4 ms·

No this is the postal company deciding for you which ads are not "worthy" enough, and not delivering them at all. This has nothing to do with net neutrality di

No this is the postal company deciding for you which ads are not "worthy" enough, and not delivering them at all. This has nothing to do with net neutrality directly at all. The parallel it does share, is giving Apple a potential position of power to decide which data goes through and which don't. This is also the essence off the net neutrality debate. Their proposed "filter" could even very well be perfectly to my liking and in line with my personal standards for ads or how they are brought upon me. This is however about them providing a code, or at the very least a seed off their own for their machine learning algorithm to filter content. I like experiments, but I rather do not wish Apple or any singular entity for that matter to regulate my content. I do hold bias against Apple, because they have a certain position. They gave everyone phones, ecosystem for devs and patents and rights and indirect control to web frameworks through licences. Their might be conflict off interest. They have so much (acces to) people's data already through their devices and market influence, that I do not feel fully comfortable about them deciding that now the rest is not allowed to gain similar data.

mikeash 9y ago
Apple is not analogous to the postal service. That would be Verizon or Comcast or AT&T or whoever. If they did this, it would be troubling.
- xxxdarrenxxx 9y ago
  It is not literally analogous, but then you favor an argument about semantics over the actual argument at hand. People tend to default naturally to what requires the least effort to work; - This feature is default on their browser. - Other browsers are disliked or simply not used on IPhones for the big majority off users. - Their browser is realistically thus the main gate way used by people with Iphones to access the internet, aside from the social media apps. - At this early layer between people and the internet, Apple wants to place a machine learning algorithm, that decides which data is let through and which isn't. I am not sure about if I want them to have that position off power at all so closely to what is for many their main and potentially only access point to the internet.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Net neutrality is about the ISPs. That's how it's defined (semantics!) and that's what I think it should be. If you want to discuss the ramifications of browser features for the net, by all means do so, but don't try to paint my approval of both net neutrality and this Apple feature as somehow being inconsistent or indicating that I don't understand what's going on.
    - xxxdarrenxxx 9y ago
      But this entire thread surely stems from 'ramifications of browser features (by Apple) for the net', and not about the english literature, and certainly nothing personal towards you. This is at least not my intent. If you disagree, could you point to any reply which contains your arguments or views on the actual topic within your previous posting towards my comment?
      - mikeash 9y ago
        Yes, the topic at hand is the ramifications of Apple's feature. The topic is not net neutrality. You brought that into the discussion and basically accused anyone who is in favor of both net neutrality and Apple's feature of being ignorant. You said "nothing personal, but how else am I to take "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"? That, to me, means that if I hold these two positions (and I do) then I am not only wrong in your view, but that I don't even understand the topic.
Jtsummers 9y ago
As this is a user configurable option, it's hardly a net neutrality issue. You haven't lost any control over what you can access or how deeply advertisers may invade your privacy.
- kodablah 9y ago
  > As this is a user configurable option, it's hardly a net neutrality issue. That's what makes it not a net neutrality issue? To continue the analogy, if my ISP decides to limit traffic from some non-paying upstream provider, but makes it a user configurable option, it's also hardly a net neutrality issue? So I haven't lost any control over what I can access because the option exists, right? Net neutrality is a two-way street, not just about users. This one is just more favorable to most of us because we like the result. Same way with Google's safe browsing lists and other things. But we can't pretend there's neutrality here like there would be if the browser was completely hands off. Sure it may not be "net neutrality" as defined by only network providers, but the concept of neutrality spans more than the network.
  - Jtsummers 9y ago
    If your ISP gave you the option to deliberately rate-limit access to some sites and you used it, that would not be a net neutrality issue. Correct. The hazard is if they default to throttling and make it hard to unthrottle. Particularly if the things they are throttling are their competitors and not their own services. As I understand this feature, Apple will not be excluding their own services' cookies from it. This is not an anticompetive act. It is not an anticonsumer act. And as you have the choice to turn it off, it is not an impediment to your ability to consume and degrade your privacy by allowing advertisers into your life.
    - kodablah 9y ago
      > If your ISP gave you the option to deliberately rate-limit access to some sites and you used it, that would not be a net neutrality issue. Correct. Yes it would. Net neutrality basically says "regardless of what users ask for or what providers provide them, they can't give preferential treatment to some companies over others". I do agree that, since this is on-device and not targeted definitely is the right way to go and alleviates many net neutrality concerns. But the closed classifier, the choice of 30 days, etc and that this is a single browser doing it on a device where they allow no other browser just gives me a slippery slope feeling that Apple can unilaterally choose which default parameters users browse under outside of web standardization. I think the 3rd party cookie thing is a bit of a red herring anyways. If ad networks weren't so stupid, they'd use first party cookies and correlate unique identifiers on the backend. Even when done w/ minimal fingerprinting (which iOS is exempt from most forms of due to its user base consistency) and IP tracking (which iOS also more exempt on cell networks than home ISPs), it can be quite effective.

mikeash 9y ago

Apple is not analogous to the postal service. That would be Verizon or Comcast or AT&T or whoever. If they did this, it would be troubling.

xxxdarrenxxx 9y ago
It is not literally analogous, but then you favor an argument about semantics over the actual argument at hand. People tend to default naturally to what requires the least effort to work; - This feature is default on their browser. - Other browsers are disliked or simply not used on IPhones for the big majority off users. - Their browser is realistically thus the main gate way used by people with Iphones to access the internet, aside from the social media apps. - At this early layer between people and the internet, Apple wants to place a machine learning algorithm, that decides which data is let through and which isn't. I am not sure about if I want them to have that position off power at all so closely to what is for many their main and potentially only access point to the internet.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Net neutrality is about the ISPs. That's how it's defined (semantics!) and that's what I think it should be. If you want to discuss the ramifications of browser features for the net, by all means do so, but don't try to paint my approval of both net neutrality and this Apple feature as somehow being inconsistent or indicating that I don't understand what's going on.
  - xxxdarrenxxx 9y ago
    But this entire thread surely stems from 'ramifications of browser features (by Apple) for the net', and not about the english literature, and certainly nothing personal towards you. This is at least not my intent. If you disagree, could you point to any reply which contains your arguments or views on the actual topic within your previous posting towards my comment?
    - mikeash 9y ago
      Yes, the topic at hand is the ramifications of Apple's feature. The topic is not net neutrality. You brought that into the discussion and basically accused anyone who is in favor of both net neutrality and Apple's feature of being ignorant. You said "nothing personal, but how else am I to take "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"? That, to me, means that if I hold these two positions (and I do) then I am not only wrong in your view, but that I don't even understand the topic.

Jtsummers 9y ago

As this is a user configurable option, it's hardly a net neutrality issue. You haven't lost any control over what you can access or how deeply advertisers may invade your privacy.

kodablah 9y ago
> As this is a user configurable option, it's hardly a net neutrality issue. That's what makes it not a net neutrality issue? To continue the analogy, if my ISP decides to limit traffic from some non-paying upstream provider, but makes it a user configurable option, it's also hardly a net neutrality issue? So I haven't lost any control over what I can access because the option exists, right? Net neutrality is a two-way street, not just about users. This one is just more favorable to most of us because we like the result. Same way with Google's safe browsing lists and other things. But we can't pretend there's neutrality here like there would be if the browser was completely hands off. Sure it may not be "net neutrality" as defined by only network providers, but the concept of neutrality spans more than the network.
- Jtsummers 9y ago
  If your ISP gave you the option to deliberately rate-limit access to some sites and you used it, that would not be a net neutrality issue. Correct. The hazard is if they default to throttling and make it hard to unthrottle. Particularly if the things they are throttling are their competitors and not their own services. As I understand this feature, Apple will not be excluding their own services' cookies from it. This is not an anticompetive act. It is not an anticonsumer act. And as you have the choice to turn it off, it is not an impediment to your ability to consume and degrade your privacy by allowing advertisers into your life.
  - kodablah 9y ago
    > If your ISP gave you the option to deliberately rate-limit access to some sites and you used it, that would not be a net neutrality issue. Correct. Yes it would. Net neutrality basically says "regardless of what users ask for or what providers provide them, they can't give preferential treatment to some companies over others". I do agree that, since this is on-device and not targeted definitely is the right way to go and alleviates many net neutrality concerns. But the closed classifier, the choice of 30 days, etc and that this is a single browser doing it on a device where they allow no other browser just gives me a slippery slope feeling that Apple can unilaterally choose which default parameters users browse under outside of web standardization. I think the 3rd party cookie thing is a bit of a red herring anyways. If ad networks weren't so stupid, they'd use first party cookies and correlate unique identifiers on the backend. Even when done w/ minimal fingerprinting (which iOS is exempt from most forms of due to its user base consistency) and IP tracking (which iOS also more exempt on cell networks than home ISPs), it can be quite effective.