Ad Firms Hit Hard by Apple's Intelligent Tracking Prevention Feature in Safari

[Skeptical.me]

Internet ad firms are losing out on "hundreds of millions of dollars" following the implementation of anti-tracking features introduced to Safari with iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra, reports The Guardian.

One of the largest advertising firms, Criteo, announced in December that Intelligent Tracking Prevention could have a 22 percent net negative impact on its 2018 revenue projections. Other advertising firms could see similar losses, according to Dennis Buchheim of the Interactive Advertising Bureau.Intelligent Tracking Prevention techniques were introduced in iOS 11 and in Safari 11 in macOS High Sierra 10.13, both of which were released back in September. Intelligent Tracking Prevention is designed to stop companies from invasively tracking customer web browsing habits across websites. Intelligent Tracking Prevention does not block ads -- it simply prevents websites from being able to track users' browsing habits without their permission.

Shortly after the launch of the two new operating systems, advertising groups asked Apple to "rethink" its position and its decision to block cross-site tracking, arguing that Apple would "sabotage the economic model for the internet."

An open letter signed by the Data and Marketing Association and the Network Advertising Initiative said the collective digital advertising community was "deeply concerned" because Apple's cross-site tracking prevention is "bad for consumer choice." "Blocking cookies in this manner will drive a wedge between brands and their customers, and it will make advertising more generic and less timely and useful," read the letter.

In response, Apple defended cross-site tracking and said its customers "have a right to privacy." From Apple in September:There was initially an Intelligent Tracking Prevention workaround that companies like Criteo were using following the launch of iOS 11, but as mentioned in Criteo's announcement, Apple closed that loophole with the introduction of iOS 11.2.

Ad company Criteo says that it is working to circumvent Intelligent Tracking Prevention with an "alternative sustainable solution for the long term" that will align the interests of Apple users, publishers, and advertisers, but it's unclear whether Apple and its customers will find any cross-site tracking feature to be acceptable.

Apple customers who are running iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra can double check to make sure Intelligent Tracking Prevention is enabled on their devices.

In iOS 11, the toggle to disable cross-site tracking can be accessed by going to Settings --> Safari --> Prevent Cross-Site Tracking. With macOS High Sierra, the feature can be activated by going to the Preferences section of the Safari app, choosing Privacy, and then checking "Prevent Cross-Site Tracking."

Article Link: Ad Firms Hit Hard by Apple's Intelligent Tracking Prevention Feature in Safari

Good, those companies have no right to track me on the internet. I hope they go out of business.

 

[Guy Clark]

All well and good but MacKeeper continues to show its ugly face

 

[mctrials23]

I have less than 0 sympathy for them. Oh and my favourite trick is the old sad popup saying "we cannot survive without ad revenue, please pleas please unblock our site". 90% of the time when I disable it I am met by a site that is 60%+ adverts, sponsored posts and general ****.

Its like the piracy argument. Piracy isn't killing the movie business, the people who sell and distribute them are. We adblock because using the internet without them is unbearable. Your ad revenue isn't **** because of adblock and its ilk, its **** because people need to use adblockers to be able to stand using your site.

If you ask me to whitelist your site and there are a few non-intrusive ads I am happy to do so. When I am hit with popups, massive ads and ad breaks in the content there is no ******* way I am whitelisting you and you deserve to go out of business.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

I will try to slay Apple over the battery issues but they deserve props for this.

Everyone and thing deserves credit where it's due, but also criticism where appropriate too. For many here it's completely a binary process. Apple is always "0" or always "1".

But the battery and this ad blocking also demonstrates that companies are working for the bottom line -- not necessary a bad thing, that is their purpose and what puts food on the table for its employees and contractors. Apple makes it's money from selling hardware and services, not advertising, so it's a painless move to further block tracking. OTOH, developing an OS that works equally great on the latest model iPhone and one that is 1, 2, 3, 4 years old, less easy. And it's not good for business to openly advertise it's one year old phones will not work as great with each succeeding major iOS update.

No angels here. Just companies trying to accentuate their most flattering angle. True of Apple, true of every company and person.

 

[Mike MA]

People want free content with no ads. That's not how it works. I want to see if people are so happy when half the internet is paywall (pay to view) content...

There are others ways to earn money through regular ads for the content providers. These are transparent to the consumer and surely needed to create creative content and keeping it alive. Web tracking mostly serves the internet ad companies like Criteo themselves.

 

[vladi]

Not any different than installing Ghostery really.

 

[RickInHouston]

Battery PR going bad, baD, BAD...

So apple cranks up the only card they have left. PRIVACY! Get the work out... GET. THE. WORD. OUT. We are ALL about privacy!

 

[spacemnspiff]

No, not all. If that were the case, MacrRumors would be a multi-million dollar company. The average per user must be in the one, barely two digits cents.

I for one would be willing to reimburse the cost of ad monetization if advertising and ad tracking data collected about me is permanently eliminated, if sites like Macrumors can come up with a tier with a fair cost to subscription in return for no advertising related shenanigans, then I think lot of folks like me would sign up.

I currently barely use Google services (YouTube primarily), I am willing to pay Google for it's services if they include a tier that's not tied to advertising and eliminate all the data collected about me.

I don't want any data collection, which is misconstrued to serve advertising, it serves nefarious intentions that I don't want to support.

Not even close. That would buy you about a years worth of access. IF ISPs added $15/month to your bill, we could remove all ads from all websites, forever.

I wouldn't mind paying that.

 

[vkd]

Think: Ghostery. Been around for years.

 

[riverfreak]

Advertising pays for most of the sites people go to. Yes, it is the current economic model of the internet and it’s the best model that allows for the internet to be used be a larger group of people.

The internet began with public monies. There’s no reason aside from greed why advertising has to be the primary revenue model. Advertising has given us pervasive and perverse tracking, disgustinginly ugly and unuseable sites, shady data aggregation, dumbed-down click bait titling.

People are cheap, I get it. But more sites that offer real value should pursue subscription or patronage models. They don’t because that takes work compared to just downloading a plugin and sticking ads everywhere that may or may not be relevant to mission and moral values.

 

[MistrSynistr]

They have abused a privilege granted to them. Businesses behaving badly results, being regulated in one way or another. Good for Apple.

This post is hilarious because Apple has literally just done this as well to us.

 

[DesertNomad]

I am going to play devil's advocate here for a minute. My wife and I run a small (just the two of us) Mac software business. We've been doing it for 15 years. We have a new product. How are we supposed to get the word out if everyone is using ad blockers?

We exhibited it at a trade show (NAB in Las Vegas), sent press releases, and made an effort to get reviews, but these things only work (if at all) during the initial release. We are a small company so you are never going to see our product on TV. We used to advertise in print magazines, but those have mostly gone away.

Without being able to continuously get the word out through ads, how does a company like ours get people to realize that their product exists?

 

[DoctorTech]

People want free content with no ads. That's not how it works. I want to see if people are so happy when half the internet is paywall (pay to view) content...

This isn't an ad blocker. I don't mind ads (as long as they are not pop ups) related to the content I am viewing on that page or as a result of that search. What I don't like is an algorithm building a profile of me across hundreds of websites and "sticky" ads that follow me from one website to another.

 

[Supermacguy]

I am thankful for this Apple tech. I don't really think that I "have a close bond with brands" that ITP would put a "wedge between brands and their customers", or whatever that BS marketing-speak means. I don't want companies tracking me and hunting me down with ads 24/7. If you have a product I think I need, I'll go find you. Advertise your stuff on relevant sites and I'll see it when I search it.

 

[M.PaulCezanne]

“Internet ad firms are losing out on "hundreds of millions of dollars"”

OMG! Someone call Bob Geldof! We need to organize a fundraiser! Call it Slime Aid.

 

[DoctorTech]

I am going to play devil's advocate here for a minute. My wife and I run a small (just the two of us) Mac software business. We've been doing it for 15 years. We have a new product. How are we supposed to get the word out if everyone is using ad blockers?

We exhibited it at a trade show (NAB in Las Vegas), sent press releases, and made an effort to get reviews, but these things only work (if at all) during the initial release.

We are a small company so you are never going to see our product on TV. We used to advertise in print magazines, but those have mostly gone away.

Without being able to continuously get the word out through ads, how does a company like ours get people to realize that their product exists?

You buy ad words so your message shows up whenever someone searches for a keyword related to your software or you buy ads on a website related to the type of software you sell. You don't have to use cross site tracking to just target 30-40 year old, heterosexual Prius owners in Colorado who earn over $85,000 per year, read Sports Illustrated and have watched a Disney movie within the past 2 weeks.

 

[DesertNomad]

You buy ad words so your message shows up whenever someone searches for a keyword related to your software or you buy ads on a website related to the type of software you sell.

Ad's that "follow people around" are much more useful in terms of actually resulting in sales. We can place and ad on an industry-specific site, but it works much better if that ad can latter appear on some unrelated site. Our ad budget is about $5K a year so we have to make every ad count.

I don't like useless ads either, but I'd much rather go to a site and see ads for things I am interested in. Right now MacRumors is showing me an ad for Western Union. I have used them once in 2007. Not very targeted.

 

[jdawgnoonan]

Keep up the good fight! I do not need so called “useful advertising” following me around the web. I understand that advertising funds much of the internet, but I do not understand how targeted advertising is in my interest.
[doublepost=1515594182][/doublepost]

Ad's that "follow people around" are much more useful in terms of actually resulting in sales. We can place and ad on an industry-specific site, but it works much better if that ad can latter appear on some unrelated site. Our ad budget is about $5K a year so we have to make every ad count.

I don't like useless ads either, but I'd much rather go to a site and see ads for things I am interested in. Right now MacRumors is showing me an ad for Western Union. I have used them once in 2007. Not very targeted.

I would rather see ads that I can easily ignore. Targeted advertising, for me, has the opposite of the desired effect. I am insulted by it.

 

[DesertNomad]

Keep up the good fight! I do not need so called “useful advertising” following me around the web. I understand that advertising funds much of the internet, but I do not understand how targeted advertising is in my interest.

I don't know what sort of things you are interested in but in the last two weeks I have been researching RAID systems (of which I know a lot about) and emergency life rafts (which I know little about). I'd like to see ads for life rafts and related products (EPIRBs etc) rather than an ad for some TV show - I don't even have a TV.

This morning I have been to bbc, cnn, flyertalk, ups, noaa, macupdate, facebook and macrumors. I'm glad all those sites can be free because of ads. For some, I might pay to get no ads, but for lots of them I would not.

 

[Booch21]

...how does a company like ours get people to realize that their product exists?

Build a website, use awesome keywords so that SEO can build you in the search engine database, and come to MacRumors and present your new software to us. Throw a bone with free access codes, get feedback for that, and so forth. There are plenty of ways to get your information out there without plastering side bar and header/footer ads that few people look at. And honestly, if I see something in one of those ads that intrigues me, I'll open another tab and search for it on my own. I don't click that crap because you never know where it will lead.

 

[DesertNomad]

I'll open another tab and search for it on my own. I don't click that crap because you never know where it will lead.

I hear you. I don't care if you get to our site by clicking the ad or not. We've been in business for 15 years so we must be doing something right, but I find myself on both sides of this ad issue.

 

[MacBH928]

internet ads should be like tv ads, I watch it, it doesnt watch me

 

[Defthand]

They are, via all those little video cameras hanging from the ceiling. There are products that analyze store video to see where you spend the most time, what grabs your attention, what you whip right by. Use your target card at the register and now they can add how you shop to your target profile.

You misread. It’s one thing if the vendor you are shopping at (Walmart) observes your purchases. It’s an issue if a different vendor (Target) is following you around Walmart to see what you purchased.

Of course, shopping habits aren’t necessarily something people consider sensitive and secretive. What is concerning is that these data mining snoops are monitoring every browsing activity, some of which reveals your affiliations and private concerns, and some of which is just exploring and happenstance but could be misinterpreted.

 

[Mattynichs]

How does Apple stop companies from tracking you with your IP address?

It doesn't and that's the whole point. In order to respond to this adtech companies will increasingly be forced to move to less transparent and potentially more privacy invading tracking technologies that don't provide a clear opt-out choice mechanism, unlike third-party cookies that could easily be either deleted or a user could simply opt-out. Don't be mistaken, this was not a pro-consumer decision.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

But the issue isn't about us being exposed to ads. The issue is about the advertisers tracking us, they are stalking our online habits/data/profiles/patterns. That's what people don't like. The presence of random ads? No one cares. I see them all the time on MacRumors, never bothers me.

MacRumors is tracking you too. They've got analytics on their site which allow others to cash in on your behaviors. That's just how the internet works these days. It's how companies make money so they can provide all the content you enjoy without charging you directly for it.