note: Turning off personalized ads limits Apple's
| ability to deliver relevant ads to you. It may not reduce the
| number of ads you receive.
| hurril wrote:
| Plus: they're often even worse than the wholesale because
| what they think they know about me is basically always pure
| nonsense. (Other than offering me an ad to buy the book I
| just fckn bought.)
| [deleted]
| enkrs wrote:
| I live multiple lives. I'm a father, a businessman, have
| multiple hobbies, do sports. Targeted ads mean this info can be
| combined. I can be profiled and abused. Algorithm has
| calculated what I might impulsively buy and shows me that
| personalized ad everywhere.
|
| Non-targeted ads do not mean viagra ads. Non-targeted ads still
| have the context of the website/app I'm using.
|
| Non-targeted ads mean that I can get ads about specific
| hardware when I browse my hobby forums; I can get ads about
| some interesting SaaS when I browse my work related news sites.
| I don't get anything that's targeting some calculated
| personality quirks of mine to the highest ad bidder.
| malfist wrote:
| I would argue no, but that is my opinion.
|
| The reason for my no is that if there are ad agencies committed
| to building a profile of you, that's far to easy for that
| profile to get sold/stolen by bad actors. For example, if I was
| a trans man, and I was buying feminine hygiene products, I
| could be targeted for harassment by a leaked advertising
| profile.
|
| If there's no money in building profiles it makes it less
| likely that one will be built, not that it can't. But that's a
| reasonable tradeoff to me.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Seriously. I literally have gone to the page for my Google
| advertising profile and updated my interests to be more
| accurate.
|
| Targeted ads usually aren't trying to trick me, they're telling
| me about products and services I genuinely don't know about.
| Maybe this will shock people, but I have actually bought things
| linked straight from ads a handful of times. (Only a handful,
| but that's more than zero.)
|
| I infinitely prefer targeted advertising rather than the
| horrible lowest-common-denominator generic non-targeted "grow
| your dick" and "one weird trick" and "millionth website
| visitor" garbage. (I just wish there were a button for "don't
| show me ads for humidifiers anymore because I already bought
| one after researching, I'm not gonna buy another". So that the
| targeting worked even better.)
| vehemenz wrote:
| Sure, but it's not as if the data used to create the targeted
| ad disappears after the ad is served, or that the data in a
| single, secure location. It's shared with 100 other analytics
| companies and could end up in the hands of your health insurer,
| or God knows who else.
| rebeccaskinner wrote:
| I'm against all ads, but I'm particularly against targeted ads
| because building and tuning systems that are designed to track
| people and personalize messages to influence behavior have far
| too many uses that are far worse that convincing someone to buy
| some pants or whatever. It's highly tuned and personalized
| psychological warfare at scale, that can be deployed for any
| number of reasons.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I will add yet another voice to the heap saying "nope, targeted
| is worse." The point of ads is to trick me into buying
| something I don't need, I'd rather they were less efficient.
|
| Further, lots of smart people are working on the project of
| ads. Talented programmers and data scientists. Hopefully less
| efficient ads will result in a less lucrative ad sector, and
| more of these folks can be convinced to do something productive
| with their talents.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Doesn't it say more about you than the advertiser that you
| are allowing yourself to be tricked?
| bee_rider wrote:
| Sure -- ads are a billion dollar industry so apparently
| they are getting some people to spend money they wouldn't
| have otherwise, what is says about me is that I don't think
| I'm somehow uniquely immune to them. Naturally, like most
| technically inclined people, I've adjusted to this
| vulnerability by using an ad blocker.
| okamiueru wrote:
| If you want a contrary opinion, I disagree. On the face of it,
| I agree with your premise. However, targeted ads unfortunately
| also means creating profiles which are sold to data brokers.
| Targeted ads are I suppose ok. However, collecting data,
| profiling and selling to whomever is paying has very
| significant ramifications.
|
| If advertisers figure out a way to target ads without
| profiling, I'm all for it. In fact, it's not that uncommon for
| me to watch "sponsors" on YouTube. It's targeted because people
| who are watching a video on mechanical principles, might be
| interested in.. Say "brilliant".
|
| That said. VPN services and ear pods can gf themselves.
| avianlyric wrote:
| Apple blocked targeted ads based on track individuals, and
| collecting personal data. There are plenty of ways of serving
| targeted ads without the tracking.
|
| The most obvious approach is content based targeting. If
| someone is reading an article about baby names, put ads for
| baby clothes next to it. If there're reading an article about
| cloud infrastructure, put an AWS ad next to it.
|
| People managed to make and sell perfectly good adverts long
| before Facebook and Google came along. Have you never noticed
| that every advert in a trade magazine targets people in that
| trade?
| robbyking wrote:
| I understand your point, but there's a difference between ads
| targeting specific audiences and ads targeting specific
| individuals.
| ec109685 wrote:
| They didn't block targeted ads based on collecting data.
| Facebook can collect all the personal data they want and use
| it for advertising.
|
| What they can't do w/o consent is collect data from third
| party apps and use that to target users in other apps.
| tomp wrote:
| The more targeted an ad, the more it manipulates your mind.
| dbtc wrote:
| Maybe not so much for the individual user's experience, but
| society as a whole.
|
| We're seeing that targeted (political) ads are a powerful way
| to hack a democracy.
|
| If everyone is seeing the same shitty advertisement, at least
| they have something to complain about together - even that much
| common ground is better in my opinion than everyone with their
| own version of reality.
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| I don't see how targeted ads are any less insufferable than a
| viagra ad. I don't watch ads for fun.
|
| No matter how "relevant" an ad may be, you're still breaking
| context to insert yourself, and distract me from, the thing I'm
| _actually_ interested in.
| stormbrew wrote:
| > Or did that just make advertising more inefficient which then
| led to just more irrelevant ads.
|
| Why should I care about the "efficiency" of the ads I'm being
| served? It's not my job to help them exploit me.
| rixthefox wrote:
| I think that's the model everyone (eg: your average consumer)
| likes and is most familiar with.
|
| Advertisements on TV are tolerated because it's not targeted
| and just a random broadcast to everyone who might be
| interested.
|
| Anxiety that certain things may be used against you in the form
| of advertising is a very real problem people face. A teenager
| who is researching transgender topics would be potentially
| frightened if the TV station the family usually watches that
| never shows any ads about transgender health suddenly started
| pushing those kinds of ads and the parents disapproved.
|
| The problem lies in the tracking technology. In order to make
| informed decisions about what people might potentially be
| looking to buy includes learning that individual's preferences
| and the rather unfortunate part of everything being online is
| that includes everything you could possibly imagine. Everything
| from the type of job you have right down to your porn
| preferences and other proclivities are potentially up for grabs
| and I'm sure the vast majority of people would feel greatly
| unnerved if Google, Facebook or whoever showed them just what
| kind of person the algorithms have determined them to be just
| by the data they've already collected.
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| If they were any good I might agree. But in my experience ad
| targeting just fixates on things you recently looked up, or
| actually already purchased. I don't recall ever finding a
| product through a targeted ad that I didn't already know about.
| tomComb wrote:
| Also, targeted ads can be very useful for small businesses
| trying to reach their target market.
|
| Untargetted ads tend to be big companies promoting their brand.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| First of all, yes I rather get irrelevant ads than being
| targeted. If you worked in certain industries you know that
| some advertisers are extremely cynical, and I simply don't want
| to be in a constant state of mental warfare against these
| people. This has a real effect on stress and in my opinion is
| worse than seeing an irrelevant ad. At least I know this ad
| isn't tracking and profiling me.
|
| There is also the concept of identity, and specifically, who
| owns your identity. If you are the owner of your own identity,
| including interests, wants and needs, then no company should be
| allowed to create a profile of your identity ("shadow profile")
| without your permission. However, the big ad corporations like
| Google and Facebook (and recently TikTok) all create shadow
| profiles for you, like it or not, with or without your consent.
| Why are they allowed to do this? Should I not be paid if my
| unique identity is being used and monetized?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| This "ownership of identity" complaint makes no sense to me.
| You are the owner of your identity, but I would still be free
| to think you are an asshole if I so wanted (I don't, to be
| clear, just an example :) )
|
| Making inferences about you doesn't mean you "own" your
| identity less.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| Of course you can think what you like of me, but how did
| you obtain this opinion? In all likelihood, from a personal
| interaction - perhaps you met me or replied to my misguided
| comments. Now imagine a person constantly badgering you for
| personal information that you don't want to share, and then
| using whatever info they found to manipulate you. There's a
| law against that, it's harassment, nobody wants this. But
| when a machine does it, it's supposedly okay.
|
| I would consider consenting to being tracked and offered
| personalized ads if I got paid to see these ads. If I am
| the owner of my identity, I should be the one monetizing
| it. Why would I agree some corporation should make money
| off of my very being? I resent that. Either don't profile
| me (especially against my will) or compensate me.
|
| Getting paid for your thoughts is not something new. People
| are constantly being paid to take part in focus groups, AB
| testing, polls and surveys. So why not pay you for the
| right to use this information in advertising?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > imagine a person constantly badgering you for personal
| information that you don't want to share, and then using
| whatever info they found to manipulate you. There's a law
| against that, it's harassment, nobody wants this. But
| when a machine does it, it's supposedly okay.
|
| Badgering you for personal information? You are freely
| choosing to go on their site and interact with it how you
| want. The comparison with "harassment" seems extremely
| hyperbolic.
|
| > So why not pay you for the right to use this
| information in advertising?
|
| You're being compensated by using their free product,
| which you are free to not use.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| > You are freely choosing to go on their site and
| interact with it how you want.
|
| Only that the entire effort of collecting your data and
| profiling you happens without you being able to notice,
| stop or interfere (unless using some extension or
| sometimes a specific browser). It's more akin to you
| visiting public places (the visible websites) while a
| creepy stalker follows your every move and tries to
| profile you. That might be a form of harassment, but even
| if it isn't, I rather avoid this situation.
|
| > You're being compensated by using their free product,
| which you are free to not use.
|
| You might not be awere of how some of this works then.
| TikTok can seemingly track users visiting WebMD and
| Weight Watchers [1]. You can visit the webpage of your
| church, a clinic or even some municipal authorities and
| still get shadow profiled. And TikTok is new to this.
| Imagine the data collected by Google and Facebook.
|
| We're not talking about visiting websites like YouTube
| where you enjoy a "free product". We're talking about
| virtually any website you visit including some essential
| services.
|
| [1] https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics-
| computers/privac...
| unionpivo wrote:
| No targeted ads are worse in several ways.
|
| 1.) It's one of the main reason why surveillance capitalism is
| so widespread. Some of the worst things that came out of tech
| in past 20 years are directly or indirectly connected to
| "targeting ads".
|
| 2. ) Better name for targeted adds would be Machine driven
| adds. And with it comes the counter part of machine driven re-
| posters re-blogers, ai generated spam content etc. If you
| didn't have all those "targeted" machine driven networks there
| would be a lot less reason to build such sites. Since most
| advertisers would not want to advertise on such sites if they
| had a choice in it.
|
| 3.) With all the crap they bring, they still suck at targeting.
| They either focus on one search you did a while ago to the
| exclusion of everything else, they to sell you same expensive
| stuff for months after you already bought it, or completely
| irrelevant most of the time.
|
| 4.) They make pages load slower, sometimes a lot slower.
| cush wrote:
| > but isn't targeted ads better than wholesale bombardment?
|
| Better by what measure? Not at the expense of privacy. Where is
| the data going? Who is it being sold to?
|
| Sure, American TV ads are annoying, but they're predictable and
| sometimes entertaining. American TV ads are so inefficient that
| they need to work for your attention.
|
| One issue with targeting is receiving antidepressant ads,
| knowing the algorithm knows that you're depressed. Or receiving
| baby ads when the algorithm knows you were expecting, but
| doesn't know you had a miscarriage. There are countless
| examples of targeting being a danger to the public as well,
| being used for very effective misinformation campaigns.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > I know everone hates ads, but isn't targeted ads better than
| wholesale bombardment?
|
| There's a lot of people disagreeing with you, but it's missing
| the point, I think.
|
| Everybody can get the experience they want; both you and they
| can. You can get targeted ads by accepting when an advertiser
| asks to track you. They can get non-targeted ads by rejecting
| when an advertiser asks to track them.
|
| The key thing here is that everybody is given the choice. And
| that's Apple's only requirement - they haven't banned tracking,
| they have banned tracking without asking the user for their
| consent first.
| northerdome wrote:
| I remember Steve Jobs explicitly forgoing ads for iCloud during
| his last keynote in 2011. So sad to see where Apple is today.
| https://youtu.be/KTrO2wUxh0Q?t=412
|
| > We build products that we want for ourselves, too, and we just
| don't want ads.
| WoodenChair wrote:
| One of the reasons I pay a premium to use Apple's products is to
| not be part of an advertising ecosystem. I am disappointed that
| this seems to be changing. Ads in the App Store are one thing--
| ads in Maps, Books, and Podcasts as the article suggests may be
| coming in the future--will drive me to use premium (even if
| they're paid) alternatives. At a minimum, people who pay for an
| Apple monthly iCloud subscription should be able to opt-out (not
| just of tracking, which already exists, but seeing ads all
| together).
| htrp wrote:
| > At a minimum, people who pay for an Apple monthly iCloud
| subscription should be able to opt-out (not just of tracking,
| which already exists, but seeing ads all together).
|
| The premium is just an opt-out of the ads (on the specific app)
| .... the tracking is where the value will be in the future
| tomcam wrote:
| I for one am shocked. Simply shocked.
| pid_0 wrote:
| twsted wrote:
| I am really worried about this.
|
| I would have hoped Apple stayed away from this business.
|
| This is greed, imho.
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