[HN Gopher] Apple is becoming an ad company despite privacy claims
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Apple is becoming an ad company despite privacy claims
Author : Doolwind
Score : 67 points
Date : 2022-11-24 21:08 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (proton.me)
(TXT) w3m dump (proton.me)
| yarg wrote:
| It's the carcinisation of the modern corporation.
| jcadam wrote:
| I wish they would spin off their hardware business. Or at least
| their Mac business.
| secretprocess wrote:
| Funny, if you make it to the end of the article the entire thing
| is an ad for Proton.
| ViceCitySage wrote:
| Apple's "privacy" is really just data protection from other
| competing companies. It was just another marketing campaign to
| maintain their positive image.
| andreysolsty wrote:
| You can be an ad company and respect your users privacy. They're
| not mutually exclusive as the headline seems to suggest.
| pifm_guy wrote:
| > be an ad company and respect your users privacy
|
| As an ad _broker_ , you usually cannot. If you respect the
| users privacy, and another competing ad broker does not, then
| the competitor will make better ad placement decisions, get a
| higher click through rate, and give advertisers better ROI.
| Therefore, the ad broker that respects privacy will get less
| and less business and die.
|
| The _only_ way an ad broker can respect privacy is if they can
| prevent any other ad broker operating in the same marketplace.
| Ie. You need to be a monopoly in your niche.
|
| Apple can do this by hobbling any other ad provider operating
| on iPhones or targeting iPhone user through their app store
| rules.
| account-5 wrote:
| I've always wondered how apple gets away with its monopolies
| when other companies don't/can't.
| alexbeloi wrote:
| They aren't mutually exclusive, but their incentives are
| opposed, usually the incentives bringing in the money win.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Can you be an ad company and respect your users, though? Google
| and Microsoft failed to do this, not because they didn't
| protect their user's identity but because they kept squeezing
| for more and more cash when the UX was already hurting. I'm not
| confident that Apple can resist those temptations (judging by
| the way they treat their own native advertising).
| Someone wrote:
| Adding advertising likely will cost them hardware sales. if
| so, their hardware branch _might_ have enough clout to keep
| their advertising branch under control.
|
| Phrased another way: adding a few billions of advertising
| revenue wouldn't make Apple an advertising company, just as
| selling smartphones hasn't made Google a hardware company
| [deleted]
| smoldesu wrote:
| They already have advertising, at least in MacOS. Every
| time I put on my headphones I get a pop-up ad for Apple
| Music, and I can't hide iCloud or Safari's constant nagging
| to get me to use them.
|
| Everyone has their own limits, but I left the ecosystem
| after Mojave (with this being one reason).
| colordrops wrote:
| Unsubstantiated claims can be responded to with unsubstantiated
| replies.
|
| Being an ad company and respecting user privacy are completely
| at odds. The incentives are misaligned.
| noizejoy wrote:
| How about companies that purely advertise via:
|
| * bill boards and similar
|
| * printed media ads
|
| * ads that respond to keyword searches - without relying on
| any other user data
|
| * display ads on topical websites (e.g. guitar ads on guitar
| related websites) - without relying on any other user data
| colordrops wrote:
| The first two do not have low latency high bandwidth
| connections (or often any connection at all) to the user to
| collect data, so it's not a reasonable comparison. As for
| the third, I understand that duck.com claims this, but I
| don't buy their claims, considering their behavior. None of
| these sites that claim to not collect user data should be
| trusted until they submit to a transparent audit that
| exposes all their infrastructure. As for the fourth, this
| is a tiny exception to the rule held up by some individual
| with standards.
|
| Apple doesn't fit the pattern of any of your examples.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| Had anyone actually substantiated the claim about the
| unconfirmed non-disabling device ID beyond a single packet
| and theorizing about encrypted packets?
|
| Because the whole article is based on this evidence and
| peoples' desire to dog pile on apple.
| uoaei wrote:
| Are there any examples of this being done?
| fullshark wrote:
| Duck Duck Go?
| uoaei wrote:
| Is DDG generally considered "an ad company"?
| rPlayer6554 wrote:
| That is the primary product they sell.
| nl wrote:
| Yes
| DoktorDelta wrote:
| https://www.komando.com/security-privacy/duckduckgo-is-
| track...
| someNameIG wrote:
| That wasn't for their ads on their search engine, but
| their browser. Even that link says the ads from their
| search engine are private.
|
| And iirc they have stopped doing that with the browser
| also.
| kccqzy wrote:
| It's all a matter of definitions. For example, Google doesn't
| sell user data to third parties, does that make Google
| respect user privacy a lot better than other ad companies?
| Sure yes. But Google often takes user data from one product
| and uses it for targeting in a different product, and it
| doesn't respect user privacy as much as a non-ad company.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| > Google doesn't sell user data to third parties
|
| Ad companies generally don't. Data brokers will set user
| data, but advertisement based companies do not sell user
| data.
|
| > does that make Google respect user privacy a lot better
| than other ad companies?
|
| "better" is the operative word in that statement. Just
| because Google spies on me and is slightly less _worse_
| about how they use that data, does not mean that they
| respect my privacy.
| noizejoy wrote:
| Google collects massive amounts of user data from visits to
| non-Google properties via Google Analytics and AdSense.
| nawgz wrote:
| Ads are taking over the world because they're actually just a
| propaganda vehicle and control is the only thing worth money
|
| Regulation is too toothless to do anything about it so I think
| we'll naturally see all corporations evolve this way
| sfe22 wrote:
| And why would government fix it if ads are propaganda tool?
| Shouldn't it start using it to advance its interest and fix
| bigger issues?
| [deleted]
| ogsalmanxx wrote:
| This makes sense...
| medion wrote:
| Sad and true. Attention and value extraction from every aspect
| of human life is the only goal in corporatism. It's never
| enough for these companies, endless growth is all that matters.
| uoaei wrote:
| > control is the only thing worth money
|
| Indeed. Look at anything you or anyone spends money on. It all
| comes down to controlling your environment. The environment
| that corporations inhabit is structured in such a way as to
| demand user attention and data exploitation in order to
| survive.
| noizejoy wrote:
| Lovely free advertising for Proton. Very smart blog post, since
| numerous employees and fans of Apple competitors, as well as
| anyone who dislikes Apple for whatever reason, has plenty
| motivation to upvote this post.
|
| Also: Calling someone an ad company when approximately 1% of
| revenue seems to be generated by ads would seem quite a stretch.
|
| Also: Being tracked while on someone's property isn't exactly the
| same as tracking someone across unrelated properties.
|
| Also: Every company with a decent CRM system and culture has been
| tracking all kinds of (often personal) details about their
| (potential) customers gathered from their interactions and
| whatever sources they could get their hands on. This has been
| going on since before the Internet was widely used.
|
| But while this blog post (attack ad?) doesn't seem to have that
| much meaningful substance, it's also kind of just doing the same
| to Apple as Apple often does to others.
| politelemon wrote:
| Also: Yet I see many comments rushing to perform mental
| gymnastics on their behalf.
|
| There are several attributes here that match up exactly with
| other companies that are somehow vilified. The blog post is on
| point, the user have been in denial for a long time and will
| continue to be.
| UltraViolence wrote:
| You know Apple's mantra: "Don't leave money on the table."
|
| I'm totally not surprised about this, although it will hurt their
| privacy USP (unique selling point).
| [deleted]
| denkmoon wrote:
| Please no. There is no refuge from the ads. Not for all the money
| in the world, apparently. This is the worst timeline.
|
| Can I pay 2x to get an ad-free iPhone? 3x? Surely there is some
| point where it makes sense to sell an ad free phone for those who
| _need_ to not see ads. They won't even take my money ;_;
| rapind wrote:
| Nope. You become an edge case which now has to be supported
| which likely costs more than you're paying (except to a smaller
| efficient business). If you pay more and more you just become
| more and more of an outlier.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| The only way out is buying devices on which you can flash and
| use OS/software that was built without profit as a goal (e.g.,
| free software).
|
| Anything short of that and you're just sitting under the Sword
| of Damocles of value extraction, ripe to be used and abused
| (within personal tolerance or otherwise).
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| With an accountant at the head of the company, what would you
| expect?
|
| They also have too much power, too much money, not enough
| competition and a deteriorating company culture.
|
| But aside from their dominance, they also have a few gems, their
| bet on ARM is paying off big time.
| ml_basics wrote:
| > a deteriorating company culture
|
| Could you elaborate on this? Genuine question, because how
| Apple is so successful is a complete mystery to me.
|
| I worked there during the pandemic and my experience was that
| there is no company culture, it's just a bunch of totally
| siloed small teams. Culture grows as a result of people
| speaking to each other, which I didn't really see happening.
|
| Could be that I was in a particularly siloed part though.
| jiripospisil wrote:
| Who is clicking on these ads? Or do companies pay for the ad to
| just show up? I have never in my life intentionally clicked on an
| ad.
| seaal wrote:
| I just recently clicked on an App Store ad for the first time.
| It was on a desperate search for an IPTV that didn't suck.
|
| I was hoping it might be good considering the dev was paying
| for ads, it was not.
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