Apple Agrees to Make 'App Tracking Transparency' Changes in Germany

[BaldiMac]

Feel free to keep on believing that!

Patronizing response aside, do you want to discuss the issues?

I find the EU to lead the world in identifying and addressing issues with the tech industry. But they tend to overreach or outright fail when they try and micromanage the engineering and implementation. They do better with big picture goals.

ATT is a better solution than the EU’s global failure to address tracking. Apple applies it evenly. They don’t directly compete since their ads are only within their own apps.

The objections to it appear based on nothing more than a “not invented here” mindset of the EU and complaints from the advertising industry that too many people are opting out.

 

[SpotOnT]

You still don't get it. And that's fine.
I will explain it to you again:

1. Apple was asked by Kartellamt to use the SAME popup for their apps, that they use on 3rd-party apps.
2. Apple then CHOSE to change the wording because they don't want to have that strong language on their own apps.
It is this second paragraph that I find "wild" (you seem to like that word.)

If it were up to me, Apple should have been ORDERED to use the SAME "bad" wording for their own apps.
But instead of waiting for a court order, Apple did a settlement, that profited them. By agreeing to use the same popup for all apps, but also having the chance to make the wording more neutral.

The Macrumors article fails to mention almost all of these facts, but makes it look like the Kartellamt asked Apple to change the wording. Which is FALSE. <-- that was my original point.


I honestly don't know how to make myself any clearer?

You are completely ignoring the part where the Kartellamt wants to give advertisers their own space in iOS to convince users to allow tracking.

Note the Kartellamt doesn’t seem at all concerned that there should be an equal amount (or any for that matter) of space for security/privacy organizations to convince users to not allow tracking.

And then the Kartellamt pretends that giving pro-tracking groups - and only pro-tracking groups - space to talk is somehow “neutral”.

I am just baffled how you cannot see the clear agenda here. The Kartellamt wants to increase the tracking and data-mining of the German people.

Instead you seem fixated on this “level playing field” argument, which is a total fabrication, as advertisers and Apple don’t “play” in the same market.

 

[BaldiMac]

You are completely ignoring the part where the Kartellamt wants to give advertisers their own space in iOS to convince users to allow tracking.

For the record, Apple already allows developers to explain why they want to track. Obviously, I agree with the rest of your point.

 

[surferfb]

Absolute insanity. Making everyone’s privacy worse because Germany doesn’t understand the difference between first and third party tracking. This should be example #1 proving EU regulators are either absolutely incompetent or actively working against their citizens interests just because they think “big tech bad”

And people here are defending it!

Hint: there’s a reason data brokers and advertisers are getting EU governments to make Apple change things, and it isn’t because they care about privacy.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Then shouldn’t Apple disclose to the end user that they cannot guarantee 100% privacy protection? They have a tendency to misrepresent the degree of protection they can offer. For example, Block All Cookies in the Privacy section of Safari advanced settings in reality is often ignored when active. Why pretend 100% = All when it should say Block Most Cookies? Why should I believe their claims such as “Our advertising platform doesn’t share personal data with third parties.”?

If you don’t want to believe their claims, you don’t have to. But, that just means you’re intentionally using products from a company you don’t trust, so... there’s that.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

The bad news about the good news is that that user will no longer be able to install updates for their devices not associated with an Apple ID.

If their goal is protecting their privacy from the company they voluntarily created an account with (providing them with personally identifiable information about themselves), a company that needs them to verify who they are in order to ensure they can provide them with access to the entitlements they purchased from the company they purchased them from, that’s the way to do it. The key being that for anyone that decides they don’t want to be tracked by Apple, they can set it up so that Apple can’t track them. Billions of people that don’t have an Apple ID are surfing the internet and using apps without being tracked by Apple.

Anyone that decides they don’t want to be tracked by the hundreds/thousands of third-party trackers? No.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

You still don’t get it and that’s fine. Apple’s apps already followed the same rules as other apps.

Why should they have the same popup if they’re not doing the same thing?

On one side, you have Apple and thousands of other companies with apps on the app store that are not tracking users. I just downloaded three apps from the app store this morning and none of them showed any popup because they aren’t tracking their users for third parties.

On the other, there are companies that want to track their users for third parties. Some would like for there not to be any indication whatsoever that users are being tracked. For there to be no distinction between apps that, quite intentionally, forego third-party tracking and apps that perform third-party tracking.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Apple then CHOSE to change the wording because they don't want to have that strong language on their own apps.
It is this second paragraph that I find "wild" (you seem to like that word.)

What strong language?

 

[Unregistered 4U]

You didn’t read all of the GER press release then. 🙂 Which is par for the course for relentless Apple advocates …

tonmischa didn’t read the GER press release as I was responding to what they typed. 😀 If they misrepresented it, you can take that up with them. 😉

 

[iMac The Knife]

I'm actually a bit torn on this one as a developer. The device identifier is not ONLY used in advertising, it is also a critical tool for analytics. When users have it enabled I can see and track app issues, problem spots, and places of improvements far better than when its disabled. It would be nice if there was an "analytics only" option since I have zero intention of ever putting ads in our apps and I dont want to pester our user with scary tracking messages vs "Would you like to enable app analytics to help us improve your user experience"

Good call on the "analytics only" idea. Bravo!

 

[BaldiMac]

I'm actually a bit torn on this one as a developer. The device identifier is not ONLY used in advertising, it is also a critical tool for analytics. When users have it enabled I can see and track app issues, problem spots, and places of improvements far better than when its disabled. It would be nice if there was an "analytics only" option since I have zero intention of ever putting ads in our apps and I dont want to pester our user with scary tracking messages vs "Would you like to enable app analytics to help us improve your user experience"

What’s that have to do with the ATT dialog? ATT only applies if you’re sharing data with third parties. Just curious.