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Principles? This is the market. Get real. Without adverts, buyers could never hear about a product, except from a possibly limited network of friends and family.

This feature just has the probability of making the advertisements even more annoying, obtrusive, and irrelevant to the buyer.
So what? When I buy a magazine I may see whatever ads the publication publishes, and the companies can analyze the impact such ads have on their sales. There’s no need for said companies to know if I like to visit macrumors, disney, wikipedia, friends of the flat earth or cheapcarsforsale.com. I’m not paying to get spied on.
 
My company is building a product. A great iOS app.
How do we innovate on our product? By hiring more talented software developers
How do we hire talented software developers? With the revenues that we get from the app
How do we get this money? By advertizing
How do we advertise? Using social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Google
How do they advertise? Using your data to create targeted audiences

Now, with this Anti-tracking feature

We cannot advertise to the customers with efficiency
Our ads aren't performing well, now it costs too much to advertise
Our revenues are not as good as before, we don't grow as much, our unit economics are not as great
We have to slow down hiring
We don't innovate as much as before
The customer doesn't benefit from an innovative product anymore



TLDR: young companies need to advertise to get revenue. If you cut marketing, don't expect these startups to get funding
I wonder how innovation happened before data mining.
 
WOW! Just re-read this and am blown away by the statement, slippery slope much?

Again, no one has the right to snoop on my searches without consent, this is a no brainer we need "opt-in" legislation and I don't throw the L word around lightly.

Your idea of consent is hilarious. You bought the device, you visited the website, you downloaded the app, and opened it, and used it. Many "consenting" points where you had ample opportunity to "opt out".

Continue to build your legislative "walls of freedom" and eventually you'll find yourself in a inescapable prison.
 
So what? When I buy a magazine I may see whatever ads the publication publishes, and the companies can analyze the impact such ads have on their sales. There’s no need for said companies to know if I like to visit macrumors, disney, wikipedia, friends of the flat earth or cheapcarsforsale.com. I’m not paying to get spied on.

A magazine is made of paper with no connection to anything. It's a silo, and the business has a much less direct way of serving up relevant, successful advertisements. Think of of how many ads a mag has, it's half full of them. It takes much longer. Wouldn't you rather see more relevant ads if you are going to see ads at all? Ads aren't going away. How about a magazine that only has a few relevant ads? That sounds nice.

We are talking about the digital marketplace. The digital arena is rapid, smart, intelligent, evolving.

We just can't handle the relevant ads because we can't keep up. We see them as intrusive when really the marketplace is evolving faster than we are, "it knows more than me", and it's a bit unsettling, I agree. But I can also see the value in it. The smart businesses can win out even better than before.

Personally, I can see myself declining consent with this feature. But I can also see how that is potentially damaging to the market that has been built. The more relevant data the advertisers have, the better they can serve you as a consumer.

So yes, there is need for said companies to know if you like to visit macrumors and Disney, how much you make, etc. Because they can better serve your interests.

Afraid of big brother? Big brother is always watching, regardless of this feature. We cannot hide.
 
Your idea of consent is hilarious. You bought the device, you visited the website, you downloaded the app, and opened it, and used it.
Yup, bought an iPhone... Yup visited MR... Yup downloaded my paid for app, opened it and used it. Never once was I asked if said app could scrape my clipboard or read my browsing history. You conveniently ignore every reference I make to big corporations being bad actors or apps doing things they shouldn't. Perhaps your app is a clipboard scraper too?

Why is it so much to ask that I have the option to "opt-in", knowing that I will lose all free app functionality if I don't? I would gladly remain out but sadly I am not given a choice because I can barely keep up with how I am being tracked.
Afraid of big brother? Big brother is always watching, regardless of this feature. We cannot hide.
Perhaps, but we should be able to.

Do you really want your health insurance company, via their free app on your phone, to have the freedom to scrape your clipboard, read your location, browsing history, etc.? How about when your life insurance company does it and notices that you frequent bars and canabis dispensaries or that you frequently speed on the highway?
 
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Yup, bought an iPhone... Yup visited MR... Yup downloaded my paid for app, opened it and used it. Never once was I asked if said app could scrape my clipboard or read my browsing history. You conveniently ignore every reference I make to big corporations being bad actors or apps doing things they shouldn't. Perhaps your app is a clipboard scraper too?

Why is it so much to ask that I have the option to "opt-in", knowing that I will lose all free app functionality if I don't? I would gladly remain out but sadly I am not given a choice because I can barely keep up with how I am being tracked.

Perhaps, but we should be able to.

Yes there are apps and corporations with malicious intent. Do we need to go on a crusade? This feature blocks everyone, not just the malicious players. We are all in the crossfire.

My app has no need to for the data because again, it's a paid app. But again, the app market has more competition because I have to compete with an ad-supported app that a user is more likely to download, so I must provide the value of a paid app.

Without a free market, competition has less incentive to make better apps...oh, I'll just make money regardless, I just have to tell my users with a popup the app won't work unless they pay? Great, I hardly have to work hard, I've already been paid.

I won't give consumers the benefit of the doubt, because, when do consumers (fans Team Apple excluded) give businesses the benefit of the doubt? Never. And I want it that way, because that's a smart consumer. A smart consumer lets the business work for him. And a smart business learns about what the smart consumer wants. These advertisers help facilitate just that. And they should be paid for it, and cooperated with.

We need compromise about privacy between parties, yes, but I don't think this is it.
 
More and better privacy controls and protections are always welcome, so this is disappointing, even if it’s just delayed.

There‘s literally no harm to the user for this to be implemented. It benefits only those companies whose business model is based on unnecessary, creepy and insidious tracking.
 
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Yes there are apps and corporations with malicious intent. Do we need to go on a crusade? This feature blocks everyone, not just the malicious players. We are all in the crossfire.
Here is the problem... if anonomous user data is so valuable that an entire industry cannot survive without it then user data that isn't anonymous would be expotentially more valuable right? So everyone out there making money off anonymous data has an incentive to bend the rules to get better data right?
Without a free market, competition has less incentive to make better apps...oh, I'll just make money regardless, I just have to tell my users with a popup the app won't work unless they pay? Great, I hardly have to work hard, I've already been paid.
I still disagree with you here and I don't understand your thinking. You mentioned yourself that your app is pay for so you need to provide above and beyond value because there are free competitors. I say you suffer unduly here because a free version exists in the first place! If this other dev had to compete with your app, dollar for dollar and feature for feature, that to me creates a far better market with more competition and more incentive to make a better app! I can clearly see that if your app has 100% of everything a user could want but costs $10 that some users would gladly accept an app that provides 50% of what yours does for free... how does that better the market? You just get a bunch of slapped together crap for free that is financed by the data harvesting ad model that few really understand but most would opt-out of if it was explained to them or they had the option. Now if someone wants to make an app that offers 50% of what yours does at 50% of the price.... now we're talkin', that's why Apple offers the SE!

I will agree that this model can exist BUT only if the market supports it WILLINGLY:

If users are given the freedom of choice to say I "opt-in" to ad tracking and as a benefit of this I gain access to any free app supported by this model, great enjoy your free apps!

If I choose to remain "opt-out", which should be the default, I understand that free apps are not going to work for me and that I need to pay for them but in return I get the piece of mind of knowing that a stupid word search game is not scraping my clipboard (hopefully).
 
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Afraid of big brother? Big brother is always watching, regardless of this feature. We cannot hide.
It doesn’t meant I go down without a fight either.
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I use ad blockers, I have lockdown installed on my iOS devices, I may not be able to stop my user data from ending up with these services, but it doesn’t mean I just give it all up without a fight.
 
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This delay is/would be absolutely unacceptable. If Apple is on the consumer’s side, and supports the right to privacy, they need to follow through with their plan and give users the choice to not allow their identifier to be used for tracking.

I think it’s time for all of us that want this feature to bombard both Apple and @tim_cook on twitter letting them know this feature is a MUST have! I’ve already done so myself linking this thread to show there are many of us that wish to have this feature.

now the hard part is - there is no other reason for me to update my iPhone 8 to iOS 14 and I hope WatchOS 7 and the Watch S6 does NOT require iOS 14!! I plan on buying the S6 before I upgrade to the 5.4” iPhone 12. Health and privacy and non tracking is more important for me than upgrading my existing iPhone.
 
If privacy is a human right then essentially they’re postponing the (long overdue) protection of that human right.

That would be like if Abraham Lincoln allowed slavery to go on for a few more months so the slave owners could squeeze one more agriculture harvest out of their slaves.

I’m usually the one defending against Apple detractors but in this instance the decision is dead wrong.
 
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What will developers do with the extra time? Add code to beg people to give tracking permission? Maybe disable free features when tracking is disabled?
 
WOW! Just re-read this and am blown away by the statement, slippery slope much?

Again, no one has the right to snoop on my searches without consent, this is a no brainer we need "opt-in" legislation and I don't throw the L word around lightly.

True, but what about the fact people provide info regardless ...? We provide and trust others.... but yet your saying if you provide it to me, i can't do what i want ? Well, then maybe you shouldn't have provided it.

There are ways to reduce the risk, but only directly like addons... What about all the other indirect methods like profiling between companies a user doesn't have control over.? We're just taking what privacy policies for guaranteed as "being true'
 
If privacy is a human right then essentially they’re postponing the (long overdue) protection of that human right.

You can already turn off this tracking on a global level under Settings > Privacy. Apple is actually delaying the opportunity for developers to make their case to their users.

Don't be so hyperbolic. Apple is a private company and no one is forcing you to use its products. You want privacy? Don't buy a cellphone period.

What will developers do with the extra time? Add code to beg people to give tracking permission?

Yes. Developers will use this time to figure out the optimum messaging to make the case that sharing your IDFA (which is all this prompt actually enables/disables) is in your best interests for their app.

Maybe disable free features when tracking is disabled?

This is against Apple's TOS and is actually a GDPR violation, so they'll be pouring resources into messaging.
 
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