Facebook and Instagram Ask Users to Enable App Tracking in Order to Keep Services 'Free of Charge'

[davidjschloss]

This cannot be legal...

It's not legal if they have never discussed this. But FB just started selling a version of the Oculus Quest that's got a surcharge if you don't use a FB account as your user account. It's $500 more than the FB-standard headset.

So at very least they can point to that and say "we would sell a non-subsidized version of FB, just like we do with the Quest."

It's very very very very very very unlikely that FB would force people to get either ad tracking or pay for the service. But they could certainly charge for an ad-free FB experience at a massive premium and someone would buy it.

 

[@meinertzhagen]

Nice try but no thanks. You really think I am stupid eh?

 

[adrianlondon]

Remember, you are not Facebook’s customer. You are their product.

Wait, they're advertising me?

No one has messaged me offering me money

 

[strayts]

As a way to convince users to enable tracking across other apps and websites, Facebook is deploying the tactic of telling users that they must enable tracking as part of the App Tracking Transparency framework in iOS 14.5 if they want to help keep Facebook and Instagram "free of charge."

App Tracking Transparency or ATT is the newest privacy feature to come to iPhone and iPad devices as part of the iOS 14.5 update, released to the public last week. With the new update, apps are now required to show users a prompt asking for their consent before tracking them across other apps and websites.

A significant portion of Facebook's business model relies on selling ads across its apps and services. Small businesses, for example, can use Facebook's ad business to target ads to specific customers or demographics. However, if users on iOS 14.5 decide to opt out of tracking, Facebook may have less data to deliver those personalized ads to users.

The update was released to the public last week, and every day more and more apps are beginning to display the ATT prompt to users. Facebook had previously given a glimpse of what the prompt will look like, and now, with the update released, the social media giant is slowly starting to roll it out to users. As spotted by Ashkan Soltani on Twitter, Facebook has updated its prompt to include the notice "Help keep Facebook free of charge."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1388270878870310912

In an updated blog post, Facebook calls this updated prompt an "educational screen" that will "help people make an informed decision about how their information is used." Instagram, owned by Facebook, will show a similar prompt to users asking them to enable tracking to "Help keep Instagram free of charge."Facebook will be rolling out the prompt to more users in the coming days and weeks, so not everyone will see it right away. ATT was released as part of the iOS 14.5 update, which brought other notable features, including the ability to unlock an iPhone with a paired Apple Watch, major changes to Podcasts, and more. Check out our iOS 14.5 guide to see everything that's new.

Article Link: Facebook and Instagram Ask Users to Enable App Tracking in Order to Keep Services 'Free of Charge'

"Free of charge"??? Are they kidding? We've been paying for those services, DEARLY, for years now.

 

[The Barron]

Not only NO, but HELL NO! Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, et al. Deal breaker

 

[jagooch]

It's not legal if they have never discussed this. But FB just started selling a version of the Oculus Quest that's got a surcharge if you don't use a FB account as your user account. It's $500 more than the FB-standard headset.

So at very least they can point to that and say "we would sell a non-subsidized version of FB, just like we do with the Quest."

It's very very very very very very unlikely that FB would force people to get either ad tracking or pay for the service. But they could certainly charge for an ad-free FB experience at a massive premium and someone would buy it.

They could use the Brave browser model where if you agree to view ads, you and Facebook split the ad revenue.

 

[ChrisNH]

MySpace Part 2

 

[MacBH928]

I bought something on Amazon on my computer, I got an ad for it on my instagram on my iphone. If this does not make you realise the problem I do not know what. I even have multiple layers of adblockeresp and tracker blockers.

Thank you Apple.

 

[MacBH928]

It still amazes me that people want things for free but then complain about how much free costs.

You see this is where you and others are wrong. These are evil unethical business practices to make even more money out of greed.

1-They do not offer an option to pay and be untracked without ads even if you wanted(YouTube does ban ads but nothing about trackers)

2-It is said that Facebook only makes between $9-26/user per year...per...year. Thats it. Thats the price of your privacy but they won't let you have it if you are willing to pay it.

3-Many companies were thriving with billions of dollars from non personalised ads and trackers that respected your privacy in the past like Yahoo, All TV channels, Magazines, Newspapers and others. DuckDuckGo is making a profit without storing anything on you AND the service is free.

The reason they track you, expose you, store your every movement in multimedia format indefinitely and share it is because they are abusing the loophole in the system that makes it legal to do so for the hundreds of millions of people who click "I agree" not knowing whats going on in the background. I have seen people who use Android and Windows and can not tell that those 2 are a different operating systems, surely those innocent people have no idea whats going on with these free apps/services. All of this to maximise their profit margins.

Have to give a little respect to EU for releasing the GDRP at least, and now Apple is doing the gov. work.

 

[black_knight]

go start charging for facebook, your user base will dwindle down at light speed ... love this move, this will end social media as we now it

Sadly, I don’t think that will happen. People will begrudgingly pay for it and it will become the new standard practice with all companies. Just you watch…

 

[obamtl]

Different people. Most people want it to be free and don't care about the privacy.

Good point. Poor interaction design from Apple there.

 

[obamtl]

Facebook are well within their rights to put that message up there. Apple have drastically affected their business, and millions of small to large businesses worldwide by their PR Privacy stunt.

Facebook makes most of its income from advertisers who now don’t have anywhere near as good a platform to work on, so of course they’ll need to replace that income.

The stunt is Zuckerberg pretending he cares about much more than his bottomline.

 

[obamtl]

You’ve obviously never attempted to launch a new product before. You are kind of right regarding local businesses, for sure. A lot can be achieved with word of mouth. But businesses launching new products nationwide/worldwide...there is no way to replicate the local word of mouth thing. FB / Google / IG ads are the best way of doing that. Take it from me...I’ve successfully helped dozens of new businesses get off the ground, gaining thousands of customers that they would have no prospect of reaching had it not been for the ability to send relevant targeted ads.

Apple have jumped on the privacy bandwagon and massively disrupted millions of businesses worldwide because they are playing on people’s fears about “tracking”.

The truth of the matter is that the FB pixel tracking that everyone seems so scared of doesn’t actually hold any personal information at all. A pixel is installed on a website and it “fires” events when a digital footprint (ie a person) passes across it. That event might be an “add to cart” on a website or a “purchase” on a website. It tells FB, Google etc that person A might be the type of person who’d be interested in product X, Y or Z. Advertisers don’t have any access whatsoever to private information, no data is shared, other than having the ability to target ads towards people who might like products X, Y or Z. There is no private personal information shared, nothing incriminating. Just a tiny bit of binary code that helps the internet and social media become a more relevant place for people using it. It’s as harmless as it gets. But by taking it away you’re badly damaging millions of businesses and it will ultimately lead to the end of free platforms.

Moving forward, you’re going to see a tonne of completely irrelevant advertising thrust in your face 24/7, all because Apple are trying to score a PR win.

When I need something I'll search for it. It's dystopian being chased around the web to buy frivolous things with limited value. It's even more dystopian when you're having a private conversation with a friend about having a headache on a messaging app (or worse, in person) and being hounded by ads of pain killers everywhere.

And Apple hasn't stopped targeted ads. They've stopped you from tracking people across apps to hound them. Facebook still has the ability to mine every last iota of data on its platform to 'know you' better than you know yourself and sell micro changes in your behaviour to the highest bidder.

 

[tmoerel]

Exactly. But I would go as far as saying, yes, they are also a benefit to you. Would you rather be advertised completely irrelevant products 24/7, or would you at least like them to be products you’re somewhat likely to be interested in?

I would rather not be advertised to at all. Advertising is a space and bandwidth wasting parasitic infestation!

 

[ninecows]

That's not really true at all. Marketing introduces others to your product. You cannot get business without people knowing that your product exists. All good products need some form of marketing to maximize sales and profit.

Why do you think Apple spends billions of dollars on marketing? They aren't doing it just cause they feel like it or that they have extra money to burn.

It’s very hard to measure that I guess. Are people buying the new iPhone because they saw an ads for it? Or because their friends got it? Or just because it’s there and they want a replacement of their old phone. I have never bought an apple product based on an add. My first one was because I saw a review back in 2010 (no - not paid for sure). I got on to the Mac train because my wife did and I fell in love with the powerful but simple OS. She got on that train because a friend recommended it. Now both my mom and mother in law is on the same train and so is my kids.

point being: apple got 8 devoted new customers just because they made a product that served users better and they didn’t have to pay for any adds to get us on board.

WRT new products and business. Of course you benefit from some advertisements, but if your product is good enough it will sell it self and word would spread. I don’t buy stuff based on adds. I buy stuff based on my needs and recommendations from people I trust.

 

[adrianlondon]

I bought something on Amazon on my computer, I got an ad for it on my instagram on my iphone. If this does not make you realise the problem I do not know what. I even have multiple layers of adblockeresp and tracker blockers.

Thank you Apple.

That shows how useless it seems to be anyway. You bought something; what's the point of then showing you adverts for it after you've already bought it?

Facebook buy & sell (or marketplace) groups use the same internal logic. If you look at an advert then move on, it means you decided it was crap and you weren't interested. What does Facebook do? Unless you switch to "newest first" its algorithm shows you all the stuff you decided you weren't interested in first.

Online adverts seem like Nigerian scam emails. They're 99.99% useless but if they send it out to enough people, a 0.01% success rate is good enough.

 

[ninecows]

Exactly. But I would go as far as saying, yes, they are also a benefit to you. Would you rather be advertised completely irrelevant products 24/7, or would you at least like them to be products you’re somewhat likely to be interested in?

Since I don’t buy products based on adds I would like to have no adds. So I got me self an add blocker. Neither “relevant, targeted” adds or random adds are of interest to me.

 

[Shadow Puppets]

I would rather not be advertised to at all. Advertising is a space and bandwidth wasting parasitic infestation!

😂

Nothing like a good overreaction.

You don't want to be advertised to... Facebook, Google etc make most of their money from advertisers. It's really not hard to understand that if advertising becomes less effective on these platforms, FB and Google will make less money so will then need to find that money elsewhere. Advertising is what keeps any platform on the internet free. Full stop.

 

[Shadow Puppets]

Since I don’t buy products based on adds I would like to have no adds. So I got me self an add blocker. Neither “relevant, targeted” adds or random adds are of interest to me.

Well then you can expect to have to pay for that privilege moving forward.

 

[Wolf Of Infinite Loop]

You know what else is free of charge? Having zero social media accounts.

 

[colourfastt]

Facebook would go bump if they tried to charge. To add, this website has 19 trackers on it. When are people going to start the uproar at that? Macrumors so quick to slate Facebook whilst attempting to track us all massively.

When I saw that I decided to check it; my check came up with 36 trackers.

 

[Lihp8270]

I would rather not be advertised to at all. Advertising is a space and bandwidth wasting parasitic infestation!

The only other option is to pay for services.

Would you come to this forum if you Had to pay for access?

 

[freakomac]

iOS probably only accounts for 15-20% of the users worldwide. A smaller percentage of that disabling the tracking is threatening Facebooks' business? Such a desperate move threatening users indirectly by FB

 

[ninecows]

Well then you can expect to have to pay for that privilege moving forward.

Fine with me. If a service is worth it for me I’ll pay. I’m not a thief.
Although if advertisers don’t profit on me today since I don’t click on adds (with or without add blockers) I don’t see the difference. But then again I’ve never played by the rules of the market forces. Never liked them ;-) My shopping is based on what I want and need. Not what adds wants me to buy.

 

[ninecows]

The only other option is to pay for services.

Would you come to this forum if you Had to pay for access?

Probably not. But interesting question. I think this forum helped me with specific problems around 10 times over the last 5 years. Never “payed back” by clicking on adds. So what’s that help worth? 10$ in total perhaps. Will happily pay 2$/year for access and the random chance that someone would help me and no adds.

edit: that’s still 2$/year more than MR makes on me today