9 ms·

Apple blocking ads that follow users around web is 'sabotage', says industry

92 points by lladnar 9y ago

Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
Beautiful. Thank you, Apple. Let's hope this toxic industry ends in a miserable death soon.
grzm 9y ago
Discussion on AdWeek article of the same topic 5 days ago (159 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15250463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15250463
dpeterson 9y ago
Apple seems to be the only tech giant adhering to "do no evil." I've been a developer for a long time, even though development workflows are typically more compatible running on Macs, I've resisted going all in working on a Mac. I also have an Android phone. That is going to change. I trust apple a whole lot more than Google or Microsoft. My next phone will be an iPhone and luckily my Mac book pro is already on its way.
- naravara 9y ago
  >Apple seems to be the only tech giant adhering to "do no evil." I've been a developer for a long time, even though development workflows are typically more compatible running on Macs, I've resisted going all in working on a Mac. I also have an Android phone. That is going to change. I trust apple a whole lot more than Google or Microsoft. My next phone will be an iPhone and luckily my Mac book pro is already on its way. Ugh. As a long-time "all in on Macs" person I've dreaded the day this would happen. As much as I am an Apple whore, the world is worse off when important things are too tightly bound to monopoly players. It's not like I want to ONLY ever have the option of buying Apple products. I am, however, glad that these values are being "proven right" in society and culture. I just wish they would percolate up through Big Tech more.
- make3 9y ago
  the "no headphone jack" thing seemed pretty evil to me. also, all of the monopolistic app store practices really aren't awesome. the new specs for the Mac Book pro are also a joke for the price, and wtf is that touch bar crap. also, paying 800-1000$ for a phone is ridiculous
  - Spivak 9y ago
    So while Google is invading every single aspect of your private life, following you on every site you visit, and mining your data for engagement and advertising, Apple is... charging too much? - Also the Google Pixel is $749.
    - dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
      > So while Google is invading every single aspect of your private life, following you on every site you visit, and mining your data for engagement and advertising, Apple is... charging too much? Yes, of course. These two statements are not mutually exclusive.
  - Cenk 9y ago
    I think calling the removal of the headphone jack "evil" is stretching it a bit
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    > the "no headphone jack" thing seemed pretty evil to me. Ignoring the hyperbole ("evil"? Really?) all removing the headphone jack was was proactively responding to market forces (because BT headphones have outsold wired for a while now) as it gave them more leeway in industrial design (the port is large and repeats functionality the other port already has anyhow). > all of the monopolistic app store practices really aren't awesome. You don't understand what "monopolistic" practices are. Sorry. Apple controls their own platform but that's not monopolistic. > the new specs for the Mac Book pro are also a joke for the price Not if you compare like for like it's not. Sorry, doesn't hold up under even a cursory examination of the competition. > wtf is that touch bar crap. Awesome is what it is - I have one and it's freaking great. > also, paying 800-1000$ for a phone is ridiculous That's literally the price range of most major high-end smart phones (ok, $700-$1000, but still). The flagship phones from Samsung, HTC, and Huawei are in that range. You have to go to LG or Oppo (much much smaller sales and they are selling at a loss) to get below that (and only into the $600 range, even then).
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  I guess Apple makes you pay money directly to them when you buy devices so they don't have to do things behind your back like ad financed companies have to do. It's probably easier to opt out of apple.
- alethiophile 9y ago
  This kind of thing is good, but I would definitely characterize going all-in on walled gardens and creating ecosystems where only approved code can run as "evil". That certainly characterized Apple/iOS when last I looked, which is why I dropped them. (What's the status of the latest iPhones for that? Can they be jailbroken at all?)
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
  > Apple seems to be the only tech giant adhering to "do no evil." They are the ones that might currently do less than the other two, but history shows that giving one company too much power means it will be abused sooner or later. Google seemed a really, really nice company in the late nineties. When it developed, people were fascinated. When the first versions of Android came out, I was coding like a crazy, happy to own an "open phone" I could simply copy MP3s and ebooks to. And look what a monster they became. Now I do whatever I can to get rid of Google from every aspect of my life, and believe me, it's not easy at all.
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    Google hasn't been "Do No Evil" since Ads became their primary revenue. People have been saying they've been suspicious and not super trustworthy before Android came out. The writing on the wall has been there for a long time. They just had a very large stockpile of goodwill.
    - labster 9y ago
      When were ads not Google's primary revenue source?
      - abritinthebay 9y ago
        In the sense the business pivoted around it... before ~2003 I’d say. Writing was on the wall by 2001. But it got SO MUCH worse around 2005 for some reason.
      - glitcher 9y ago
        1997
- danjoc 9y ago
  >Apple seems to be the only tech giant adhering to "do no evil." That's such an odd idea. I'm not sure how you arrive at it. Apple, in this case, is simply setting itself up as a gatekeeper for advertising. Just like Apple is the gatekeeper at the app store who takes 30% of everything. Apple isn't going to stop ads. It's going to charge advertisers a cut to reach Safari users. In the process, it claims to protect users of Safari from the "evil" cookies. Essentially, they're taking shots at Google's business model and trying to get a cut of Google's income at the same time. It's purely a money grab. This is also great news for server side trackers. This will be a big boost for their business.
  - athenot 9y ago
    Ads are not Apple's primary business. It's a side-service to attract app creators. More/better apps = maintain/increase the marketshare for their devices. Apple remains a hardware company at the core.
    - danjoc 9y ago
      Apple is an iPhone company, http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/59289f0379474ce7238b499a-1200/cotd52602.png http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/59289f0379474ce7238... Diversification doesn't hurt. Especially if it's at the expense of one of your largest competitors. Especially when your core market is mobile phones. Ask Motorola or Nokia about how being #1 in phones works out in the long run.
      - valuearb 9y ago
        Apple makes a lot of money off of protecting it's customers privacy, which is why it can never be competitive in ads. And it's well diversified. It's third largest business is Macintosh, which is the fastest growing and most profitable personal computer company in the world.
    - scarface74 9y ago
      Apple got out of the ad business years ago.
- yellowapple 9y ago
  "Apple seems to be the only tech giant adhering to 'do no evil.'" Apple does plenty of evil, as you're about to find out when you realize the amount of freedom you enjoy on your Mac will not in any way translate to your iPhone, and further discover the business model to which Apple would want to gravitate (hint: not the Mac model). They're arguably less evil than Google and Microsoft right now, but to say that they're "adhering to 'do no evil'" is by no means accurate when they still push their walled garden and treat their mobile users as incompetent children needing their hands held.
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    I'm curious what "freedom" you miss on the iPhone. I'm assuming it's something more important than "I can change my icons and fonts"?
    - schoen 9y ago
      Installing third-party software without an intermediary's approval?
      - hh2222 9y ago
        If it keeps my device free of malware, that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
      - valuearb 9y ago
        That's called jail breaking. Which is a thing. That you can do.
        yellowapple 9y ago
        Not easily, and absolutely not with Apple's approval.
      - abritinthebay 9y ago
        Side loading is a thing. Not hard to do. Absolutely legitimate (if less easy than the App Store).
- on_and_off 9y ago
  -1 : I am very uneasy with the "evil" / "not evil" characterisation. There are many practices that are in a morally grey area but they don't go as far as invoking demons. Maybe it is because English is not my first language that this figure of speech has always bothered me. -2 : I don't really see Apple as very different from Amazon or Google or any other tech giant. They are here to defend their bottom line and IMO they have remarked that ads were an easy critique of their rival so they are tabling on it. If only they could : - stop changing their TOS every 5 minutes and make them actually human readable. - let anybody distribute an app on iOS, even outside of the app store, even if it competes with iTunes, Safari, etc I would be way more inclined to cheer for Apple and call them a defender of our liberties. Another issue is that as far as net neutrality is concerned, this is scary.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    What makes Apple different from Google is that I give them money and they give me stuff. My interests and their interests are mostly aligned. They make money by selling me stuff, not by tracking me around the web, collecting information etc.
- tannhaeuser 9y ago
  Please could we get over this anthropomorphizing of companies at least here on HN? If you believe in a good/evil dichotomy in a religious sense, then be aware that, in theological notions of good and evil, only human beings are equipped with such qualities; hence attributing good/evil to a thing or a juristical person is nonsensical. If, OTOH, you don't have a religious understanding of good/evil, then rationality dictates that companies must do whatever necessary to survive, else they simply wouldn't exist. In any case, there is no such thing as an "evil company". That said, I fully support Apple in their pro-privacy stance. Now if only they'd produce professional notebooks/equipment, I'd be re-considering them for my next purchase (having owned a PowerBook from 2003 onwards, and still using a Mac mini for graphic work).
- glitcher 9y ago
  "development workflows are typically more compatible running on Macs" This is stated as if it were fact, when it is clearly an opinion with many complicated factors behind it that vary from person to person.
  - dpeterson 9y ago
    I run into examples almost daily where I need a mac. The latest being the cognita/angular example from awslabs https://github.com/awslabs/aws-cognito-angular2-quickstart https://github.com/awslabs/aws-cognito-angular2-quickstart. States right in the instructions you need to run the createresources.sh on either linux or mac. Even running babun or cygwin on windows doesn't work. I tried and wasted quite a lot of time. I ran it on my mac pro and it just works. It's not that mac is inherently better, its that the vast majority of developers work on macs and don't bother to get their workflows to work on windows.
bfrog 9y ago
Wah wah wah.
wonder_bread 9y ago
This is almost certainly a pro on the consumer end of things but ultimately how much of a win is this really? Facebook and Google will still be fine so if anything this further consolidates the information monopoly. I'm happy Apple did it, and I don't think the "Six major advertising consortia" are going to do themselves any favors by coming out guns blazing against them for this, but the problem is much deeper rooted than this.
theonemind 9y ago
In other news, parasite complains about sabotage by host's immune system.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
xxxdarrenxxx 9y ago
My phone company offered me free data usage on spotify. Sounds great right! Except this is bordering against net neutrality. You see, like with net neutrality, Apple could offer services in the future to companies to get a "free pass" on their cute filter. This means people who want to advertise their innocent little game, have no chance against companies with a lot of money who can afford to do so. If you are in favor off this update, but against for example net neutrality, then you might want to check up again on how well you understand these concepts, and how they could play out in unfavorable division of power. tldr; Monopoly is inherently unfavorable, not just theoretically but has proven so time and time again in many different sectors.
- notgood 9y ago
  Exactly; they are the gatekeepers of their iOS ecosystem but got no backslash like Microsoft did with Windows (circa 2001); so now they know they have a free pass and are trying to be the gatekeepers of the Web [for their users] as well.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    iOS is not a monopoly product. As a user, I welcome Apple's new feature, and I'm fine with it being the default.
  - Jtsummers 9y ago
    The backlash against MS began in the 90s with the start of the anti-trust trial. It was preceded by MS achieving a greater than 90% [0] market share. Apple has nowhere near that and so will not see that sort of legal backlash for them for a while. Microsoft used their position to do things like: Spend over $1 billion to advertise a free web browser to compete with Netscape (fear of cross-platform applications that Netscape could support). Embraced a fucked up version of web standards where they literally did the exact opposite of what the specs said in order to make sites compatible for their users break (without serious dev effort) for everyone else. Convinced Compaq (memory fuzzy, I get them and HP mixed up now) to not release computers with BeOS. If they had, MS was going to eliminate their favorable Windows licensing costs. This would have driven them out of business as they could not achieve competitive PC prices with reasonable margins (PCs already being a low margin business at that point). They tried similar, though less aggressive, pushes against companies that later wanted to release Linux workstations. There's a whole litany of MS's abuses of its monopoly position in the anti-trust suit, it was actually fascinating reading if you care about economics, business, politics. [0] Precise numbers failing me, I believe they got close to 97% at some point.
marchenko 9y ago
If this is 'sabotage', it's got a thumpin' Beastie Boys beat. I'm curious to see what develops from Apple's stated intention to keep more user data on-device and the company's attempts at 'differential privacy', and if these stances disadvantage Apple against its competitors.
Animats 9y ago
Many HN users have probably been blocking ads and tracking for years. I'm barely aware that the Internet has ads.
- cirgue 9y ago
  The processes that generate a huge proportion of online content do so to maximize ad revenue. You might not be aware of ads, but the advertising economy is still a major force in what information you and many others see on a daily basis.
- ams6110 9y ago
  That's me. I have most of my browser settings turned up to "paranoid" (no history, no sync, no 3rd party cookies, all cookies purged upon exit, separate profiles for web and gmail, etc.). I use uBlock Origin, and have a 15,000 line /etc/hosts file. I only see ads if they are served inline directly from the site I'm visiting (thankfully that's very few).
  - blubb-fish 9y ago
    OMG ... take it easy, buddy - install uBlock Origin and have a nice day ... :D
torpfactory 9y ago
Just below the title in the article: "New iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra will stop ads following Safari users, prompting open letter claiming Apple is destroying internet’s economic model" I would love to blow up the ad-revenue economic model of the internet. Sure some of the services it funds are convenient but the cost is pretty high. Just a few of these "costs" in my mind: - Keeping people in a constantly mentally distracted state with various app notifications in order to serve them more ads - Degredation of political discourse in a race to the rhetorical bottom because that approach appears to generate the most views and thus ad revenue - More efficient sorting of people into tribal camps of group think. All as a consequence of content which agrees with their worldview because this content generates more ad revenue. - Fundamental lack of control by users of their personal information as collected by these ad services I don't know what would replace the ad model, but I'd be happy to find out.
- godzillabrennus 9y ago
  Maybe the subscriber model would rear it's ugly head again and people would pay to consume content that's worth reading. Instead of being dragged into click-bait.
  - oxide 9y ago
    Works great if you have the following: Content worth consuming. Content worth subscribing to consume. A production pipeline that can put out enough enjoyable premium content for users. If its good, people will subscribe just to get access to a certain feature or series ala Giantbomb. Giantbomb has this down pat- but it's taken years of content creation, and a CBS buyout to keep the doors open. What it can do is make you pretty damn appealing when you go up for sale, if you have the active, paying subscriber base. That's why Giantbomb is still around and is seemingly surrounded by the of corpses of those who tried the subscription model, but simply couldnt keep subscribers subscribing.
    - rbrcurtis 9y ago
      And if you have subscription fees that are reasonable.
z2600 9y ago
I would pay for this as a feature/plug-in for Chrome, although I'd prefer they just did it (or made it an option).
monochromatic 9y ago
It's stuff like this that keeps me on iPhone instead of defecting to Android.
andy_ppp 9y ago
Does anyone know if tracking via localStorage still works? Also to be fair if you interact with the iframe cookies can be set. I just wish it was sticky per domain.
optimusclimb 9y ago
Good for Apple. Marketing in the 2000s/'10s has really turned disgusting. Whereas many moons ago marketing was just about giving your brand an image, and making people aware of it - it has now turned into an all out psychological assault. Additionally, we seem to be seeking out every way possible to bombard each other with it. Remember when someone figured out that you're stuck standing near the pump when you purchase gas for your vehicle, so they put tv screens with sound blaring at us there where we can't escape it? I mean, you're in the middle of making a reasonable transaction (money, for gas) - but you still have to be turned into the product for marketers to assault now, just because you can. In the same vein, I've heard there's a CO based startup working on bringing similar advertising to ski lifts - another venue where you can't escape. We really need to take a stand on this (as Apple is), as the internet is just one of many spaces where marketing can and will massively infringe on your privacy. Google Maps seems to track your physical location constantly (so you can "see where you parked"!) - how long, if not already, until they notice that I've visited a dry cleaner, or gone to Home Depot, so they can use that info to continue the onslaught?
- bluntfang 9y ago
  >Whereas many moons ago marketing was just about giving your brand an image, and making people aware of it - it has now turned into an all out psychological assault. Excuse me, but what world are you living in? Marketing has been an "all out psychological assault" since the ~1930s. See toothpaste.
  - optimusclimb 9y ago
    Not sure how to respond. Marketing in the 30s was limited to broadcast based approaches. You were not able to reach out to an individual, much less one you have even close to as much information about as is available today.
- RealGeek 9y ago
  Google requires you to turn on all web, search, app and location history just to set your home address in maps. Then it continues to siphon all your private data 24x7 out of every device that Google touches.
travmatt 9y ago
To whomever inside the ad industry that keeps making remarks such as this, I'd suggest that this is equivalent to free advertising for Apple.
JohnTHaller 9y ago
On the desktop side, worried sites could just block Safari since it's only 3.87% of users and those users can use other browsers. On the mobile side, Safari is more popular but also forced on iOS users since all browsers use Safari underneath. I'd wager Apple is doing this at the app level and not the renderer level on iOS.
m3kw9 9y ago
Is like pirat s asyi g copy’s are destroying their incomes because they are getting shut down
valuearb 9y ago
Internet advertising has always been a race to the bottom. Apple hasn't changed anything about that, just slightly accelerated it's velocity.
morpheos00 9y ago
I really don't understand why people hate ads so much. They are every where in life and really don't ruin things. I don't have an adblocker and I find very little disruption in my browsing. I just ignore the ads. It is interesting to me sociologically that so many expect Internet content to just be provided for free like manna. Is it wrong for people (e.g. Newspapers, other content creators) to make money of their work? A subscription or a hybrid model might generate better content but it would restrict access.

92 points by lladnar 9y ago

Beautiful. Thank you, Apple. Let's hope this toxic industry ends in a miserable death soon.

grzm 9y ago

Discussion on AdWeek article of the same topic 5 days ago (159 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15250463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15250463

dpeterson 9y ago

Apple seems to be the only tech giant adhering to "do no evil." I've been a developer for a long time, even though development workflows are typically more compatible running on Macs, I've resisted going all in working on a Mac. I also have an Android phone. That is going to change. I trust apple a whole lot more than Google or Microsoft. My next phone will be an iPhone and luckily my Mac book pro is already on its way.

naravara 9y ago
>Apple seems to be the only tech giant adhering to "do no evil." I've been a developer for a long time, even though development workflows are typically more compatible running on Macs, I've resisted going all in working on a Mac. I also have an Android phone. That is going to change. I trust apple a whole lot more than Google or Microsoft. My next phone will be an iPhone and luckily my Mac book pro is already on its way. Ugh. As a long-time "all in on Macs" person I've dreaded the day this would happen. As much as I am an Apple whore, the world is worse off when important things are too tightly bound to monopoly players. It's not like I want to ONLY ever have the option of buying Apple products. I am, however, glad that these values are being "proven right" in society and culture. I just wish they would percolate up through Big Tech more.
make3 9y ago
the "no headphone jack" thing seemed pretty evil to me. also, all of the monopolistic app store practices really aren't awesome. the new specs for the Mac Book pro are also a joke for the price, and wtf is that touch bar crap. also, paying 800-1000$ for a phone is ridiculous
- Spivak 9y ago
  So while Google is invading every single aspect of your private life, following you on every site you visit, and mining your data for engagement and advertising, Apple is... charging too much? - Also the Google Pixel is $749.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
    > So while Google is invading every single aspect of your private life, following you on every site you visit, and mining your data for engagement and advertising, Apple is... charging too much? Yes, of course. These two statements are not mutually exclusive.
- Cenk 9y ago
  I think calling the removal of the headphone jack "evil" is stretching it a bit
- abritinthebay 9y ago
  > the "no headphone jack" thing seemed pretty evil to me. Ignoring the hyperbole ("evil"? Really?) all removing the headphone jack was was proactively responding to market forces (because BT headphones have outsold wired for a while now) as it gave them more leeway in industrial design (the port is large and repeats functionality the other port already has anyhow). > all of the monopolistic app store practices really aren't awesome. You don't understand what "monopolistic" practices are. Sorry. Apple controls their own platform but that's not monopolistic. > the new specs for the Mac Book pro are also a joke for the price Not if you compare like for like it's not. Sorry, doesn't hold up under even a cursory examination of the competition. > wtf is that touch bar crap. Awesome is what it is - I have one and it's freaking great. > also, paying 800-1000$ for a phone is ridiculous That's literally the price range of most major high-end smart phones (ok, $700-$1000, but still). The flagship phones from Samsung, HTC, and Huawei are in that range. You have to go to LG or Oppo (much much smaller sales and they are selling at a loss) to get below that (and only into the $600 range, even then).
maxxxxx 9y ago
I guess Apple makes you pay money directly to them when you buy devices so they don't have to do things behind your back like ad financed companies have to do. It's probably easier to opt out of apple.
alethiophile 9y ago
This kind of thing is good, but I would definitely characterize going all-in on walled gardens and creating ecosystems where only approved code can run as "evil". That certainly characterized Apple/iOS when last I looked, which is why I dropped them. (What's the status of the latest iPhones for that? Can they be jailbroken at all?)
dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
> Apple seems to be the only tech giant adhering to "do no evil." They are the ones that might currently do less than the other two, but history shows that giving one company too much power means it will be abused sooner or later. Google seemed a really, really nice company in the late nineties. When it developed, people were fascinated. When the first versions of Android came out, I was coding like a crazy, happy to own an "open phone" I could simply copy MP3s and ebooks to. And look what a monster they became. Now I do whatever I can to get rid of Google from every aspect of my life, and believe me, it's not easy at all.
- abritinthebay 9y ago
  Google hasn't been "Do No Evil" since Ads became their primary revenue. People have been saying they've been suspicious and not super trustworthy before Android came out. The writing on the wall has been there for a long time. They just had a very large stockpile of goodwill.
  - labster 9y ago
    When were ads not Google's primary revenue source?
    - abritinthebay 9y ago
      In the sense the business pivoted around it... before ~2003 I’d say. Writing was on the wall by 2001. But it got SO MUCH worse around 2005 for some reason.
    - glitcher 9y ago
      1997
danjoc 9y ago
>Apple seems to be the only tech giant adhering to "do no evil." That's such an odd idea. I'm not sure how you arrive at it. Apple, in this case, is simply setting itself up as a gatekeeper for advertising. Just like Apple is the gatekeeper at the app store who takes 30% of everything. Apple isn't going to stop ads. It's going to charge advertisers a cut to reach Safari users. In the process, it claims to protect users of Safari from the "evil" cookies. Essentially, they're taking shots at Google's business model and trying to get a cut of Google's income at the same time. It's purely a money grab. This is also great news for server side trackers. This will be a big boost for their business.
- athenot 9y ago
  Ads are not Apple's primary business. It's a side-service to attract app creators. More/better apps = maintain/increase the marketshare for their devices. Apple remains a hardware company at the core.
  - danjoc 9y ago
    Apple is an iPhone company, http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/59289f0379474ce7238b499a-1200/cotd52602.png http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/59289f0379474ce7238... Diversification doesn't hurt. Especially if it's at the expense of one of your largest competitors. Especially when your core market is mobile phones. Ask Motorola or Nokia about how being #1 in phones works out in the long run.
    - valuearb 9y ago
      Apple makes a lot of money off of protecting it's customers privacy, which is why it can never be competitive in ads. And it's well diversified. It's third largest business is Macintosh, which is the fastest growing and most profitable personal computer company in the world.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    Apple got out of the ad business years ago.
yellowapple 9y ago
"Apple seems to be the only tech giant adhering to 'do no evil.'" Apple does plenty of evil, as you're about to find out when you realize the amount of freedom you enjoy on your Mac will not in any way translate to your iPhone, and further discover the business model to which Apple would want to gravitate (hint: not the Mac model). They're arguably less evil than Google and Microsoft right now, but to say that they're "adhering to 'do no evil'" is by no means accurate when they still push their walled garden and treat their mobile users as incompetent children needing their hands held.
- abritinthebay 9y ago
  I'm curious what "freedom" you miss on the iPhone. I'm assuming it's something more important than "I can change my icons and fonts"?
  - schoen 9y ago
    Installing third-party software without an intermediary's approval?
    - hh2222 9y ago
      If it keeps my device free of malware, that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
    - valuearb 9y ago
      That's called jail breaking. Which is a thing. That you can do.
      - yellowapple 9y ago
        Not easily, and absolutely not with Apple's approval.
    - abritinthebay 9y ago
      Side loading is a thing. Not hard to do. Absolutely legitimate (if less easy than the App Store).
on_and_off 9y ago
-1 : I am very uneasy with the "evil" / "not evil" characterisation. There are many practices that are in a morally grey area but they don't go as far as invoking demons. Maybe it is because English is not my first language that this figure of speech has always bothered me. -2 : I don't really see Apple as very different from Amazon or Google or any other tech giant. They are here to defend their bottom line and IMO they have remarked that ads were an easy critique of their rival so they are tabling on it. If only they could : - stop changing their TOS every 5 minutes and make them actually human readable. - let anybody distribute an app on iOS, even outside of the app store, even if it competes with iTunes, Safari, etc I would be way more inclined to cheer for Apple and call them a defender of our liberties. Another issue is that as far as net neutrality is concerned, this is scary.
- scarface74 9y ago
  What makes Apple different from Google is that I give them money and they give me stuff. My interests and their interests are mostly aligned. They make money by selling me stuff, not by tracking me around the web, collecting information etc.
tannhaeuser 9y ago
Please could we get over this anthropomorphizing of companies at least here on HN? If you believe in a good/evil dichotomy in a religious sense, then be aware that, in theological notions of good and evil, only human beings are equipped with such qualities; hence attributing good/evil to a thing or a juristical person is nonsensical. If, OTOH, you don't have a religious understanding of good/evil, then rationality dictates that companies must do whatever necessary to survive, else they simply wouldn't exist. In any case, there is no such thing as an "evil company". That said, I fully support Apple in their pro-privacy stance. Now if only they'd produce professional notebooks/equipment, I'd be re-considering them for my next purchase (having owned a PowerBook from 2003 onwards, and still using a Mac mini for graphic work).
glitcher 9y ago
"development workflows are typically more compatible running on Macs" This is stated as if it were fact, when it is clearly an opinion with many complicated factors behind it that vary from person to person.
- dpeterson 9y ago
  I run into examples almost daily where I need a mac. The latest being the cognita/angular example from awslabs https://github.com/awslabs/aws-cognito-angular2-quickstart https://github.com/awslabs/aws-cognito-angular2-quickstart. States right in the instructions you need to run the createresources.sh on either linux or mac. Even running babun or cygwin on windows doesn't work. I tried and wasted quite a lot of time. I ran it on my mac pro and it just works. It's not that mac is inherently better, its that the vast majority of developers work on macs and don't bother to get their workflows to work on windows.

bfrog 9y ago

Wah wah wah.

wonder_bread 9y ago

This is almost certainly a pro on the consumer end of things but ultimately how much of a win is this really? Facebook and Google will still be fine so if anything this further consolidates the information monopoly. I'm happy Apple did it, and I don't think the "Six major advertising consortia" are going to do themselves any favors by coming out guns blazing against them for this, but the problem is much deeper rooted than this.

theonemind 9y ago

In other news, parasite complains about sabotage by host's immune system.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

xxxdarrenxxx 9y ago

My phone company offered me free data usage on spotify. Sounds great right! Except this is bordering against net neutrality. You see, like with net neutrality, Apple could offer services in the future to companies to get a "free pass" on their cute filter. This means people who want to advertise their innocent little game, have no chance against companies with a lot of money who can afford to do so. If you are in favor off this update, but against for example net neutrality, then you might want to check up again on how well you understand these concepts, and how they could play out in unfavorable division of power. tldr; Monopoly is inherently unfavorable, not just theoretically but has proven so time and time again in many different sectors.

notgood 9y ago
Exactly; they are the gatekeepers of their iOS ecosystem but got no backslash like Microsoft did with Windows (circa 2001); so now they know they have a free pass and are trying to be the gatekeepers of the Web [for their users] as well.
- greglindahl 9y ago
  iOS is not a monopoly product. As a user, I welcome Apple's new feature, and I'm fine with it being the default.
- Jtsummers 9y ago
  The backlash against MS began in the 90s with the start of the anti-trust trial. It was preceded by MS achieving a greater than 90% [0] market share. Apple has nowhere near that and so will not see that sort of legal backlash for them for a while. Microsoft used their position to do things like: Spend over $1 billion to advertise a free web browser to compete with Netscape (fear of cross-platform applications that Netscape could support). Embraced a fucked up version of web standards where they literally did the exact opposite of what the specs said in order to make sites compatible for their users break (without serious dev effort) for everyone else. Convinced Compaq (memory fuzzy, I get them and HP mixed up now) to not release computers with BeOS. If they had, MS was going to eliminate their favorable Windows licensing costs. This would have driven them out of business as they could not achieve competitive PC prices with reasonable margins (PCs already being a low margin business at that point). They tried similar, though less aggressive, pushes against companies that later wanted to release Linux workstations. There's a whole litany of MS's abuses of its monopoly position in the anti-trust suit, it was actually fascinating reading if you care about economics, business, politics. [0] Precise numbers failing me, I believe they got close to 97% at some point.

marchenko 9y ago

If this is 'sabotage', it's got a thumpin' Beastie Boys beat. I'm curious to see what develops from Apple's stated intention to keep more user data on-device and the company's attempts at 'differential privacy', and if these stances disadvantage Apple against its competitors.

Animats 9y ago

Many HN users have probably been blocking ads and tracking for years. I'm barely aware that the Internet has ads.

cirgue 9y ago
The processes that generate a huge proportion of online content do so to maximize ad revenue. You might not be aware of ads, but the advertising economy is still a major force in what information you and many others see on a daily basis.
ams6110 9y ago
That's me. I have most of my browser settings turned up to "paranoid" (no history, no sync, no 3rd party cookies, all cookies purged upon exit, separate profiles for web and gmail, etc.). I use uBlock Origin, and have a 15,000 line /etc/hosts file. I only see ads if they are served inline directly from the site I'm visiting (thankfully that's very few).
- blubb-fish 9y ago
  OMG ... take it easy, buddy - install uBlock Origin and have a nice day ... :D

torpfactory 9y ago

Just below the title in the article: "New iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra will stop ads following Safari users, prompting open letter claiming Apple is destroying internet’s economic model" I would love to blow up the ad-revenue economic model of the internet. Sure some of the services it funds are convenient but the cost is pretty high. Just a few of these "costs" in my mind: - Keeping people in a constantly mentally distracted state with various app notifications in order to serve them more ads - Degredation of political discourse in a race to the rhetorical bottom because that approach appears to generate the most views and thus ad revenue - More efficient sorting of people into tribal camps of group think. All as a consequence of content which agrees with their worldview because this content generates more ad revenue. - Fundamental lack of control by users of their personal information as collected by these ad services I don't know what would replace the ad model, but I'd be happy to find out.

godzillabrennus 9y ago
Maybe the subscriber model would rear it's ugly head again and people would pay to consume content that's worth reading. Instead of being dragged into click-bait.
- oxide 9y ago
  Works great if you have the following: Content worth consuming. Content worth subscribing to consume. A production pipeline that can put out enough enjoyable premium content for users. If its good, people will subscribe just to get access to a certain feature or series ala Giantbomb. Giantbomb has this down pat- but it's taken years of content creation, and a CBS buyout to keep the doors open. What it can do is make you pretty damn appealing when you go up for sale, if you have the active, paying subscriber base. That's why Giantbomb is still around and is seemingly surrounded by the of corpses of those who tried the subscription model, but simply couldnt keep subscribers subscribing.
  - rbrcurtis 9y ago
    And if you have subscription fees that are reasonable.

z2600 9y ago

I would pay for this as a feature/plug-in for Chrome, although I'd prefer they just did it (or made it an option).

monochromatic 9y ago

It's stuff like this that keeps me on iPhone instead of defecting to Android.

andy_ppp 9y ago

Does anyone know if tracking via localStorage still works? Also to be fair if you interact with the iframe cookies can be set. I just wish it was sticky per domain.

optimusclimb 9y ago

Good for Apple. Marketing in the 2000s/'10s has really turned disgusting. Whereas many moons ago marketing was just about giving your brand an image, and making people aware of it - it has now turned into an all out psychological assault. Additionally, we seem to be seeking out every way possible to bombard each other with it. Remember when someone figured out that you're stuck standing near the pump when you purchase gas for your vehicle, so they put tv screens with sound blaring at us there where we can't escape it? I mean, you're in the middle of making a reasonable transaction (money, for gas) - but you still have to be turned into the product for marketers to assault now, just because you can. In the same vein, I've heard there's a CO based startup working on bringing similar advertising to ski lifts - another venue where you can't escape. We really need to take a stand on this (as Apple is), as the internet is just one of many spaces where marketing can and will massively infringe on your privacy. Google Maps seems to track your physical location constantly (so you can "see where you parked"!) - how long, if not already, until they notice that I've visited a dry cleaner, or gone to Home Depot, so they can use that info to continue the onslaught?

bluntfang 9y ago
>Whereas many moons ago marketing was just about giving your brand an image, and making people aware of it - it has now turned into an all out psychological assault. Excuse me, but what world are you living in? Marketing has been an "all out psychological assault" since the ~1930s. See toothpaste.
- optimusclimb 9y ago
  Not sure how to respond. Marketing in the 30s was limited to broadcast based approaches. You were not able to reach out to an individual, much less one you have even close to as much information about as is available today.
RealGeek 9y ago
Google requires you to turn on all web, search, app and location history just to set your home address in maps. Then it continues to siphon all your private data 24x7 out of every device that Google touches.

travmatt 9y ago

To whomever inside the ad industry that keeps making remarks such as this, I'd suggest that this is equivalent to free advertising for Apple.

JohnTHaller 9y ago

On the desktop side, worried sites could just block Safari since it's only 3.87% of users and those users can use other browsers. On the mobile side, Safari is more popular but also forced on iOS users since all browsers use Safari underneath. I'd wager Apple is doing this at the app level and not the renderer level on iOS.

m3kw9 9y ago

Is like pirat s asyi g copy’s are destroying their incomes because they are getting shut down

valuearb 9y ago

Internet advertising has always been a race to the bottom. Apple hasn't changed anything about that, just slightly accelerated it's velocity.

morpheos00 9y ago

I really don't understand why people hate ads so much. They are every where in life and really don't ruin things. I don't have an adblocker and I find very little disruption in my browsing. I just ignore the ads. It is interesting to me sociologically that so many expect Internet content to just be provided for free like manna. Is it wrong for people (e.g. Newspapers, other content creators) to make money of their work? A subscription or a hybrid model might generate better content but it would restrict access.