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It's bad business to track and profile users without their explicit consent, especially when your data is being shared and sold to 3rd parties with whom you have no idea of existence, nor a contract.
 
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Surely these other companies have the tracking data to back up their claims, otherwise it is an attention grab tactic to try and spin up the idiot public. It is at least partially working as evidenced by some posts here. Google and Facebook were found out by third party researchers to track data, now go after Apple for actual proof. If you can not find the proof, sit down and build your own platform.
 
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What Mr. Cohn is saying is that Apple can collect data and use it between its own apps without asking for permission while a single-app company cannot. This is a valid point. However, Google and Meta can also collect data and use it between their many own apps, including for advertising, without asking. Disingenuous accusation. However, it does highlight the power of large, multi-app companies compared to little ones.
 
What Mr. Cohn is saying is that Apple can collect data and use it between its own apps without asking for permission while a single-app company cannot. This is a valid point. However, Google and Meta can also collect data and use it between their many own apps, including for advertising, without asking. Disingenuous accusation. However, it does highlight the power of large, multi-app companies compared to little ones.
Isn’t the whole issue that Apple can, but don’t, and would give users the same ATT notice to either agree or disagree to be tracked?

The beef seems to be that the power to decide has been handed to the consumer, by Apple.
 
What I would like and will not get is having Apple stick to making great hardware/software combos and enforce my awesome user experience as undoubtedly a way to sell itself to me, the customer.

Instead what we are increasingly getting is another fox guarding the chickens.
 
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What I would like and will not get is having Apple stick to making great hardware/software combos and enforce my awesome user experience as undoubtedly a way to sell itself to me, the customer.

Instead what we are increasingly getting is another fox guarding the chickens.
We need an independent body with no skin the game (such as a government) to enact laws to protect consumers instead of them sitting back and do nothing. Make something like ATT the legal minimum.
 
Define "the ad market". Because to me it's tv, radio, newspapers, direct mailing, billboards, online and etc.
I mean the digital ad market, like…
  • Ads in the AppStore
  • Ads in Apps and Games
  • In Movie AppleTV Ads
  • I’m sure an Apple Search Engine is in the works.
  • More iBeacon location based Ads with notifications in Maps, just like now when you come near an AppleStore
  • Maybe replace third party Ads shown in the Browser with own Apple Ads by using the Private Relay feature as man in the middle. (You heard it here first)
  • Farer in the future, AR/VR Ads
Kill Google and takeover their ad market, is surely on their tasks list.
 
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There's a Chinese saying, 贼喊捉贼, which can be translated to thief shouting thief and it basically means to divert the attention of others so as to cover up one’s misdoings.

Apple ATT is never viewed from the perspective of consumers being given the choice of whether or not to have developers track them. Instead, Apple ATT is framed from the perspective of disgruntled competitors. “Apple is using ATT to go after my business by forcing businesses away from Facebook ads and toward paid subscriptions and App Store search ads” is a common refrain pushed by ATT critics. The (unfortunate) reality is that many small businesses weren’t aware that they had hitched their business wagon to a user tracking machine in the form of Facebook. App Store search ads provide one avenue for discovery that developers have always asked for.

At the end of the day, Apple stands to earn much more money by keeping its users satisfied and engaged with its ecosystem including App Store and privacy features like ATT. That's the reality that competition like Facebook will never acknowledge.
 
So where's Apple data tracking going to lead someone? Ads to all of their overpriced hardware or sites like MR to point out how substandard in quality Apple's software has become? :apple:
 
Apple first blocking cross website tracking and then blocking tracking of apps and now requiring the consent was right. But we must all realise that the tracking of free service companies is not an attack of individual privacy but privacy in general.

This is a monetisation scheme. The advertisers can target you in a much more efficient way than mass media advertising, recommending you something that you might already think of purchasing. The ads sold this way are more expensive and generates more revenue for the ad-runners.

When I say you, it's the consumer.

Not you as John, Jack, Mary or any individual. No-one cares about who you are. But everyone cares about what kind of consumer you are (your likes, wonders, hobbies, people you are connected to etc)

As long as you're anonymous, meaning your personal, quantifiable information is not shared, your individual privacy is not breached.

You persona however, is.

If you're uncomfortable with your free apps tracking your usage across platforms and profiting on this date by allowing advertisers filer and target you as a consumer more efficiently, you should be able to opt out on that.

However this is just blocking one way of tracking consumers. There are other, predictive methods advertisers still can use to target you, ie shopping patters in brick and mortar shops, your CRM date from companies as well as banks, telephone companies and even the company you work for, titles etc.

Apple's privacy ads may result its users thinking that they are protecting your individual privacy (ie yourself, your SSN, your address, your bank number etc), which is true for ALL establishments. This is agains the law for far more long than this topic.

Apple just makes sure that you have the ability to opt out of the monetisation system that companies can target you as a consumer. That's it.

But they do however rise to a spotlight of privacy protectors and that USP is allowing them to gain a (false) competitive advantage, which is wrong.
 
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It’s a shame that we are having to rely on private companies to enact user privacy protections instead of having governments enact law in a timely manner to deal with this.
I would prefer big gov't to stay out of my life as much as possible, after these past decades most have proven to be untrustworthy and unreliable.
 
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yeah, I mean, again, I’d post a clip of the HUMANCENTiPAD South Park ep if I weren’t certain it would either get me a slap on the wrist or a ban (LOL, the irony, not sure what this site’s TOS is either).

but in the end, I trust Apple re: privacy more than Meta and Google combined. the App Store tracking is freaky but it’s one app out of the entire “ecosystem.” iMessage finally has E2E; ADP is finally here. pretty sure they take privacy a lot more seriously than either of those companies. it’s nuts that data farming has become so normalized that these people are accusing Apple of “attacking the ad industry” by allowing people to not get tracked by third-party apps.

edit: oh, since @cicalinarrot brought up social media platforms banning legitimate sources of news—time to bring up Musky Man’s new favorite company to destroy! Popular Information is a fantastic newsletter that’s seen most of its growth from Twitter, where they break most of their stories that go on to be picked up by Bloomberg, NYT, so on and so forth. if you care about journalism done by a trio of people who give a damn about the truth, go check it out. it’s one of my all-time favorite things I’ve subscribed to.
 
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If I wanted Meta and Google to have free rein to all my personal info and data to do with as they wished, I would have chosen to buy their products.
 
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