Apple Responds to Safari 11 Criticism From Advertising Groups: 'People Have a Right to Privacy'

[jinnj]

Good for Apple, unless they decide to give away privacy when they sell their own iAds... Hopefully not.

No, iAds is dead because they won't give up detailed information. Source is an article written by the Ad guy that Apple brought in to run iAds and why he left.

 

[hank moody]

Thank god Apple exists.

 

[jinnj]

YES.

This is why I buy Apple. (Except when my wallet says the X is too expensive).

Exactly!! This is the first year where my phone will not be purchased by my employer and so I looked at the options... iPhone X $999 or Samsung Note 8 $929. Screw It! I am staying with iPhone! Oh wait I have the option to get some crappy LG phone that will never be updated. Screw It! again. I rather stay with my iPhone 6

 

[Rob_2811]

Option A:
Get 3 Billion a year and use the preferred search engine of most of your customers.

Option B:
Don't get 3 Billion a year and use something most customers don't want to use.

Yeah, stupid Apple. Totally stupid.

Oh they aren't stupid they clever enough to have a lot of people convinced that they love and care about them more than their own profits.

Its purely a means of positioning themselves opposite Google from a marketing perspective. Although they are perfectly happy to have Googles services enabled by default on their products and as you yourself have agreed most of their users (even probably a lot of the ones giving Apple a good old pat on the back in this thread) use Googles services on their iPhone.

The question is why do they use Googles services? Because they are better than the competition thats why. Why are they better than the competition? Because of the data that they collect.

Apple respect their users privacy but are more than happy to endorse services that do track users data and to profit from them.

 

[pat500000]

Poor ads....they are screaming like that evil witch from wizard of oz....."nooooooooo..."

 

[jzngdt]

Advertisers have been ignoring and circumventing the do not track option forever. Turn off third party cookies and sites bark at you for not being able to track.
Google follows me around relentlessly. I'm glad someone is on my side about this stuff.
Having the same ads show up from site to site is like being stalked.

 

[Sill]

Its a shame Apples commitment to user privacy didn't extend to them not accepting billions from Google for default search status on iOS. Yet again with Apple $ >>> anything else.

So, should Apple have $3billion more to do good with, or should Google keep that $3billion to do more evil with?

I hope Apple gets $10billion the next time they sign the contract with Google. I'll happily buy more Apple products and then switch to a different search engine the first time I start each device.
[doublepost=1505575894][/doublepost]

So far behind Chrome its unreal. There are loads of useful extensions for Chrome for developers in particular. The amount of quality extensions for Safari is sadly lacking.

Wouldn't that be the bailiwick of the user community? I'm unclear how Apple or Safari can be blamed for a lack of extensions, nor how Safari could be considered "so far behind Chrome" because of that.

 

[Rob_2811]

So, should Apple have $3billion more to do good with, or should Google keep that $3billion to do more evil with?

I hope Apple gets $10billion the next time they sign the contract with Google. I'll happily buy more Apple products and then switch to a different search engine the first time I start each device.

Do you really believe this nonsense? Goodness me some people have got it bad.

 

[Sill]

More people should try using this browser:

https://brave.com/

I used it, didn't find it bad or good, just usable. Then I found that at the heart, it was Chromium. Deleted.
[doublepost=1505575979][/doublepost]

Do you really believe this nonsense? Goodness me some people have got it bad.

I must believe it, because I wrote it. Not too strong of a refutation on your part.

 

[Rob_2811]

I used it, didn't find it bad or good, just usable. Then I found that at the heart, it was Chromium. Deleted.
[doublepost=1505575979][/doublepost]

I must believe it, because I wrote it. Not too strong of a refutation on your part.

Honestly there are a lot of delusional people in the world that have some very strange beliefs. I'm not going to try to convince them all otherwise.

 

[DoctorTech]

We're probably going to need something like semi-automatic micropayments to sustain popular websites that currently rely on ad revenue.

I like and would support this idea. I already donate regularly to Wikipedia and I have also donated to a UK news website and a couple of other websites that primarily rely on donations to stay online.

I don't think there is a "perfect" monetization model for content but the current ad based model drives a lot of bad behavior by websites such as attracting viewers with over hyped click-bait and burying information 5 layers / pages deep so you have to keep clicking to get to what you are looking for. I would much rather pay for high quality content and a good user experience than get "free" content in exchange for my time (commercials before videos), wasted bandwidth & battery life on mobile devices, and my privacy.

 

[DoctorTech]

I don't see how the Data and Marketing Association and the Network Advertising Initiative et al can say that Apple's stance is "unilateral", since it's the user that makes the choice.

In the self-serving view of the marketers, Apple "unilaterally" made a decision (without their permission) to allow users to opt out of cross site tracking. Apple is trying to give the best web browsing user experience possible to their customers. That includes giving us the option to preventing self-playing videos (saving users data and battery life) and restoring a degree of privacy to our web browsing. I truly appreciate Apple giving us these options!

 

[Tiger8]

Consumers need to actually be ASKED! That's the issue. Most consumers do not know they are being tracked around the internet even when logged off from services, for the sole reason to make money for advertisers.

It costs money to do most things, no one has a problem with that. But if you aren't asking for consent or telling people what you are doing with their data that's wrong.

Let the consumer decide whether they want to make this deal with the ad companies and websites. The ad companies are trying to circumvent consent and telling people its good for them!

It would be like going to what you think is a free bar and drinking all night but coming home to find someone took your $200 out of your bank to pay for it. You may well have paid for it if you were asked but you weren't. It was taken and it implied that you have agreed because you were at the bar. It's not right at all.

Fair point. But I thought almost all the websites, at least the reputable ones, have a message the tell you that they are using cookies and that essentially if you are not OK with that you shouldn't use their website. I believe it was Europe that made it a requirement also that the steep in the terms and conditions what exactly they are using the cookies for. How many people read that?

Now we can debate on the limits of use, but in this day and age people know that their activity is being tracked on the Internet.

 

[asiga]

Apple’s technique isn’t to use your privacy to target products at you, their technique is to try and lock you into the platform by making it sticky. Apple has done a lot wrong in recent years but their stance on privacy is admirable.

However, you need to trust Apple's behaviour, because they do have access to your data (beginning with the files you store in iCloud, as well as the iPhone tracking the places you visit, where you park your car, and many more things). If you trust Apple, it's up to you, but you really need to trust them if you don't want to be afraid of your privacy. I don't trust any company, so I always avoid using services that store my data in places outside of my control.

 

[Tiger8]

Awesome!!!
Remember the old days:
- only 10 minutes of commercials on a hour long TV show. Now it's about 25 minutes.
- No pop up Ads or moving ads on a website.
- Watching a video on a website without forced ads.
- Videos game without in-app purchase or ADs.
- Solicitation phone calls maybe twice a year.
- Walking from one side of the mall to the other without being pestered to try products.
- Not being pestered to fill out surveys every time I buy a product at a store.
Life used to be so pleasant.

Can you please name one 1 hour TV show in which there are 25 minutes of commercials? I watch many shows whether live on DVR or on Netflix on average episodes are 42+ minutes most of them are closer to the 45 minutes mark, making it 15 - 18 minutes max, and it's usually a mix of actual commercials and other shows on the same network.

Where on earth did you get the 25 minutes of commercials ?

 

[rpmurray]

If advertisers really cared about consumers then ad tracking ought to be opt-in. A dialog should come up that says something like "Do you agree to be tracked across the internet by XYZ advertisers?", with a Yes/No choice. The advertisers unilateral and heavy-handed approach to spamming and tracking consumers without consent is bad for consumer choice and bad for the ad-supported online content and services consumers love. Continuing to do so will drive a wedge between brands and their customers.

 

[Sill]

Fair point. But I thought almost all the websites, at least the reputable ones, have a message the tell you that they are using cookies and that essentially if you are not OK with that you shouldn't use their website. I believe it was Europe that made it a requirement also that the steep in the terms and conditions what exactly they are using the cookies for. How many people read that?

Now we can debate on the limits of use, but in this day and age people know that their activity is being tracked on the Internet.

You're right, and those users range from ambivalent to the tracking to militant against it. What a lot of those ambivalent people don't understand is just how focused this tracking can be, and how it really affects user privacy. I just finished reading an op-ed on 9to5Mac that argued in favor of the cross-site trackers. The guy made a good case, but in his oversimplification he became focused on the "cookies are nothing more than text files" notion, one that greatly underestimates the value and risk of cookie files.

The EFF has done a great deal of work in trying to bring information regarding browser uniqueness to public attention. Through their Panopticlick page, EFF has done a great job of demonstrating how just your browser settings and plug-ins can effectively narrow down who you are. At my last trip there, EFF hadn't yet implemented cookie forensics, and I don't know if they have done so yet. Using the information contained in cookies, cross-referenced against purchase data provided by online payment processors, a person's physical identity can be determined to near 100 percent precision.

In my efforts over the years to educate people about just how exacting this ID process is becoming, people tell me about all the things they do to mask their identity. When I show just how their efforts have gone for naught, or when I inform them just how much FB or Google knows about people who don't have memberships, after a brief look of confusion on their face, the usual cognitive dissonance that is always present in online discussions about privacy sets in. They say, "Oh well, what can you do? I have nothing to hide."

 

[a.gomez]

The new rules allowing your ISP to collect and sell your browsing history is just one more reason to use a secure VPN. It encrypts everything between my computer and the VPN server. All my ISP can see is that my computer is passing encrypted data back and forth with one server (that doesn't keep any logs of my surfing). My personal favorite is Private Internet Access but there are several good ones out there anywhere from $0 to $4.00 per month.
[doublepost=1505538439][/doublepost]Thank you Apple

yep - but aunt Betty has no idea about VPNs. People can also just install a few extensions on any modern browser and would do exactly the same thing as this and you not stuck with Safari.

But people keep living in a fantasy that these little tokens (that are nothing but PR stunts) are keeping them private. That same tech that blocks Netflix on my NY to Boston GoBus trip keeps track of what else I'm doing on the Bus network. They always find a way - we are walking money

 

[thekeyring]

Maybe I'm crazy, but is part of Apple's motivation for doing this a stab at the largest advertiser out there - Google?
[doublepost=1505578656][/doublepost]

Good for Apple, unless they decide to give away privacy when they sell their own iAds... Hopefully not.

I wouldn't worry. I believe iAd has been discontinued.

 

[DeepIn2U]

This is nothing more than Apple's way of exerting their large user base against their competitors under the guise of increased privacy. Don't be fooled.

Riiiiight, keep telling yourself that.

Supposed I goto a companies site look at their product. I choose NOT to buy it. BUT every other site I goto, including Macrumors that product keeps showing up - I find that ANNOYING. It's WORSE in Bloomberg app on iOS cause as you scroll through an article BOOM the article opens up and you HAVE to see it by scrolling through to by pass it!

THAT is a competitor I do NOT wish to exist.

PS: I've not seen any apple ad pop-up that follows me about. Have you?

 

[tmarks11]

Good for Apple. Cross-site tracking is spooky.

I got an email saying "we noticed you were browsing for _____ on our website, and recommend looking at the following....".

The spooky part was how did the website get my email? I had no account there. Well, I followed the link at the bottom of the email, and it led to an explanation page, stating they essentially followed me from site to site until I arrived at a "partner site" where I did have an account, and VOILA! they now knew who I was.

nice.

 

[posguy99]

There is browser extension called Ghostery for Safari, Chrome and FireFox which does the same thing. It is suggested by Edward Snowden.

Not any longer. Ghostery until this year was actually owned by an ad company.
[doublepost=1505580307][/doublepost]

What is the big deal? Safari is only on Macs and I thought Macs was a tiny percentage of the browser market share on desktop operating systems? Not all Mac users use Safari. And the user can turn it off or use another browser.

Go back and actually read the article this time. This is the advertisers complaining, the users *benefit* from this.

 

[macintoshmac]

This comes to mind. Courtesy Joy of Tech/ Geek Culture.

 

[Geekbabe]

Thank you Apple!

 

[posguy99]

So far behind Chrome its unreal. There are loads of useful extensions for Chrome for developers in particular. The amount of quality extensions for Safari is sadly lacking.

Be specific, please... I'm curious. How is it "so far behind Chrome" in any way that affects users? Given your average "developer" incompetence, I'm certainly not sympathetic to *their* perceived needs. Have you *met* the modern web?