EU Advertisers Criticize New App Tracking Privacy Controls in iOS 14

[v3rlon]

You not getting it, people will still not pay. What part of that do you not get, people don't buy apps. Maybe 1 in 1000 will pay the dollar or two for no ads. You can't support your app with that.

And just so you know, once people figure out if they click to not track they see little to no ads they will always click that and never see ads and not need to buy an ad remove option.

It's not that had to figure this out. No Ads = No App!

A lot of apps people use will simply go away now.

A lot of those apps are unnecessary anyway.
Honestly, when looking through "free" apps:
Games tend to be "freemium" pay to win, and some of them still have ads
Then you have a million simple feature apps like add a photo filter (that you could do anyway), with ads or Compass with ads, (even though there is a native compass app without) and so on.

All those going away will not be a tragedy.

Then you get into IG, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok type ads - well, we they aren't dying out because they still have the clout to get paid to run ads (like network TV). They just no longer get to spy on their users as an alternative revenue stream. If they are that bent about it, they could try making a subscription service option for people that preferred to pay rather than be tracked (in case anyone trusts them), and see how that works.

 

[Azathoth123]

There's a free market for advertising so prices vary depending on how valuable the ad space is. To maximize income the advertising aggregators need to form a profile of you to get the most money for showing you ads.

The alternative is more ads of lower quality. You choose: a page with more ads than content and no tracking or few ads tailored to you, specifically, because you're tracked.
Again, the consumer as spoken and doesn't like the page full of ads; those businesses tend to fail while the ones that use tracking tend to succeed as they have more content to consume.
The more germane the space to the product being advertised the higher the price, this has pretty much been true throughout the history of advertising on all platforms.

Can’t they just use the advertising identifier? Why do they need to fingerprint my browser and every piece of hardware that I have?

 

[Azathoth123]

Reading further along in the thread....

All this is commerce and capitalism, of which I generally approve. If my data is valuable, why not buy it from me and resell it (with my permission) as others have posted? Maybe then I could cover bandwidth costs of the ads and be compensated for my slow browser. There could be 2 tiers; anonymized and non-anonymized at different payouts.

The main fault of the advertiser’s complaint seems to be that Android dominates market share so why should they even worry about iOS? Apple is going to be killed in a couple of years by the sheer mass of Android where all the developers and advertisers will go right? Sorry couldn’t resist.

 

[drulandian]

I love when a company (or government) shows their true colours with things like this. Consent is everything and everything should require consent.

 

[UNOwen8]

the group of European marketing firms said the pop-up warning and the limited ability to customize it still carries "a high risk of user refusal."

This is somewhat reminiscent of one major U.S. political party seeking to restrain mail-in voting because it would result in more citizens casting ballots.

In this case, not a single consumer has proactively consented to partake of ‘Espionage Capitalism.’ We ostensibly signed up on an agreement which the other party wrote, and can change ‘from time to time,’ but we don't have a voice in this ‘contract.’

When one such services rises to the level of an unregulated monopoly, it becomes very difficult to opt out. I for one would have paid (and I still would pay) for a subscription to Google & Facebook to steer clear of all their shenanigans. Alas, that's not an option.

Why on earth should Facebook or anyone track me and compile & update a profile on me when I am not their customer or not on their site?

 

[Makosuke]

They do this now, just not to the extent that virtual allows. Your purchases at stores are tracked and aggregated, stores watch customer movement within their stores, demographics of people using the highways and transit systems at particular times and days are tracked and known. All that data is used to put advertising platforms in the best places and get the highest prices for the ads.

Glad you pointed this out, because people often seem unaware of just what those loyalty cards do. They pretend to give access to sales that at a store without such a program would offer to everybody, but really it's just a means of carefully tracking exactly what you purchase even if you use cash and tie it to a name and phone number that can be aggregated with other loyalty programs by creepy big-data providers.

You get the same creepy result through a different route if you pay with a credit card, of course (I think, but am not certain, that ApplePay makes this impossible because of the way the tokens work).

It's among the reasons that I avoid shopping at stores with such a program and only use a card if I'm specifically buying something that it's necessary to get a discount on.

 

[Cmdrx3]

Well colour me shocked!!

 

[HudsonSteele]

...the group of European marketing firms said the pop-up warning and the limited ability to customize it still carries "a high risk of user refusal."

Think about this phrase; they are concerned that more people, when they know what is actually going on, will *shock* NOT WANT to be tracked and have their data used to target them. They want people to just be ok with being used to make money. They are mad someone is alerting them to their impending abuse. Essentially, they want people to be like dairy cows; ok with being fed, entertained, and locked up in a corral to make money. This, to them, is the equivalent of someone taking down the fence to free the cows, which is YOU!

 

[Azathoth123]

Google reportedly buys your brick-and-mortar credit card records. I wouldn’t doubt that Facebook does too. I wonder about Apple Card. Anyone know?

 

[Puonti]

Google reportedly buys your brick-and-mortar credit card records. I wouldn’t doubt that Facebook does too. I wonder about Apple Card. Anyone know?

If you're wondering if Apple Card data can be bought, the answer is no. From the Apple Card page:

"And while Goldman Sachs uses your data to operate Apple Card, your transaction history and spending habits belong to you and you alone. Your data isn’t shared or sold to third parties for marketing or advertising."

 

[Morichan]

Back off folks.

 

[Azathoth123]

Back off folks.

I’ll bite, back off what?

 

[rjohnstone]

Glad you pointed this out, because people often seem unaware of just what those loyalty cards do. They pretend to give access to sales that at a store without such a program would offer to everybody, but really it's just a means of carefully tracking exactly what you purchase even if you use cash and tie it to a name and phone number that can be aggregated with other loyalty programs by creepy big-data providers.

You get the same creepy result through a different route if you pay with a credit card, of course (I think, but am not certain, that ApplePay makes this impossible because of the way the tokens work).

It's among the reasons that I avoid shopping at stores with such a program and only use a card if I'm specifically buying something that it's necessary to get a discount on.

Apple Pay doesn't prevent the credit card issuer from tracking your purchases.
Most card issuers sell that data back to the merchants.
Trust me on this... they know what you bought.
All the tokenization does is mask the real card number. Who you are and what you purchased is not masked on the issuer side.

 

[Azathoth123]

Apple Pay doesn't prevent the credit card issuer from tracking your purchases.
Most card issuers sell that data back to the merchants.
Trust me on this... they know what you bought.
All the tokenization does is mask the real card number. Who you are and what you purchased is not masked on the issuer side.

Yes, I understand that and that’s fine that the bank knows what I bought - many cards offer warranties and purchase protection on your purchases, and to do that they have to know what you bought and how much you paid for it. Never mind that they have to know how much you paid to pay the vendor and bill you for it.

But they don’t have to sell my data to third party advertising companies.

 

[DoctorTech]

I applaud Apple for doing this and for their efforts to make Safari more "fingerprint proof". Can anyone point me to a good URL or document about the current state of their anti-fingerprinting efforts? I currently use a VPN and multiple browsers (Safari, Firefox, and Cliqz) in my own attempt to minimize being tracked across the web by browser fingerprinting but I would like to learn more to figure out if I would be better off just sticking with Safari (or Safari Technology Preview) and relying on its anti-fingerprinting features.

 

[2979382]

EU and frankly ALL advertisers can go F-off! If they want to make money exploiting me, I want my monthly paycheque from each and every one of them. It's just one of the reasons I stopped using Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I get nothing out of it, while they make tons of money.

 

[ericwn]

EU and frankly ALL advertisers can go F-off! If they want to make money exploiting me, I want my monthly paycheque from each and every one of them. It's just one of the reasons I stopped using Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I get nothing out of it, while they make tons of money.

And this is exactly what you get for such a headline in an article. This has nothing to do with the EU other than the fact that these advertisement folks are located in their member states.