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Actually, how the EFF *really* concluded was even better: "Next step: Android should follow with the same protections. Your move, Google."
Facebook and Google are an effective duopoly in this area who support each other and, I expect if investigated, will find illegally collude. One reason they are so heavily involved in politics is to buy protection from the government interfering with their business.
 
I agree 100% with Apple that users should have the right to allow or deny 3rd party advertisers access to user data and user tracking, however, I'm curious to see how this will effect the pricing models developers of websites and apps place on their platforms. While Facebook and other companies have abused the automatic acceptance of user tracking some companies can only function by getting user data from as many users as possible who access their platform. For example, if a developer makes an app and 100 people download it and use it but only 10 people opt in to provide metrics that could lead to very small profit margins for the developer due to poor user metrics and demographics. Just something to think about.
 
All Apple’s new rule does is make things more transparent. If transparency hurts businesses then they have simply been using the wrong business model.

Let people have the choice to pay for something with money, instead of paying with their personal information. Some will choose one, some the other, some both. Leave it up to the consumer, let the market dictate.

If you’re standing up against transparency and consumer choice, then something is terribly wrong.
 
I would add Apple to that list.

Even though Apple is supporting customers on this issue, all the decisions that they make are profit driven.

All these companies are large corporations whose goal is to increase shareholder value.

None of them actually care about the customer except how to get more money from them :(.
Do you honestly think that being profit driven makes a company disingenuous, and not care about people?
You can’t want to make money, yet be honest and upfront?
So I guess by your logic we are all disingenuous and uncaring people. Because we all are profit driven as well. You go to your job to make money, yes? Bam... so you are disingenuous, and don’t care about people. :-( How awful of you!
 
Yeah not so much. Apple is not hiding behind anything. They know damn well how much they charge and how much their users are willing to pay for products and services. But that profit allows them to support their user base not abuse them. Apple’s users pay with their wallets, not with their privacy. It’s a conscious decision. Apple isn’t secretly siphoning money from your checking account to make those profits. They make products and services people are actually willing to pay for.
Just anecdotal, but relevant in this case to illustrate Apple chosing the customer experience and satisfaction over short term profit:
I had an (original) Apple Watch with a leather warp-around band (both bough in Germany). The leather band was de-laminating where the leather was glued to the metal that goes into the watch after a while. I was near the Brussels Apple store and went inside to purchase a metal strap to get rid of the problem. While talking to the employee to get him to sell me the band, I mentioned that my leather band was falling apart and showed him (I was still wearing it). He knew I wanted to buy, he had no clue who I was nor how much Apple gear I actually own/buy/managed. Yet he asked me to wait a bit and went to the back, coming back with the message that he had talked to a manager and made an apointement with the genius bar for me in a few minutes (the Brussels store is enormously busy - I've never seen a more busy Apple store anywhere: normal appointments are days away at best) and that they would handle it instead. Long story short: I walked out with the metal band I wanted to buy. It was a band that was significantly more expensive than the one I had originally bought even (I had free choice of what I wanted). Yet is was 100% for free - they did want to have the old band, but that was it. It took the genius a few trips back to that manager to get it all approved. They told me in so many words that "it is an Apple watch and Apple wants our customers to be happy with their purchase".

I've yet to see any other tech company send a customer who comes in to BUY get sent back out with a free upgrade instead of selling them anything.
This level of not going for the short term profit is what makes for me trusting them more than other tech companies.

FWIW: I still wear that band daily. The watch itself got upgraded to a S4 I bought a few years later in the US (to get the ECG functionality)
 
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Just anecdotal, but relevant in this case to illustrate Apple chosing the customer experience and satisfaction over short term profit:
I had an (original) Apple Watch with a leather warp-around band (both bough in Germany). The leather band was de-laminating where the leater was glue to the metal that goes into the watch after a while. I was near the Brussels Apple store and went inside to purchase a metal strap to get rid of the problem. While talking to the employee to get him to sell me the band, I mentioned that my leather band was falling apart and showed him (I was still wearing it). He knew I wanted to buy, he had no clue who I was nor how much Apple gear I actually own/buy/managed. Yet he asked me to wait a bit and went to the back, coming back with the message that he had talked to a manager and made an apointement with the genius bar for me in a few minutes (the Brussels store is enormously busy - I've never seen a more busy Apple store anywhere: normal appointments are days away at best) and that they would handle it instead. Long story short: I walked out with the metal band I wanted to buy. It was a band that was significantly more expensive than the one I had originally bought even (I had free choice of what I wanted). Yet is was 100% for free - they did want to have the old band, but that was it. It took the genius a few trips back to that manager to get it all approved. They told me in so many words that "it is an Apple watch and Apple wants our customers to be happy with their purchase".

I've yet to see any other tech company send a customer who comes in to BUY get sent back out with a free upgrade instead of selling them anything.
This level of not going for the short term profit is what makes for me trusting them more than other tech companies.

FWIW: I still wear that band daily. The watch itself got upgraded to a S4 I bought a few years later in the US (to get the ECG functionality)
I had my Apple first gen watch replaced after it got caught on something and the face popped off. I went to the store and told them I banged it and the face popped off. I said it was out warranty and I would like to repair it as long as it wasn’t too expensive otherwise I would wait to buy a new one in a month when series 3 was released.
They looked at it, said “that shouldn’t happen though. Let me write up a repair ticket, see what the cost would be, but I think they will replace it. See how the battery isn’t quite flat? That looks like a bad battery that caused pressure.”
Next day I got an email telling me the repair was done, no charge.
I picked it up and they said it was replaced with new as they don’t repair the watches and only were refurbing for resale.
Similar thing happened with an out of warranty refurbished iBook G4 14”. Genius bar authorized a replacement and I left with a new one.

Apple is so greedy...
 
Apple can win every battle except for one, "Intentional Suppression" of Third-Party App Innovation !

That one could lose them control / ownership of the App Store !

first of all Apple can not win every battle ( example patent trolls in eastern Texas oh boy you forget 🤦‍♂️) and second of all your completely dead wrong if you think apple will lose control of the App Store 😂
 
I don't get small businesses in my facebook feed unless I'm friended to them. The rest I seem to get are knock-off Chinese stories with products I THINK I'd like, but are in China and don't make it clear.
 
Facebook’s executives must be out of their minds to think they have the public relations capital to claim they care about users. It’s like they haven’t been aware of what Facebook has become known for over the past five years. Have they completely forgotten their CEO has basically been on a public apology tour for 4+ years? There’s been some new revelation to apologize for about every other month.
 
For those wanting some privacy back from websites such as this one, just an example of what I use:

- Firefox: Strict privacy policy
Firefox > Preferences ... > Privacy & Security > Enhanced Tracking Protection : set it to Strict
- Firefox: duckduckgo as Search Engine:
irefox > Preferences ... > Search > Default Search Engine : set it to DuckDuckGo (none of the other general purpose ones come close to caring about your privacy).
- addon Ghostery
- addon Ad Block Plus

All of those block parts of the overall tracking efforts on different levels.

If you want to see what you'd eat in an unprotected browser:
 
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For those wanting some privacy back from websites such as this one, just an example of what I use:

- Firefox: Strict privacy policy
Firefox > Preferences ... > Privacy & Security > Enhanced Tracking Protection : set it to Strict
- Firefox: duckduckgo as Search Engine:
irefox > Preferences ... > Search > Default Search Engine : set it to DuckDuckGo (none of the other general purpose ones come close to caring about your privacy).
- addon Ghostery
- addon Ad Block Plus

All of those block parts of the overall tracking efforts on different levels.

If you want to see what you'd eat in an unprotected browser:
Or just use Safari.
 
A big F you to Facebook. I have no option to drop tracking from them even if i express my option to opt out of tracking, they add fbclid tracking links to every url you visit through facebook, they snoop on every website that has their pixels and even with GDPR in Europe they always find a workaround. They are a plague which needs to be destroyed. Great move from Apple, can't wait to be implemented. Bring this to macs as well
 
Hardly Commie. They are more like 'Big Brother' incarnate. Orwell was very left wing and wrote 1984 as a warning about what could happen in an era just after the end of WW2. If FB were commie then Zuck would be giving all that filthy mulah away.He isn't is he?
IMHO, they are totally the opposite of commie. Ethically Degenerate is a very good description though.
Sure, just like China’s communist dictatorship gives all of its money away to its people for the “greater good”. Let’s not try and soften the blow of what communism/Marxism really is: tyranny and censorship through velvet-sounding control dogmas, groupthink, oppression via spying and increasingly barbaric/unconscionable artificial intelligence applications, and “COMMUNIty Guidelines.” If you don’t YET believe that Facebook is running a communist agenda, you may actually be subjected to its propaganda. They’re literally accusing others of doing precisely what they’re doing as a deflection tactic.
 
Unfortunately, the vast majority of people online don't understand or don't care who is spying on them and analysing their lives. For many when they finally do it will be too late.

FB and many others sold their soul to the devil a long time ago. As for Apple, what if they suddenly changed policy, or there was a takeover? What if China decided it wanted to buy out Apple a few years down the line? They have the money. They have already bought up many of the world's resources in Africa, Europe and other parts of the world. Remember it was only in 1997 when Bill Gates and Microsoft saved Apple. Times can change pretty fast.
 
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Unfortunately, the vast majority of people online don't understand or don't care who is spying on them and analysing their lives. For many when they finally do it will be too late.
I will say it's more that people still value convenience over all else. If you tell them to stop using Facebook because it's spying on them, they are not going to bother, or will just find some excuse to keep using Facebook. Everybody wants change, but nobody wants to change. We are all hypocrites like that.

However, if you tell them that Apple has a way to let them continue using Facebook while being able to safeguard their privacy, and all it required was for them to press a button, I believe most will jump on it.
 
I will say it's more that people still value convenience over all else. If you tell them to stop using Facebook because it's spying on them, they are not going to bother, or will just find some excuse to keep using Facebook. Everybody wants change, but nobody wants to change. We are all hypocrites like that.

However, if you tell them that Apple has a way to let them continue using Facebook while being able to safeguard their privacy, and all it required was for them to press a button, I believe most will jump on it.
I think you are missing something. Facebook is a bag of all the worst in society. Voyeurism, stalking, victimization, haughtiness, fear baiting, sniping, trolling, flame warring, disinformation, on and on...

Sure, there is a good use for Facebook, but far too many people in their management seem to want to push the conflict, and seed the sour fruit of a decomposing society. They, and the right wing media, are like flies, eating the corpse and laying their eggs for the future. Facebook has gotten so large, I don't know if it is able to be salvaged. It would require an almost complete replacement of the current management, and real binding repercussions if they backslide into the morass. That's going to take a heck of a lot of balls on politicians and the media. Facebook has made a lot of friends in low places. They make a lot of money pedaling their customers thirst for trash.
 
I think you are missing something. Facebook is a bag of all the worst in society. Voyeurism, stalking, victimization, haughtiness, fear baiting, sniping, trolling, flame warring, disinformation, on and on...

Sure, there is a good use for Facebook, but far too many people in their management seem to want to push the conflict, and seed the sour fruit of a decomposing society. They, and the right wing media, are like flies, eating the corpse and laying their eggs for the future. Facebook has gotten so large, I don't know if it is able to be salvaged. It would require an almost complete replacement of the current management, and real binding repercussions if they backslide into the morass. That's going to take a heck of a lot of balls on politicians and the media. Facebook has made a lot of friends in low places. They make a lot of money pedaling their customers thirst for trash.

The way I see it, facebook is simply a reflection of society, just that the internet has the effect of magnifying both the best and the worst that humanity has to offer.

I do agree with you that I am not sure if Facebook can even be saved, much less how to go about doing it. Given Facebook’s immense influence on speech and politics, I am not sure I even want the company policing free speech.

But this just brings me back to my earlier point about the issue not being so much about facebook, but rather, the unifying properties of the internet. Even if Facebook were to disappear tomorrow, you are going to have a dozen social media websites springing up to take its place, and we are still going to have the same issue with fake news, trolling etc.

The solution, I feel, is still to better educate people on things like how to better identify and deal with fake news, but I suppose that’s easier said than done.
 
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The way I see it, facebook is simply a reflection of society, just that the internet has the effect of magnifying both the best and the worst that humanity has to offer.

I do agree with you that I am not sure if Facebook can even be saved, much less how to go about doing it. Given Facebook’s immense influence on speech and politics, I am not sure I even want the company policing free speech.

But this just brings me back to my earlier point about the issue not being so much about facebook, but rather, the unifying properties of the internet. Even if Facebook were to disappear tomorrow, you are going to have a dozen social media websites springing up to take its place, and we are still going to have the same issue with fake news, trolling etc.

The solution, I feel, is still to better educate people on things like how to better identify and deal with fake news, but I suppose that’s easier said than done.
Yes. Education. The educational system in America has been failing the nation for decades now. It's sad. But I wonder how many people in my graduation class have such a good BS detector. Is it education, or having a sarcastic streak. I can see, usually, the aim of political BS, and can extrapolate were things seem to be headed, and so many people just can't. Am I the last sane person on the planet, I ask myself some days. It's truly a nature v nurture question.

Like water, you can lead someone to an education, to 'the truth', and they can still refuse to understand it. To hear it. To grok it. People are prepared to refuse a vaccine that could save their lives. It's illogical, but how do you fight thoroughly entrenched dogmatic idiocy.
 
Perhaps I am in the minority, but not once have I ever clicked on adverts when browsing. Targeted adverts, when I have seen them when my blocker has been deactivated, invariably just show me the very same things I had searched for a little earlier.

So, with that in mind, and ignoring the blatant ulterior motive, I personally must also declare Facebooks argument: Laughable and flawed.

What I do enjoy though is the thought of Zuck"please call me the messiah" being worried, and maybe Facebook going the way of MySpace. Here's hoping.
Same. Not once. Most typically, ads annoy me and I think place a subconscious boycott flag in my brain.
 
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