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This isn't the end of tracking, just the platform owners angling in on the market and setting up toll booths for advertisers. It does have the advantage of pote

by iwwr 11y ago

This isn't the end of tracking, just the platform owners angling in on the market and setting up toll booths for advertisers. It does have the advantage of potentially less tracking overall, but personal data is still valuable and Apple just wants a piece of the pie on something they perceive they own. Tracking will be allowed as long as it doesn't significantly impact the user's experience or over-burden the data usage.

egypturnash 11y ago
Sounds like it's entirely up to the author of the block app (and the user's choices in configuring that) to determine what's blocked. Think about how much tracking most desktop adblockers also block.
eridius 11y ago
This is not true. Apple most emphatically does not want a slice of the pie that is personal data. They've made it clear time and time again that they do not want your personal data, they do not monetize it, they do not collect anything more than aggregate statistics necessary to improve their own products[1], and Tim Cook has made it very clear that Apple's executive leadership values privacy very highly. Unlike a lot of other companies (cough Google cough), Apple makes money by selling hardware and software. They do not make it by monetizing your data. And they view this as a competitive advantage. [1] For example, you can bet they collect aggregate statistics on Spotlight searches that search the web, but they get rid of any personally-identifying information, so they can't tell anything about any given user (i.e. no tracking).
- eropple 11y ago
  > They've made it clear time and time again that they do not want your personal data Until they do. Which may or may not happen, but remains an extant problem regardless. Relying on the beneficence of a corporate entity is never a wise decision.
  - eridius 11y ago
    This is a preposterous statement. This is not about relying on their beneficence. This is about relying on the core values of the company, the things that the company views as a competitive advantage, the things that the company believes is one of the reasons why they've achieved unprecedented success and made boatloads of money. So you're actually relying on capitalism. The argument for why other companies (like Google) do want your personal data is the exact same one for why Apple doesn't. Because that's how they make money. You might as well claim that Google may one day decide to just throw out all the personal data they have on everyone and become a charitable organization that gives away its software out of the goodness of its heart. There is literally no reason to think Apple will change course about this, besides complete ignorance about how Apple works and what the core values that Apple believes in are.
    - na85 11y ago
      >This is about relying on the core values of the company, the things that the company views as a competitive advantage, the things that the company believes is one of the reasons why they've achieved unprecedented success and made boatloads of money. You're being incredibly naive. History has shown us again and again that all companies will eventually screw their users over to make a quick buck. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but sooner or later some MBA grad will get shuffled in to a C-level position and decide that they can harness that good ol' Big Data for profit.
      - eridius 11y ago
        That's not even remotely true. Every company has some amount of data on their customers (some more, some less), and the overwhelming majority of them don't abuse that data. The problem is you're treating Apple exactly as you would treat Google or some other company giving away its products for free, which is complete nonsense. Of course the companies giving away their products for free are going to have to monetize the customer data they have in order to make money. But Apple doesn't give away its products for free. It sells them. It's exactly like the millions of other companies in the world that charge money for their products and don't attempt to monetize their customer data.

by iwwr 11y ago

egypturnash 11y ago

Sounds like it's entirely up to the author of the block app (and the user's choices in configuring that) to determine what's blocked. Think about how much tracking most desktop adblockers also block.

eridius 11y ago

This is not true. Apple most emphatically does not want a slice of the pie that is personal data. They've made it clear time and time again that they do not want your personal data, they do not monetize it, they do not collect anything more than aggregate statistics necessary to improve their own products[1], and Tim Cook has made it very clear that Apple's executive leadership values privacy very highly. Unlike a lot of other companies (cough Google cough), Apple makes money by selling hardware and software. They do not make it by monetizing your data. And they view this as a competitive advantage. [1] For example, you can bet they collect aggregate statistics on Spotlight searches that search the web, but they get rid of any personally-identifying information, so they can't tell anything about any given user (i.e. no tracking).

eropple 11y ago
> They've made it clear time and time again that they do not want your personal data Until they do. Which may or may not happen, but remains an extant problem regardless. Relying on the beneficence of a corporate entity is never a wise decision.
- eridius 11y ago
  This is a preposterous statement. This is not about relying on their beneficence. This is about relying on the core values of the company, the things that the company views as a competitive advantage, the things that the company believes is one of the reasons why they've achieved unprecedented success and made boatloads of money. So you're actually relying on capitalism. The argument for why other companies (like Google) do want your personal data is the exact same one for why Apple doesn't. Because that's how they make money. You might as well claim that Google may one day decide to just throw out all the personal data they have on everyone and become a charitable organization that gives away its software out of the goodness of its heart. There is literally no reason to think Apple will change course about this, besides complete ignorance about how Apple works and what the core values that Apple believes in are.
  - na85 11y ago
    >This is about relying on the core values of the company, the things that the company views as a competitive advantage, the things that the company believes is one of the reasons why they've achieved unprecedented success and made boatloads of money. You're being incredibly naive. History has shown us again and again that all companies will eventually screw their users over to make a quick buck. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but sooner or later some MBA grad will get shuffled in to a C-level position and decide that they can harness that good ol' Big Data for profit.
    - eridius 11y ago
      That's not even remotely true. Every company has some amount of data on their customers (some more, some less), and the overwhelming majority of them don't abuse that data. The problem is you're treating Apple exactly as you would treat Google or some other company giving away its products for free, which is complete nonsense. Of course the companies giving away their products for free are going to have to monetize the customer data they have in order to make money. But Apple doesn't give away its products for free. It sells them. It's exactly like the millions of other companies in the world that charge money for their products and don't attempt to monetize their customer data.