EU Advertisers Criticize New App Tracking Privacy Controls in iOS 14

[AZREOSpecialist]

Maybe companies should find a revenue stream other than advertising. Advertising annoys the crap out of everyone and I would love a future Mac and iOS to block all advertising everywhere. Relying on ad revenue is easy and lazy. Build something better.

 

[ervingv]

🤣 So I guess everyone here complaining about the tracking loves ads not relevant to them. If am going to see ads, I rather see ads about things I might be interested in.

 

[dlewis23]

Nobody is taking away the ability to show ads.

Except in reality it actually is. If you the user click the "ask app to not track" button the IDFA returns 0 which to the advertiser is no one, so ads will not show in most cases as it is right now. In the rare event one does show it is an ad that pays just about zero if you click on it. Which to the developer is an ad not being shown, they can not pay to operate the app and live with out the revenue a normal ad would show.

 

[ervingv]

Maybe companies should find a revenue stream other than advertising. Advertising annoys the crap out of everyone and I would love a future Mac and iOS to block all advertising everywhere. Relying on ad revenue is easy and lazy. Build something better.

🤣 You mean websites like Macrumors and others who rely on ads to make some money? There are other options like subscriptions but you would complain about that too. People are never happy. 😆

 

[dlewis23]

Maybe companies should find a revenue stream other than advertising. Advertising annoys the crap out of everyone and I would love a future Mac and iOS to block all advertising everywhere. Relying on ad revenue is easy and lazy. Build something better.

You mean like people paying for apps? Yeah we tried that, you don't pay for apps. It doesn't matter how good the app is, most people are not going to pay for it.

 

[jgbr]

unlucky data pirates!

 

[Zen_Arcade]

Apps are very different than websites. They cost much more money to make and often the operating cost is higher. I do both.

Ads in apps also pay much more than ads on websites. It's not uncommon to have a eCPM from interstitial ads well north of $20. Going to generic ads you would be lucky for that to be a $1. People can't operate them at that cost.

They’ll have to adapt . . .
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You mean like people paying for apps? Yeah we tried that, you don't pay for apps. It doesn't matter how good the app is, most people are not going to pay for it.

That should tell app developers something: people don’t see enough value in the app.

 

[ervingv]

They’ll have to adapt . . .
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That should tell app developers something: people don’t see enough value in the app.

These are some crazy statements you make. First, the app could be awesome with a great price and people are too cheap to pay for apps.

and "They'll have to adapt..." is easy to say when you are not running a website/app.

 

[dlewis23]

They’ll have to adapt . . .
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That should tell app developers something: people don’t see enough value in the app.

Thats not reality. It doesn't work that way, even if the app has value people still not pay. You have gone the last decade with ads funding apps because people did not way to pay for apps. Remember the race to the bottom? Thats because people did not pay.

So apps turned to ads. Now we are going to go back to that? I don't think so. This will lead to apps going away and people getting upset because there are no new apps, and what's their always costs money now.

Developers will be extremely upset and next year Apple will roll out again there own ad platform that is privacy friendly. Ads are going to the only way because people will not pay.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

These are some crazy statements you make. First, the app could be awesome with a great price and people are too cheap to pay for apps.

and "They'll have to adapt..." is easy to say when you are not running a website/app.

Ah, young Padawan . . .

You fail the very first element of target analysis: find what’s important to people. What YOU think of an app and its value is meaningless - the only opinion that matters is the customer’s.

As to having to adapt, that’s been true forever. If you can’t or won’t, you’re in the wrong field.

 

[Pujones1]

Here’s a thought. Pay us for our data. Then you can sell it with our express consent. Everyone profits. There. Problem solved. Personally wouldn’t sell my data though.

 

[4jasontv]

Read what I said.
If they are providing you an app at “no financial cost from you”, this is how they get paid for their work.
There is no financial impact on you at all.
Nothing is free. There is always an exchange of something of value.

My time has significant financial cost. So does my data. Engaging with either has a financial impact on me.

 

[ericwn]

Showed this to my father who is a die-hard Android guy. He'll be buying iPhone 12 now

And he wasn’t aware prior that they are an ad company supporting user tracking and data mining? I find that hard to believe when someone is a die-hard if anything.

 

[TiggrToo]

To play devil’s advocate here, if they are providing you an app at no financial cost to you, the tracking is how they get paid. Don’t like it? Don’t use the app.
For paid apps, block away. They already got paid.

No one is saying they can't display adverts here.

What this is saying is that there's way too much tracking of who you are on the internet.

It's so bad, so pernicious now, that even if you're on private mode on a browser, it's very much possible for a website to know exactly who you are, where you live, how much you eat, your kids names etc.

If you're fine with your entire life being an open book with zero concerns, then go right ahead.

But wait, it gets worse. All this information, all this private information, gets stored in data silos all over the web.

Some are unprotected. Some get exposed. Then the bad actors who inhabit the dark web get involved.

Then all that private information is available to everyone who wants to use it maliciously.

Then you wonder why your identity got stolen one day and scratch your head trying to figure out how it happened...

 

[nvmls]

EU Advertisers, don't cry, you can always spam on Android.

 

[ericwn]

You're in the extreme minority there. Maybe 1 in 1000 will buy an ad free version of an app at a dollar or two let alone subscribe to something. At lot of apps are going to simply die off later this year.

We’ll see what the majority of users do once they are allowed to make more informed decisions. At this point we can only speculate. It’s not that tracking is going away, the developers have to ask for permission instead of assuming that the user data is free to grab.

If we lose the apps that have a problem with that practice, so be it.

 

[ericwn]

The title of the article and its tag are highly misleading.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the EU. Several associations formed by private companies like Google that have criticized Apple might be from Europe, but they are not affiliated with the EU (which is a governmental organization).

I know this must be hard to distinguish for some US Americans, but Europe, and companies from Europe, are not the EU (and vice-versa). In this context it's important, because the link to the EU somehow implies that the criticism is coming from governments, which it isn't.

The linked Reuters article also says nothing about the EU, so I wonder where the Macrumors editors got that from.

Yup, excellent points. Trying to somehow squeeze in some Friday EU bad mouthing is just bad form.

 

[hackhelpless]

This move (to have users opted-out of targeted ads, or very unlikely to opt-in based on their pop-up message) by Apple is shocking, but not out of character. Apple created the way targeted ads are shown - the IDFA. A random number assigned to a user. A massive industry has been built around this identifier so that developers make more money, advertisers reach their intended audience, and yes, the users see relevant targeted ads.

Targeted ads are not a bad thing! At the surface, you may not like seeing an ad for a product you've already purchased, but it's better than seeing completely irrelevant ads. Are the commercials on ESPN the same as Bravo? Are the ads in the NYT the same as Popular Mechanics? If you think I'm wrong, then I assume you've already selected the option to turn off targeting in your device settings this entire time (Limited Ad Tracking). Targeting is already happening - the IDFA allows for a more granular level.

Apple is wiping out $80B in industry and tens of thousands of jobs for companies that built around proper advertising spend (i.e., not wasting ads where they don't belong). I'm not sure everyone realizes this - ads are not going away because of this change, but Apple can rinse their hands of providing the tools for this to happen in the first place.

 

[imnotthewalrus]

I can easily tell you what I don't like about permissions.
I don't know what I'm saying yes to.

Let me explain.

Say I wish to use a camera app, or a photo editing app.
The phone will say something like "permission required to access your photo library"

Now, someone may say, of course, it needs to be able to write to that area, and read from that area.

What I don't like and don't understand is what does that mean?

Does it mean by giving it access I am saying yeah sure, go and scan/look-at/download every photo I've ever taken?
Or does it mean, only save files there and only load files I ask you to.

This is what I have never understood, so perhaps someone can explain?

In my mind, it scares me, as me saying YES, you have access to my photo library, basically means they can go thru all my photo's as I've just given them permissions to them all.

But does it? And how do I know what they are doing if I do give them such access?

I feel exactly the same way. It is likely very naive of me, but I would love to see (in macOS) an app that would break down incoming and outgoing data with some kind of identifier, and a kill switch so you could eliminate data streams going in either direction. Like I said, very naive - but hey, a guy can dream...

 

[cgsnipinva]

In this case I am with Apple - at least someone is trying to protect privacy and give users a choice.

My sympathy needles wasn't moved one iota by these complaints.

 

[ntr7ptr]

Ok i read this but where is their actual argument? Lol if anything this seems to be how GDPR should be followed in the first place

The "actual argument" is that GDPR requires asking user permission once. When you dl the app there is a place where they ask you, and that is the once that is required. Assume for a second you said yes. They're complaining about the pop-up when the app actually attempts tracking. Assuming you already said yes initially, this is equivalent to granting permission a SECOND time. This is not (apparently) required by the GDPR. So the argument is that Apple is going above and beyond the GDPR requirements. I'm cool with that. I think most ppl here are, too

 

[ericwn]

This move (to have users opted-out of targeted ads, or very unlikely to opt-in based on their pop-up message) by Apple is shocking, but not out of character. Apple created the way targeted ads are shown - the IDFA. A random number assigned to a user. A massive industry has been built around this identifier so that developers make more money, advertisers reach their intended audience, and yes, the users see relevant targeted ads.

Targeted ads are not a bad thing! At the surface, you may not like seeing an ad for a product you've already purchased, but it's better than seeing completely irrelevant ads. Are the commercials on ESPN the same as Bravo? Are the ads in the NYT the same as Popular Mechanics? If you think I'm wrong, then I assume you've already selected the option to turn off targeting in your device settings this entire time (Limited Ad Tracking). Targeting is already happening - the IDFA allows for a more granular level.

Apple is wiping out $80B in industry and tens of thousands of jobs for companies that built around proper advertising spend (i.e., not wasting ads where they don't belong). I'm not sure everyone realizes this - ads are not going away because of this change, but Apple can rinse their hands of providing the tools for this to happen in the first place.

It is to be seen how this develops. It’s certainly not going to kill the entire industry.

Apple gives its customers a choice and that certainly is to be preferred for them and serves the company values.
The ad industry certainly did not expect things to get easier when it comes to data mining and user tracking once Apple pushed for more privacy improvements.

 

[mcLamer]

The easy answer is that you can still present ads, monetize apps and web sites with ads, track attribution of ads. You just can’t monetize via covert user surveilance - either get user consent (you won’t) or use ad tech which doesn’t require it.

Usually legitimate and sane apps don't do that. The question here is about the use of IDFA, Advertising Identifier which apps use to query personalised ads from Google or Facebook. Do apps provide any personal data to Google/Facebook? Usually no, some monsters killing game doesn't have any access to such data, and I don't think that is so important for Google to know that you've killed 126 evil trolls today. However Google/Facebook already have your profile and IDFA is a link to that profile. Once you launch Facebook app on your phone, Facebook sends IDFA to their servers and associate your device with your profile, and later a monster killing game requests an ad which fits your profile, but I don't think the game is a bad boy here, it doesn't have shared anything.

The same story for Google Ads.

 

[Devyn89]

This is a big part of why I choose Apple - I feel like they’re upfront that they want to sell me expensive hardware and services. One of benefits of that approach is they don’t make money on ads so they can make moves like this and make their users happy.

 

[whiteonline]

This is classic Apple.
They don’t rely on ad revenue, so they go out of their way to disrupt a competitors business.
Makes them look noble and further tarnishes the competition.

We benefit, and I’m enjoying it.