Apple Software Chief Craig Federighi Defends App Tracking Transparency Feature

[Tech198]

When your a company, its difficult to control that privacy.

 

[DeepIn2U]

I am very glad it will be introduced.

If anyonething wants to track me, they’d better be paying me. Just as I pay for the content I use.

EXACTLY! time for advertisers to stop thing we’re their b* we don’t work nor give nothin up for free!

internet advertising started off wrong in the first place. Everyone is still getting ads that they’ll never ever
be interested in. Effective marketing based on users interests n thus payment for such ads should be the model going forward.

 

[DeepIn2U]

As long as they also inform you when THEY are monitoring and collecting info I'm all good. Like phoning home when starting apps cough, cough.

Not good enough. A site or advertiser should tell you for how long how many sites and WHEN it’ll stop tracking you n how it’ll tell you. But they don’t. Therein lies the rub of your stance, its flawed.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Lots of people don't understand that Apple's own advertising (in Weather, Stock, News, etc.) IS NOT included in the app level LAT settings, and does not pop the ATT modal.

If Apple wants to do this, they need to abide by their own rules.

Apple does advertise in Weather - source is the weather network.

stocks - yahoo finance again no Apple advertising in the app.

news - various news sources. Apple again doesn’t advertise inside the news app. If the news source does an article on Apple or features an ad by Apple within the article it’s no different than any other company having an ad on the news source article or main site coming through. Apple isn’t blocking competition here. Articles on Apple products are simply that - articles. Just as evenly as other articles.

what are you even going on with here??

 

[DeepIn2U]

Why does the photo on this article look like it was taken by Craig's stalker?

Half of Apple fans ARE Craig’s stalkers

 

[DeepIn2U]

Oh I am under no illusion that I am targeted for ads on MacRumors or other sites. But I don't complain about it and if I didn't like I would no longer use the service. My point is everyone on here is using a service which they know full well targets them for ads in every way they can, yet they still use the service for free and then complain about it.

I think there is a misconception or misunderstanding here.

sure ‘everyone on here is using a service which they know full well targets them for ads’. The ads are not what everyone or a big part of those of us are complaining about. And not what Apple is making a stand here about.

it’s with WHICh way those ads are pushed out, in such that it’s ‘in every way they can’ that is the heart of the matter here - or via trackers that collect, store and sell data behind wether or not an ad was selected by an internet user.

I see many ads on macrumors site here - I’ve not selected ANY of them and extremely rarely ever do select an ad unless it’s for a product I’m interested in. (I don’t find it comical yet crafty that macrumors will have a news article of a product/service with a previous mention of such which is linked first to their previous article and not the product or services site (getting double pay for ads )

the privacy issue I have is when an ad tracks me anywhere else I go - VPN apps/services doesn’t stop this either that I’ve seen. Very ominous shadow. Worse if you have a corporate healthcare plan that you don’t know is very restrictive. Imagine you loose such health care vendors cause you clicked an ad for Nicotoette gum cause you want you pops to stop smoking and did so on your corporate cellphone and data is shared ? It’s way out there but it’s not something that is too far from a very potential future if things keep going without any change for end users privacy.

for the record see attached what’s being blocked. And what Macrumors may need to work with their advertisers to eliminate going forward for more effective ads without privacy violations.

 

[ozzymo]

I think there is a misconception or misunderstanding here.

sure ‘everyone on here is using a service which they know full well targets them for ads’. The ads are not what everyone or a big part of those of us are complaining about. And not what Apple is making a stand here about.

it’s with WHICh way those ads are pushed out, in such that it’s ‘in every way they can’ that is the heart of the matter here - or via trackers that collect, store and sell data behind wether or not an ad was selected by an internet user.

I see many ads on macrumors site here - I’ve not selected ANY of them and extremely rarely ever do select an ad unless it’s for a product I’m interested in. (I don’t find it comical yet crafty that macrumors will have a news article of a product/service with a previous mention of such which is linked first to their previous article and not the product or services site (getting double pay for ads )

the privacy issue I have is when an ad tracks me anywhere else I go - VPN apps/services doesn’t stop this either that I’ve seen. Very ominous shadow. Worse if you have a corporate healthcare plan that you don’t know is very restrictive. Imagine you loose such health care vendors cause you clicked an ad for Nicotoette gum cause you want you pops to stop smoking and did so on your corporate cellphone and data is shared ? It’s way out there but it’s not something that is too far from a very potential future if things keep going without any change for end users privacy.

for the record see attached what’s being blocked. And what Macrumors may need to work with their advertisers to eliminate going forward for more effective ads without privacy violations.

Apple is taking a stand because they don't like anything that they can't control. Look at the news coming out about Big Sur. Apple has whitelisted several of their own processes that circumvent firewalls so that they can always phone home with whatever info Apple is collecting. They got rid of the kernel extensions and now firewalls have to use the Network Extension API. See where this is headed. All network processes are sandboxed to the network extension api and firewalls can't access anything outside of this API. Apple has whitelisted their own processes and they reach the net through a lower level of the OS that doesn't go through the network extension api; thus no firewalls are able to block apple's processes from phoning home. Sounds like some privacy violations there.

And yes sites follow you around the web and track you. You can either stop using sites that do that or you can use various and multiple different applications to block cross site tracking. Using a combination of safari's cross tracking prevention, along with a Synology router where you can install applications on it to block tracking at the router level, you can use something like PiHole or AdGuardHome to block ads and tracking along with the Adguard Mac app that in addition to blocking ads blocks a whole host of third party tracking. But this is in no way whatsoever Apple trying to protect its customers. Literally every single thing Apple does is to gain more control over the way their customers use Apple devices. Apple loves its devices to phone home to it and send whatever relevant info they are sending but they don't want third parties doing the same thing.

 

[Doug314]

I sincerely hope Google follows and adds the same feature to Android. I seriously doubt it given Google's business model but the evil empire that is FB needs stopped.

 

[Macbookprodude]

Anything that comes out of this moron's mouth is fake as far as I am concerned. Didn't like him when Steve was still here and still don't like him. he is like a stupid dictator and is only doing the bidding of his master, Cook.

 

[v3rlon]

What leg do they have to stand on about an app reporting on the tracking information?

If you want open data, be open about what you are tracking. You shouldn't have a problem with it.
If privacy matters to you, it matters to other people as well, and they should have a choice.

If FB needs tracking to live, and I need to accept said cookies to use FB, I should have the choice to say "Yes, I accept cookies and tracking so I can use FB," or "No, I do not accept cookies and tracking, even if it means no FB for me."

There shouldn't be a "FB is being sneaky about it so they can trick you into using their product," option. I am sure FB would scream to high heaven if someone published an app that defeated their tracking/ads and allowed you to use FB anyway. In fact...

 

[DeepIn2U]

I sincerely hope Google follows and adds the same feature to Android. I seriously doubt it given Google's business model but the evil empire that is FB needs stopped.

the evil that is Akuu

 

[Born2Run]

So since you admit you enjoy YouTube but you don't want to watch any ads, do you subscribe to YouTube Premium? With YouTube Premium you can watch all the videos you want ad-free. As you so eloquently said you don't care if YouTube burns and then you will just move on the next thing. And then when the next YouTube can't turn a profit and starts showing ads you will watch it burn then move on to the next one. See a problem here. I know a certain portion of our leaders today tell us that everything should be free and absolutely everything we enjoy is a human right and should also be free, but that's not how the world works. It costs money to provide all these services and since most people do not want to pay for anything they have to show ads. And if they need to show ads to stay in business they should be able to harvest whatever info they can legally to show relevant ads and make revenue. Our society is such an instant gratification me me me me me society that is really is sad to see what we have become. I want awesome services that appeal to me and I enjoy watching them but I am not willing to pay anything for those services and you better not dare try to show me targeted ads or I will scream about my privacy. That is the world we live in now unfortunately.

Why would I pay for Premium when I'm using ad blockers on my Mac and iOS devices? ... I don't get any ads already so I'm not going to pay a monthly fee for that!

 

[Zen_Arcade]

I wouldn't mind some unobtrusive ads - it's the tracking I object to.

 

[britboyj]

Facebook would be perfectly solvent even if forced to totally randomize which ad goes to which person.

eCPMs for non-device targeted ads are about 50% that of device-ID enriched audiences. Facebook itself would be solvent, sure, but many of the apps that rely on Facebook's ad network for in-app ads would not. The same goes for Google and anything that's not Search. Ads don't just benefit the larger network — they literally keep the Internet (including MacRumors!) free.

Apple does advertise in Weather - source is the weather network.

stocks - yahoo finance again no Apple advertising in the app.

news - various news sources. Apple again doesn’t advertise inside the news app. If the news source does an article on Apple or features an ad by Apple within the article it’s no different than any other company having an ad on the news source article or main site coming through. Apple isn’t blocking competition here. Articles on Apple products are simply that - articles. Just as evenly as other articles.

what are you even going on with here??

You clearly don't understand what's going on here.

• If you are a third party news app. Let's call your app "NewzyNews" and you rely on ads to support your content. You use, let's say, Google Ads, Facebook Audience Network, and let's say IronSource and Chartboost for your ads.
• Your eCPM for users who DO NOT have Limit Ad Tracking (Settings > Privacy >Tracking > Allow Requests to Track in iOS 14) turned on under iOS 13 was, for the sake of argument, $10.
• Under iOS 14 next year, you must now prompt users in that group with the "Can we track you?" modal. If they say yes, that groups eCPM will (at worst) stay $10 in all likelihood.
• Users who HAVE Limit Ad Tracking turned on in iOS 13 or 14 (see above) have a collective eCPM of about $5.

Now, you may think "Okay, I'd love to avoid that popup overall, let me turn it on and make it so no one can even ask me!" That's your right. Cool. You're no longer supporting many free apps, but you do you.

APPLE'S APPS LIKE NEWS AND WEATHER WILL STILL COLLECT AND SELL YOUR ID. They are not governed by the other global privacy preferences and they will not pop the AppTrackingTransparency modal. You have to MANUALLY turn them all off in Settings > Privacy> SCROLL ALL THE WAY DOWN > Apple Advertising > Turn off "personalized advertising." (Note the different verbiage.

Apple should play by their own rules here.

 

[DeepIn2U]

eCPMs for non-device targeted ads are about 50% that of device-ID enriched audiences. Facebook itself would be solvent, sure, but many of the apps that rely on Facebook's ad network for in-app ads would not. The same goes for Google and anything that's not Search. Ads don't just benefit the larger network — they literally keep the Internet (including MacRumors!) free.



You clearly don't understand what's going on here.

• If you are a third party news app. Let's call your app "NewzyNews" and you rely on ads to support your content. You use, let's say, Google Ads, Facebook Audience Network, and let's say IronSource and Chartboost for your ads.
• Your eCPM for users who DO NOT have Limit Ad Tracking (Settings > Privacy >Tracking > Allow Requests to Track in iOS 14) turned on under iOS 13 was, for the sake of argument, $10.
• Under iOS 14 next year, you must now prompt users in that group with the "Can we track you?" modal. If they say yes, that groups eCPM will (at worst) stay $10 in all likelihood.
• Users who HAVE Limit Ad Tracking turned on in iOS 13 or 14 (see above) have a collective eCPM of about $5.

Now, you may think "Okay, I'd love to avoid that popup overall, let me turn it on and make it so no one can even ask me!" That's your right. Cool. You're no longer supporting many free apps, but you do you.

APPLE'S APPS LIKE NEWS AND WEATHER WILL STILL COLLECT AND SELL YOUR ID. They are not governed by the other global privacy preferences and they will not pop the AppTrackingTransparency modal. You have to MANUALLY turn them all off in Settings > Privacy> SCROLL ALL THE WAY DOWN > Apple Advertising > Turn off "personalized advertising." (Note the different verbiage.

Apple should play by their own rules here.

Thank you for explaining this more succinctly.

now ... if I understand you correctly ... this setting I’ve had personally disabled since iOS 10, but the settings specifically state that it does not limit the amount of ads I’ll see with this disabled on my iOS/iPadOS devices. So this would mean that eCPM will still be received by news companies with articles participating within AppleNews/AppleNews+ then right?

 

[britboyj]

So this would mean that eCPM will still be received by news companies with articles participating within AppleNews/AppleNews+ then right?

They'd receive significantly less (50% ish) per impression for your eyeballs, but yes, they still get paid some money.