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Facebook Runs Second Full-Page Ad Criticizing Apple, Says Opt-In Tracking Will Make the Internet Worse

Facebook market cap: $780bn
Apple market cap: $2,023bn

Facebook revenues: $70bn (declining)
Apple revenues: $270bn (increasing)

Seems that providing a quality product, protecting your customers, not monetising their behaviour, and not allowing others to do that on their platform is a valuable commodity that consumers want and are willing to pay for. Gosh... who knew?
Sorry, Zuckerberg et al, your business model was shaky to start with, it's been shown up for what it is. You milked it for as long as you could and made a shedload of cash out of it, but it's over. Given the choice, consumers don't like what you do, don't want to support your business model and if given the choice, will opt out. Obviously you don't want them to have that choice so you can carry on, 'business as usual', treating the users data as product. Well, tough - users don't like it, don't agree with it and don't want it - you should have thought of that.
 
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macbookpro212 said:
In reality: It shifts the power back to Google search where people will search for what they want to buy.
Sorry Facebook, serves you right for being complacent and not innovating.
Click to expand...
Google search, is that still a thing? Last time I got a usable result on the first page was 2006, now you get 2 pages of advertising or links to webshops and maybe something similar to what you want.
 
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Reactions: Oberhorst, dontwalkhand, Nütztjanix and 1 other person
The thing is, this has been happening without Apple's intervention. You can already opt out of personalisation with ads, it's called a choice. It still will be a choice, Apple are just presenting it differently.

This isn't anything that ad networks haven't been preparing for or talking about for the last year already. We're already preparing for the third-party cookie apocalypse. Google Chrome is ending them in 2022, are Facebook targeting them? No? Why? Because they're still able to accrue all their first party data from users.
 
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Facebook have too much control over dater gathering, if you block Facebook's IP and domains using a firewall, the internet starts to fall apart and pages load very slowly.

Every site that has the "logon with Facebook" is tracking, that logon button is on Facebook's servers, and they record your IP address, and also ask if they can put a tracking cookie on your machine - every time you see that "logon with Facebook" data is being sent, and you are being tracked.

Facebook have gradually been doing what Microsoft tried to do a long time ago with Internet Explorer, and trying to control the internet - Facebook have been doing this under the hood, and have been getting away with it.

They want to own the internet, they want to own the people, and this makes them nothing more than the CCP for the west.

Twitter and Google do the same - and this is the reason that I refuse to use them and use DuckDuckGo as my go to search engine - takes a moment or two to adjust, but when you do they work very much the same.
 
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Apple to others: Respect privacy!
In the meantime, every Apple device sends in realtime which app we open we open, along with the ip address and other information. The computer doesn't even launch the app before the server answers...

People must keep in mind that Facebook is not a public service, is not necessary to live normally. It's one kind of entertainment. You can still communicate via different other ways. (In fact, any other way is better)

People must also keep in mind that apps take time to create, cost to maintain, cost 100$. So for many apps they use which contains ads, a good part of them are a waste of money for the developer. In fact, people even have the choice to pay 1 dollars not to be tracked or not pay and have ads which might track them. What do they knowingly choose? The free one, because 1$ is too much. They have 1$ to buy something disgusting in a fastfood...

They share all their picture, activities publictly on Facebook. That's way way way way way worse than being tracked for advertisements...

People are also to blame. But Facebook should have 0 right to create profile via the tracking that comes from the social media buttons... unless you are a logged-in Facebook user of course.
 
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LarxJo said:
In the meantime, every Apple device sends in realtime which app we open we open, along with the ip address and other information. The computer doesn't even launch the app before the server answers...
Click to expand...

But haven't apple said that they don't store this information at all?

This is a security feature to ensure that the app you launch matches the known MD5 checksum, and it's only from apps that are from the AppStore (as far as I understand so correct me if I'm wrong).

If this is the case, then Apple already have your information as they know you have downloaded and installed it.

This is a feature that they will be giving the user the option to deal with in the future, at the risk of security.
 
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Reactions: Oberhorst, philosoraptor1, p96 and 2 others
I somewhat agree with the logic Facebook is trying to apply to this. Of course it's easy for Apple to take this privacy/for the consumer approach as it directly benefits their own business model.

But that doesn't change the fact that this is beneficial for us the consumers. Just because it benefits Apple does not mean that it's bad for consumers and the Internet as a whole.

Of course it might lead to something is bad for us in the end. If this goes as Facebook is claiming and companies will push for additional in-app purchases in order to offset the loss in adveritsing revenue that is bad for us.


With that said I fully agree with Apple on this one. We the users should have a choice. The advertising model started fairly but quickly became abusive. Just because it might make us get additional things "for free" doesn't give companies the right to abuse our privacy as they please.

We should be able to make the choice if we want to sacrifice our privacy to gain free access or not. It shouldn't be the default standard that everyone is fully capable of tracking you all the time. If this results in companies making less money forcing them into finding other ways to monetize their business then so be it. If people find the companies worth of existence they will be able to make the money they need using fair methods otherwise they didn't really have the right to exist in the first place.


And why do we need all of this abusive tracking just to get personalised ads? Why can't these companies just pay for adveritising spots without relying on the tracking? The fact that Facebook and the like have been abusing our privacy in order to better serve their ad business doesn't really make for a good reasoning for it having to stay that way forever.

If Apple was pushing for ads to not exist on the Internet at all I would agree with Facebook that this is taking it too far. Companies should be able to decide themselves if they want to have ads on their websites, on their Facebook page and whatnot. But Apple isn't saying you can't have ads, they are just saying you shouldn't be able to force the use of ads that will compromise users privacy without providing a option for the user to say no.
 
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It's a real shame that Facebook can't use targeted ads on these antiquated news paper things so they can find users that give a damn about accepting their sleazy mass surveillance system.

If I was them I'd take a full page ad out in the WSJ bemoaning that publications lack of cookies to give laser focused and granular data on the readers personal information.

It's stifling free speech.

/sarcasm
 
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That facebook ad is one of the most disingenuous things I've seen for a long while. The fact that they clearly don't think people will see straight through such bunkum, shows the level of low regard in which they view their users. What a bubble to be in.
 
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Reactions: philosoraptor1, Lazy and savagemic
I hope the public can read what this says:

"Apple feels strongly we can't just use you and sell you without your permission, which will hurt Facebook's ad sales".

If a brand or app is seriously injured by this, they should charge a fee for their content. The "free" ad-supported internet has been worse and worse over the last decade, some websites are now completely unusable from the number of ads running at once. It's like we're back to the popups from the early 2000s except more personal, invasive, and dystopian.

With luck, small businesses aren't scathed in a new way from this. And if an app or website you care deeply about wants to track you and you feel that's the best way to support them? Click allow tracking. Though remember, it isn't the people who you trust and care about tracking you.....
 
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Reactions: TraceyS/FL, Lazy, savagemic and 1 other person
What a load of nonsense. First, if someone is selling ads on a "cooking blog" it's not rocket science to figure out what kinds of context ads are needed. No need to build a massive profile on everybody.

Second, Apple is not banning tracking, it's giving the users a choice. FB's tracking and profiling has grown to cancerous dimensions, and since the governments do nothing about it, it's good to see a corporation taking action.

Third, FB does not give a second thought to small businesses. They have robots that suspend ad accounts without warning and without a good reason, and then your business is hung to dry without access to the already running ads and ability to make new ones.

Apple ecosystem will become a safe haven from data hungry Google and FB who made selling our data their ONE AND ONLY business model. Even Android was born only from Google's fear of losing juicy search data that can be turned into ads.

And before someone says "but Apple also tracks" - there is a big difference between profiling your own users and selling this information to the highest bidder - even if anonymyzed. And youdo get a choice. FB and Google trackers are embedded in literally everything.
 
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