29 ms·

New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

353 points by remotists 6y ago

d--b 6y ago
At long last! And now I'll know why I pay more for an iPhone.
- ipsum2 6y ago
  You could have had this years ago on Android with Firefox for Android, or run AdGuard or the other thousands of adblocking apps.
  - d--b 6y ago
    No, this is for in-apps tracking, not the web.
    - square_usual 6y ago
      You can still run a system wide ad and tracking blocker on android.
      - rkul 6y ago
        Can you elaborate on your practice how you do it?
        Asuchug4 6y ago
        https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/ https://blokada.org/ https://blokada.org/
      - kube-system 6y ago
        You can on iOS too. They're implemented as a VPN running at localhost.
    - erklik 6y ago
      If you wanted to, although it is more effort, and more niche, you can install a pi-hole on your network blocking all sorts tracking, ads etc across all devices. Although, for Android, there do exist apps that will do system-level ad/tracker blocking.
      - halostatue 6y ago
        How do you install pi-hole for the cellular modem on a smartphone?
        erklik 6y ago
        You do not unfortunately. However, what you can do is utilize a VPN into your home network where you already have a pi-hole set up. Doing so will route all your phone's traffic through your home network (and pi-hole) first. You'll have the same "ad protection" on the go as you would at home. I recommend checking out WireGuard.
- product50 6y ago
  You can always opt out ad tracking in iPhone, even today, by using Limit Ad Tracking option in Settings.
  - omnifischer 6y ago
    Do you watch youtube? thanks for supporting the creators with ads? Please iPhone may be private but if you use Google search you lost already. It is a double-whammy. You pay lot to apple and then lost privacy to google/netflix/cnn/<app> here or whomever.
  - anupamchugh 6y ago
    Yes you can do that in iOS 13 but very few people are tech savvy to know that. With iOS 14, the dialog would be in front of you as you the app. High chance everyone would opt out
- t0mas88 6y ago
  That's not a reason to pay more for an iPhone. Android allows you to install any browser you want (as opposed to Apple still not allowing real third party browsers), including Firefox with uBlock, which is much much better at privacy than Safari on Apple and as a bonus makes the internet 3x faster by blocking ads.
  - RKearney 6y ago
    Yes, we should all flock to an operating system developed by an advertising company in an effort to escape advertisements.
    - Spivak 6y ago
      I mean you 1000% shouldn't go to any store, buy an Android phone and just use it if you want to avoid Google. But Android in isolation is fine as long as you consider it a hobbyist smartphone platform.
    - lern_too_spel 6y ago
      If that operating system does a better job of escaping ads, why not?
  - jeffhuys 6y ago
    Eh, I use Wipr. Exact same thing. PiHole if you want system-wide.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    An ad blocker that intercepts all of your traffic is better for privacy than one that doesn’t?
    - t0mas88 6y ago
      If it's open source and people can check that it doesn't anything hidden, yes
      - 6y ago
AstralStorm 6y ago
Some industries need to die. This one is akin to making horse carriages nowadays, except more evil.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  Still a thing: http://www.glinkowski.pl/en/sports-carriage-driving http://www.glinkowski.pl/en/sports-carriage-driving To be fair, I think the long tail may cover any currently legal manufactures, now matter how technologically outdated, extending even to the paleolithic: https://www.goknapping.com/Products-Flint_Knapping_Tools.html https://www.goknapping.com/Products-Flint_Knapping_Tools.htm... (It's reassuring to see even knapping is split between mods and trads. Do they get into long flint vs obsidian flamewars, I wonder?)
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  Pretty much. It's incredible the mental gymnastics the adtech industry has gone through to believe it's important, or even fundamentally important to the world.
cryptoz 6y ago
Since there is already an incentive for apps to grow as big as possible to show ads to earn more money, I wonder if there is a legitimate way to slow-pivot all the app stores to an automatic developer payout; no IAP or monthly subscription per user per app or ads shown in app, simply a payout to devs based on app install size. Where does the money come to make those payouts and how do the app store owners still make money per download too? I wonder if, with increased care about privacy in consumer minds, Apple or Google would try an Apple-Arcade-style subscription for apps. Users could pay $5/month (or tired,lower/higher rates) and get access to a selection of 'paid' apps without having to pay per app. Devs would still be incentivized pretty much the same and users would have higher-quality apps with fewer ads. Just thinking out loud.
raverbashing 6y ago
To anyone that took GDPR seriously and not as a reason to shove another popup in everybody's face this doesn't come as a surprise It will be even better when advertisers (that is, the ones that pay for ads, not the ad networks) realize that "over tracking" and retargeting are just ways of parting them with their money but doesn't increase conversions. You have basic info about your user, you don't need to track them to 11
- jariel 6y ago
  These conversations are always so one-sided on HN. Not only is 're-targeting' immensely useful, it absolutely increases conversions. Targeting in general helps quite a lot. Ad targeting is the opposite of evil, it actually increases relevance by a significant degree, and increases market efficiency, wherein surpluses go to both sides. There's a huge market for products and services out there and it's getting harder to connect individuals and products on the long tail. Without tracking - the big winners will be the mega-brands that can run wide ad runs to most of the nation. It'll be cheaper to just tell everyone about McDonald's and impossible for the new snowboarding company to tell you about their new gear.
  - fpgaminer 6y ago
    Apple is giving users the choice. Do they want to trade their privacy for your listed benefits? It's up to them. I don't see how that's a bad thing. If nobody decides to make that trade when given the choice... then I guess it will be a surprise to no one (including advertisers).
  - gtufano 6y ago
    Unless, you know, by buying ads on snowboarding gear focused sites, as the industry has done for decades in the print industry.
    - square_usual 6y ago
      Or on apps about snowboarding, or on fora related to snowboarding, or by paying snowboarding content creators, there's a wealth of opportunities out there. I don't give a damn about snowboarding when I'm browsing, say, twitter. (Which, incidentally, for some reason has borked itself into thinking I like rowing.)
qtplatypus 6y ago
Can I say “Good”.
walrus01 6y ago
I've been using the full desktop version of the ublock origin plugin on firefox mobile for quite some time, and it's dramatically improved my mobile experience.
- brobdingnagians 6y ago
  Same, I downloaded Firefox for mobile specifically to get the ublock origin plugin. Then I discovered that I like their tab display with the two columns of thumbnails a lot more than other mobile browsers as well.
- jyriand 6y ago
  This plugin works only in android, right? Tried to install it on my iPhone but it said it’s not compatible with my browser although i have Firefox installed.
  - captn3m0 6y ago
    Yup, Firefox on iOS isn't the full Firefox, its just a Webview (fake Safari) due to Apple's restrictions. So no addons anytime soon.
  - AlexTrask 6y ago
    If you are interested in improve privacity on iPhone and user Firefox you can user Firefox focus but i will seed ads
  - wayneftw 6y ago
    Try BlockBear for Safari on iOS.
- rq1 6y ago
  I'm using AdGuard (free) on Safari mobile and it wokrs great so far.
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  Yes it's great... I also use other adblocking methods (DNS based) but uBlock Origin remains king. Only thing I really really miss from FF Mobile is the pull to refresh. I so wish they'd add that, because every time I open a tab with a news site that was already opened it shows stale information, and I have to open the hamburger menu to do a refresh. 2 actions instead of one. An option to have sites auto refresh when switching to the tab after xx minutes would be great too. Right now it's just too inconvenient.
raxxorrax 6y ago
Maybe the open source promise of Android was indeed a lie. To me this industry has no value to society at all. Not a fan of Apple, but they seem to be serious about privacy showing other companies how it is done. Microsoft could have really established itself as an alternative to Google on the same front, but they utterly failed by mirroring the worst aspects of the disastrous landscape we see on mobile devices. I hope their telemetry generates billions too, since that is probably in the range of their missed opportunities for both desktop and mobile devices. Some still pretend that users want personalized ads and want to be tracked. Yes, there are some that really do. Glad we get options for the other ones.
- omnifischer 6y ago
  At the end of the day, 1. Apple users are the ones that cannot browse without adblocker. Safari is not as good as ublock-origin 2. Most Apple users use google maps. > Not a fan of Apple, but they seem to be serious about privacy If they are honest then they can remove the default search engine from Google to DDG or whatever. They get billions from Google for default search engine. https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/1/21310591/apple-google-search-engine-safari-iphone-deal-billions-regulation-antitrust https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/1/21310591/apple-google-sear... BTW, Apple need to release a good search/maps product before complaining. 3. Even the cheapest iPhone cannot be afforded by > 80 % world. They do not care about >80 % world popln? They too need smartphones.
  - kohtatsu 6y ago
    iPhones have longevity. The iPhone 5s from September 2013 has been receiving regular security updates, the latest being iOS 12.4.8 on Wednesday. It was the first 64-bit phone, and first iPhone (first phone?) with a Secure Enclave. They can be had for <$100 in good condition.
    - omnifischer 6y ago
      BTW, every one says this - but nobody uses it like a daily driver. Yes, it will work as a spare - with just one app - like whatsapp - but for many poor - they need 1. Uber or Ola 2. Facebook or WhatsApp 3. linkedin to whatever local app 4. youtube Why dont you try to use it for a week with all your existing apps? If it works as good - why would anyone buy newer?
NicoJuicy 6y ago
 Apple didn't solve that the ad industry is an alternative for paying to see a website's content. So what will happen is that: - Safari/iOS users will be required to pay for a ad-supported website - Safari/iOS users will be denied access to the website
- La1n 6y ago
  Or those users will still see ads, they just won't be tracked and the ads will be less personalized.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    Or ad networks will just use fingerprinting to generate a unique ID and continue business as normal.
- dan1234 6y ago
  >Safari/iOS users will be required to pay for a ad-supported website That's fine, just give me a convenient way to pay (and cancel) and subscription and I'll decide if the content justifies the price. If I'm not willing to pay for it, I'm probably not going to miss it. Sometimes I wonder how much copy is written as filler to wrap ads around. >Safari/iOS users will be denied access to the website And they'll move on to somewhere else (or fire up some temporary workaround if they really want access).
thomasedwards 6y ago
I wish Apple would kill Medium
- asplake 6y ago
  Before that, AMP
  - threatofrain 6y ago
    AMP doesn't need help dying; I wouldn't be surprised if Google killed it soon because it never took off.
    - dmitriid 6y ago
      Oh, it took off big time. For Google.
  - evilduck 6y ago
    They're doing something. Safari has automatically converted AMP links back to their original pages since iOS 11. It could stand to be a system-wide behavior for my own usage, but it'd be a little intrusive if you actually did want to share an AMP link for a specific reason if it automatically altered your clipboard or text messages.
    - jefftk 6y ago
      Chrome does it too, and the AMP project is supportive: https://9to5mac.com/2017/08/24/ios-11-safari-amp-links/ https://9to5mac.com/2017/08/24/ios-11-safari-amp-links/ The idea is, when a foo has <link rel=canonical href=bar>, if you go to share foo your browser will actually share the canonical url, bar.
SllX 6y ago
If an entire industry dies because users were given an explicit upfront choice, because of one popup like the article says, then it wasn’t a productive industry. We’ll see what really happens.
- harpratap 6y ago
  What will really happen is ads get more sinister and hidden. Product placements in movies will seem childish in comparison. Astro-turfing is already huge on Reddit, it will spread to all parts of media now, blurring the lines between genuine opinions and forced narrative. Ads, marketing and branding are integral part of capitalism, it's never going to go away from consumption focused societies.
  - fwn 6y ago
    I don't think that there is currently any evidence that adding consent to ad tracking will have a significant impact on "sinister and hidden" advertisement. ..and it does not seem intuitive to me either, as it's a completely new set of companies launching those dubious ad formats and strategies. It's not likely that Google will start crafting a hard to scale astro turfing API or something, just because their ad network got less profitable. > Ads, marketing and branding are integral part of capitalism, it's never going to go away from consumption focused societies. Just to highlight: "Capitalism" and "consumption focused societies" aren't equivalent. ..or at least not in any common definition of the term capitalism. Historic examples of self-determined non-capitalistic societal models were highly "consumption focused" as well. I think that maybe post- or de-growth ideas are the only contemporary family of ideas I know that makes it a point not to be "consumption focused". But their ideas are, while interesting, still pretty loose on their edges.
    - harpratap 6y ago
      > and it does not seem intuitive to me either, as it's a completely new set of companies launching those dubious ad formats and strategies No it's really not. You can see it happening all the time on celebrity and "influencer" Twitter/Instagram/Tiktok. Most are pretty obvious, some are honest and use disclaimers that it's a paid ad but majority are just ads inside regular content without any disclaimers and such.
supernova87a 6y ago
But doesn't this privacy setting get nullified anyway by companies tracking your device at the cellular network level? I'm not too familiar with it, but regardless of whether you accept cookies, etc., they are able to ID you through your carrier anyway?
- square_usual 6y ago
  > tracking your device at the cellular network level I'm not aware of this happening at a large scale outside of the networks themselves, do you have any references for this?
  - ceph_ 6y ago
    I believe Verizon was caught inserting super-cookies with an ad tracking identifier. But that method was much easier back when the majority of the web was just http.
  - brailsafe 6y ago
    It's been happening at a large scale for a long time as part of the broader fingerprinting initiative by advertising companies. A lot of people think their phones are listening to them, but it's more like they're using heuristics about who you regularly interact with and what they've been searching for. It's disturbing. For example, I recently started getting very frequent and consistent ads across many websites from Warby Parker for the pair of glasses my gf was currently wearing. I asked her, and of course she had been looking to replace them on the same WiFi network.
- murermader 6y ago
  Yeah, I think you are right. Apps don't need access to GPS, internet or bluetooth to know your location. They can just log what cell tower you are connected to, and use that information to "estimate" your location every time you switch cell towers. I think that method even works in flight mode, as your phone is still listening for cell towers, but just not responding. But I think this info is limited to the OS, and can't be used by apps.
hn3333 6y ago
Unless all traffic is routed through Apple servers advertisers will still be able to track the ip address. (A visit to some url, say google.com, with login cookie, and the link between ip and user is made again.)
- kohtatsu 6y ago
  Seriously I hope IPv6-only never arrives. Let's just be hippies and share NAT'd IPv4's. Unironically. Edit: I've gone rogue and blocked IPv6 in DNSCloak. https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/dnscloak-secure-dns-client/id1452162351 https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/dnscloak-secure-dns-client/id1...
  - Spivak 6y ago
    I mean we could be real real hippies and NAT IPv6. I really see so case for not doing this since people would still want to use private address space for internal networks bigger than their assigned public block.
tgv 6y ago
Will this also remove (part of) the power of shady companies like Emerdata Ltd, formerly known as Cambridge Analytica?
StevePlea 6y ago
without paywall: https://outline.com/pVuLZg https://outline.com/pVuLZg
- anupamchugh 6y ago
  Here’s the medium friend link without paywall from the author himself: https://medium.com/p/apple-is-killing-a-billion-dollar-ad-industry-with-one-popup-2f83d182837f?source=email-9833cc01f515--writer.postDistributed&sk=3b0e2ef3463837b34503764257d2f9b3 https://medium.com/p/apple-is-killing-a-billion-dollar-ad-in...
Joe8Bit 6y ago
In a previous life I worked in ad-tech, and I don't think it's as black and white as the OP makes it out to be. I think that's actually a Bad Thing™️ as this industry needs to profoundly change or die. This isn't a new, unexpected thing for sell or demand side ad-tech platforms, they've seen the death of IDFA coming for a few years. The reality is that this will likely stop more 'above board' players (a good thing) but the gray area and outright malicious, scummy ad and data companies will still attempt to generate unique identifiers through things like native fingerprinting. I think Apple will also stop them incerementally, but this sadly isn't an outright victory. I don't understand it myself, but people DO opt-in to personalised ads in pretty decent numbers, it's anecdata, but I've seen data from very large control trials (testing for exactly this scenario) where ~50% of users opt-in. The devil is in the detail with these things: what will the copy be? will alternatives be presented? how will users be able to link 'value' to what they're being asked for?
- prox 6y ago
  I also don’t believe in Ad-tech doom and gloom. Yes, ad companies won’t be hoarding as much data, but advertisement worked fine before it started to do it. Back to basics it is, treat me well as a customer, deliver as promised and use ads responsibly (aka no more hyper targetting)
  - dividedbyzero 6y ago
    For me, the term ad-tech has become synonymous with the modern-day scummy data hoarders and surveillance corporations, maybe that's the same for others? It could make for a lot of misunderstandings. I guess most people would agree that advertisement in general can fulfill an important function, if done responsibly – but not like that. These tracking excesses really must die.
    - prox 6y ago
      Not only that, but we are (were?) in a race to the bottom, ever declining return on ads, so more ads must be delivered, more tracking must be done, creating more friction (ad-overload) I too believe ads can function responsibly, ads have run in newspapers for a century, so a equilibrium can exist.
sneak 6y ago
When did Medium get a “sign up” paywall? It feels like more and more content linked on HN is paywalled, adblockwalled, or otherwise obscured these days.
mark_l_watson 6y ago
Off topic, I have been enjoying the iOS and iPadOS version 14 betas. This privacy feature is pro-consumer and I am all for it! I pay money to Google (GCP, Play entertainment stuff) and FaceBook (Oculus VR addict, here!), but I don't want them using any of my data to enrich themselves or other companies. Everyone should read "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power." It was printed about 15 months ago, but is still highly relevant to both convince people that there is a serious problem and also advice on fighting back.
GekkePrutser 6y ago
This won't be the end of it. It's just one of the many battles. And iOS isn't for everyone. Yes it's great for protecting privacy but it's also extremely restrictive for the users. The fact that they don't even allow real third-party browsers is baffling in this day and age. I also can't use my Yubikey in OpenPGP mode which I really need for my password manager and SSH access. I know it supports U2F now but that's not enough (and was way too late as well). But I agree the advertising industry has to die. I don't believe in the 'working together' approach of the EFF with their plugins that stop blocking cookies when they see the privacy policy file. I mean, if you're not tracking me, then why need third party cookies in the first place? It'll never happen though. They'll always find a way to track us.
- pantaloony 6y ago
  Much like Flash, not allowing third-party browsers could be explained as a cynical control mechanism on Apple’s part... or as their not wanting to see tech support volume shoot up as Chrome and Firefox users complain their battery life is terrible. Or some combination of the two.
  - GekkePrutser 6y ago
    I understand their have their reasons.. But I don't like them taking that choice away from me. The problem is, right now we have only 2 choices. Living in the open world but getting all our information sucked dry by advertisers. Or live in Apple's protected little garden but not be allowed to leave it. And pay much more for hardware specs. Neither are very appealing.
    - platelminto 6y ago
      A new iPhone SE has flagship specs for $400-500, and Androids cheaper than that (and even much costlier ones) struggle to last 2-3 years - an iPhone easily lasts 4+. I don't want to turn this into an Android vs iOS debate, but want to highlight that one of the main complaints against getting an iPhone (cost) no longer really applies - it could even be considered a strongsuit. I agree that the walled garden can be annoying, but I've rarely found myself longing for Android customisation, and have very much noticed how some apps work much better on my iPhone. This is completely down to preference though. I also care deeply about privacy, but even with 0 consideration for it, I think I still would've switched - I am super happy seeing Apple pushing it this hard. (I recently went back to iOS after 2 phones and 5 years on Android)
kin 6y ago
I have a serious question. Obviously if one were to choose between an ad-free experience and an ad-full experience, one would choose ad-free. But, if ads were needed for monetization, wouldn't you choose personalized vs non-personalized? Personally, I would go with personalized because a non-personalized experienced usually has no relevancy and frankly it is inefficient use of money in this world. From there, it really comes down to companies invading your privacy, usually they make the wrong assumptions from it. Why can't there be a way for me to tell the ad-world what I'm in the market for and have them stop trying to snoop around and guess what I want? Most may say that making a Google search is enough to tell ads what I want but I think there are a ton of assumptions made there.
- esrauch 6y ago
  How would you imagine "tell them what you're in the market for" would work? I don't think it would work at scale; almost no user would take time to make a manually personalized ad profile instead of ... not doing that.
  - jfk13 6y ago
    If I'm in the market for something, I'm likely to indicate that by doing a search for relevant terms. So the search engine could sell associated ad space to appropriate categories of advertizers. If I'm reading reviews about a certain product category, it's a fair bet I might be in the market for such a product. So the site could show me relevant ads. If I'm reading a site devoted to a particular topic or activity, the publisher might reasonably guess that I could be in the market for related products, and offer relevant ads. None of this requires any privacy-invasive tracking. If I'm reading a general news site, the site shouldn't have any more idea what I'm "in the market for" than the publisher of a print newspaper I might buy. If I'm browsing used-car listings, the site shouldn't have any idea what genre of novels I like to read, what my grocery cart usually contains, where I go to work out, or how many pets I have. Why does anyone think it's OK for a company to surreptitiously gather that sort of personal information about everyone?
  - elliekelly 6y ago
    Why would it be any different from the way advertising worked before Facebook and Google? Vogue subscribers are probably in the market for new designer clothes. People who watch Cesar Milan are probably in the market for pet supplies. Someone driving down a highway is probably in the market for gas and a snack. Someone who searches for “affordable laptop” is probably in the market to buy a new computer. You don’t need to track someone’s every move to serve them relevant ads.
nerdjon 6y ago
This is the number one feature on iOS 14 that I cannot wait for. I am getting very tired of finding out that unrelated services know that I have used a specific app (like Facebook knows way too much). Somewhat related (even though this is focused on Apps). I have noticed an uptick in websites that don't support safari, likely due to how they handle cookies. I hope this does not become super common (but I can't imagine many sites wanting to loose out on the iOS market)
- chadlavi 6y ago
  I'm on the dev beta, and it's pretty stable. There's a public beta available now. If you're itching to try it out, I'd recommend it!
  - nerdjon 6y ago
    I have heard that, my biggest concern is if there was a nasty iCloud bug introduced. I would run the risk of loosing a lot of important documents in my iCloud Drive. Maybe I will install it on my work iPhone but that is barely used right now.
  - yannikyeo 6y ago
    Beta 3 is less stable than beta 2 for some. I normally wait till beta 5 or 6 before installing on real device.
- sparker72678 6y ago
  You can already get some of these benefit by going to Settings -> Privacy -> Advertising and turn on "Limit Ad Tracking". This sends an all-zeros IDFA to all APIs that request it^1. iOS 14 begins the new prompts, lets you toggle this on a per-app basis, and, by being in front of users is just about guaranteed to dramatically increase the number of users who are opted-in. [^1] https://support.appsflyer.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003734626-FAQ-Impact-of-Apple-Limit-Ad-Tracking-on-attribution https://support.appsflyer.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003734626...
christiansakai 6y ago
"Cry me a river" Says no one ever.
jayd16 6y ago
With this feature, is the information not tracked at all or only tracked by Apple and then made anonymous when given to apps?
scblock 6y ago
Personalized ads and all the awful tracking and profiling that goes with them are a plague and must be destroyed.
pronel 6y ago
Apple is a bit naive. How will they block adtech companies fingerprinting TF out of users? There's too much money on the plate. Companies such as Adjust have fingerprinting tech and announced this as one option against Apple's move. All GDPR compliant because they don't need to get user's approval but their customers need to. And do their customers ask for approval before fingerprinting? Isn't the approval not often mandatory for using the app? Or somewhere buried deep in the Privacy Statement and given afterwards? And if customers just fingerprinted without approval how would Apple ever find out that Appsflyer or Adjust just were used to fingerprint and to track you until you get your next iPhone? If Apple was serious about privacy they would have detected and banned anyone using fingerprint SDKs. As sad this sounds for most users: Adtech won't die, Apple will rather make fingerprinting tech even stronger.
m3kw9 6y ago
Apple news also use targeted ads and they are as shitty as any ad platform in recommending ads and no way to not see them.
mrweasel 6y ago
While I believe Apple making the right choice, perhaps they could also find a way to help app developers make money, without ads. Perhaps one of the reasons developer include ads and tracking is that recurring revenue is a problem for small developments shops.
grugagag 6y ago
Neither Internet or TV advertising ever worked for me in the US. As a matter of fact I always tended to avoid whatever was advertised to me or whoever targeted me since I know I will end up paying for that myself when I buy their product and I'd rather not. So as a customer I think they should offer me free ads blocking since seeing the ads would make me avoid those products. If we want to see this industry change we should all make clear it rarely works and it's an absolute waste of money. What worked were ads that were creative back in the day before they all became canned into the same thing, same voices, etc. Back in Europe the advertising USED TO BE a lot more fun, I'd genuinely enjoy watch some commercials on TV, to the point of watching an hour compilation of said best ads.
- Skunkleton 6y ago
  > Neither Internet or TV advertising ever worked for me in the US. This is a common idea that people hold, but I am pretty suspicious of it. First, at the macro scale, we know that ads are effective. If they weren't, it wouldn't be such a huge industry. Second, I think many people misunderstand what ads are doing. They aren't changing your mind usually, instead they are reminding and reinforcing something you already know. For example, my next phone will most certainly be an iPhone, but can an ad make me excited enough about it to mention that to a friend? Or buy a new phone sooner? Probably.
  - brendoelfrendo 6y ago
    It's also fairly well understood that familiarity plays a role in brand choice. So, you may not care very much about what brand of toothpaste you buy (as an example), but if you're bombarded with advertisements for Crest, you're more likely to pick Crest. The advertisement isn't really meant to get you to go out and buy Crest RIGHT NOW, or even to get you excited about the next time you buy Crest. It's just there to make sure that next time you need toothpaste and are staring at a wall of functionally identical brands, Crest is the first one that jumps into your mind.
dylan604 6y ago
>But being the most popular mobile ecosystem I keep seeing quote similar to this about Apple's iOS being so popular, yet the numbers clearly show that Android devices/users out number iOS. Are they saying that even with those numbers, Android is unpopular and people would rather be an iOS user? Is the price point whats preventing them?
- m12k 6y ago
  Yeah, calling it the most popular requires defining popular in a rather unconventional manner... That said, as a data point, a handful of years ago I saw a report that the average iOS user generally had a quite a bit more purchasing power than the average Android user, so despite making up quite a bit less than 50% of the mobile market, iOS users actually come closer to making up 50% of the market that most advertisers care about reaching. I don't know if this is outdated these days, with more high-end Android phones than in the early days, but it still fits my anecdotal experience of Android phones being given to children as their first phone, and cheap Android phones being very popular in developing countries.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    There is a reason that Google pays Apple 8 Billion+ a year to be the default search engine....
- stmL 6y ago
  I believe so. In my country, having an iPhone was a sign of higher income. An average Android phone with a known brand is about 1K local currency, iPhone SE is around 5K and iPhone 11 Pro is around 11K. Average junior developer earns around 5K monthly. Nowadays, even people that can't afford proper food buy them second hand or with installments. I, as an Android user, keep reading stories about how iPhone respects privacy and how it is more stable etc. Even though there is no add-on support for Firefox on iOS (for uBlock origin) and I know I won't be able to develop any app for my own iPhone (MacBooks are even more expensive around 20K) I still want to buy an iPhone to get rid of Google and its compulsory apps. I know if I care enough about my privacy I can get LineageOS or something, I just want something that works and not owned by Google.
deeblering4 6y ago
This is a big reason why I continue to use apple devices. They seem to be one of the few large tech companies that aligns themselves with users rights to privacy. Apple isn’t perfect. But they build very good privacy and security into their products. And they structure their UI and defaults in such a way that the average user benefits with no effort or specialized knowledge.
- Silhouette 6y ago
  But they build very good privacy and security into their products. And they structure their UI and defaults in such a way that the average user benefits with no effort or specialized knowledge. Sometimes they do, and I agree that they're much better than a lot of big tech companies. Still, their insistence on tying almost everything to iCloud and then not encrypting iCloud properly is a major black mark against them, which severely reduces the usefulness of their devices and associated services if you value privacy and security.
  - lilyball 6y ago
    On the other hand, tying everything to iCloud and then losing all your data because you replaced your sole device and forgot your password would be disastrous. This is the scenario that requires Apple to retain the keys to your iCloud, and as long as they have those keys, they can be compelled to decrypt it under lawful government order.
    - tjoff 6y ago
      How do you prove that it is your account then?
    - Silhouette 6y ago
      The thing is, once data is in iCloud, there are other ways you can retrieve it and back it up yourself as long as you do have working authentication, and I can see no good argument for not offering E2E encryption across the board that is tied to such identification. Worst case, you generate a suitably robust key that is used for authentication and encryption, and you provide a means to export it and back it up however you want without sending it to any third party. You can still use all the snazzy secure enclaves and facial recognition and so on to protect a copy of that key that is held on each of your personal devices to enable easy but reasonably secure access, but the underlying technology is tried and tested, it does not have the lock-in problem, and it does not require data in iCloud to be accessible to anyone but the keyholder. Also note that this needn't necessarily be mandatory. If users are OK with trusting Apple, they could still use the current approach. But if you're going to claim to be a strong supporter of privacy and security, you should really have at least the option for proper encryption of everything for those people and businesses that want it.
nxpnsv 6y ago
Better targeting of ads based on content rather than visitors seems like a great idea... who is doing this?
j45 6y ago
Once this feature is released and verified live, this is a big reason for me to potentially move back to iPhone. I just hope Apple follows through on their promises and not backout of it like they did with some of the end to end encryption stuff with iCloud.
tobyhinloopen 6y ago
Good
king_magic 6y ago
Personalized ads are profoundly creepy. Glad to hopefully see them disappear.
soared 6y ago
Always interesting to see the "advertising industry needs to die" comments here. 40% of FAANG is built purely on advertising (7% of the S&P500). Some non-zero percent of commenters are employed by adtech funded companies.
- alkonaut 6y ago
  ”My employer should switch to a different business model or go under” isn’t a weird opinion.
  - soared 6y ago
    "The industry I work in should die for ethical reasons." - Skilled knowledge worker who could move to another industry, but the money bought out their ethics.
    - alkonaut 6y ago
      I said “change or”. That’s an important distinction. Lots of people work in industries that have questionable practices. It’s a pretty far jump from working at, say, a newspaper that shows ad-network ads (which I find questionable and I think falls into the category “find a new business model or die”), and working for something actually unethical. Also what I meant wasn’t that a whole industry such as online news should die, only change business model.
sparker72678 6y ago
Worth noting that you can already get some of these benefits today by going to Settings -> Privacy -> Advertising and turning on "Limit Ad Tracking". This sends an all-zeros IDFA to all APIs that request it^1. iOS 14 begins the new prompts, lets you toggle this on a per-app basis, and, by being in front of users is just about guaranteed to dramatically increase the number of users who are opted-in. [^1] https://support.appsflyer.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003734626-FAQ-Impact-of-Apple-Limit-Ad-Tracking-on-attribution https://support.appsflyer.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003734626...
- AnonC 6y ago
  > Settings -> Privacy -> Advertising and turning on "Limit Ad Tracking". This sends an all-zeros IDFA to all APIs that request it. Could you please clarify, even when “Limit Ad Tracking” is on, why the “Reset Advertising Identifier“ option below it is still there and asks if the identifier needs to be reset (on tapping it)? What does “Reset Advertising Identifier” do when “Limit Ad Tracking” is already on? Side note: The link you provided throws an error for me saying “could not connect to server”. Not sure if it’s a temporary issue.
sparker72678 6y ago
While I applaud the feature and hope it gets used by everyone, the idea that it's going to harm FB/Google/Etc. is unlikely. There's a good argument to be made here that it will actually _entrench_ them. Facebook's power comes not just from being creepy, but by having built an internet-wide advertising platform that anyone can run ads on. You run ads in one place and billions of people can see them. While IDFA blocking is nice, it does basically nothing to change FB's incentives. Until using the personal data they've collected to run ads is illegal, they'll continue to collect it (and probably after, let's be honest). All the while, the complexities of running an effective ad network get higher and higher, making it harder for 3rd parties to compete against FB. At the end of the day, we have to make ads targeted with previously collected personal data illegal. End of story.
eska 6y ago
If you're working in ads and this comes as a surprise to you, then you haven't been doing your homework. Steve Jobs himself, RIP, announced this over 10 years ago.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dutch3000 6y ago
you mean the ads for bicycles after i just bought one?

353 points by remotists 6y ago

d--b 6y ago

At long last! And now I'll know why I pay more for an iPhone.

ipsum2 6y ago
You could have had this years ago on Android with Firefox for Android, or run AdGuard or the other thousands of adblocking apps.
- d--b 6y ago
  No, this is for in-apps tracking, not the web.
  - square_usual 6y ago
    You can still run a system wide ad and tracking blocker on android.
    - rkul 6y ago
      Can you elaborate on your practice how you do it?
      - Asuchug4 6y ago
        https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/ https://blokada.org/ https://blokada.org/
    - kube-system 6y ago
      You can on iOS too. They're implemented as a VPN running at localhost.
  - erklik 6y ago
    If you wanted to, although it is more effort, and more niche, you can install a pi-hole on your network blocking all sorts tracking, ads etc across all devices. Although, for Android, there do exist apps that will do system-level ad/tracker blocking.
    - halostatue 6y ago
      How do you install pi-hole for the cellular modem on a smartphone?
      - erklik 6y ago
        You do not unfortunately. However, what you can do is utilize a VPN into your home network where you already have a pi-hole set up. Doing so will route all your phone's traffic through your home network (and pi-hole) first. You'll have the same "ad protection" on the go as you would at home. I recommend checking out WireGuard.
product50 6y ago
You can always opt out ad tracking in iPhone, even today, by using Limit Ad Tracking option in Settings.
- omnifischer 6y ago
  Do you watch youtube? thanks for supporting the creators with ads? Please iPhone may be private but if you use Google search you lost already. It is a double-whammy. You pay lot to apple and then lost privacy to google/netflix/cnn/<app> here or whomever.
- anupamchugh 6y ago
  Yes you can do that in iOS 13 but very few people are tech savvy to know that. With iOS 14, the dialog would be in front of you as you the app. High chance everyone would opt out
t0mas88 6y ago
That's not a reason to pay more for an iPhone. Android allows you to install any browser you want (as opposed to Apple still not allowing real third party browsers), including Firefox with uBlock, which is much much better at privacy than Safari on Apple and as a bonus makes the internet 3x faster by blocking ads.
- RKearney 6y ago
  Yes, we should all flock to an operating system developed by an advertising company in an effort to escape advertisements.
  - Spivak 6y ago
    I mean you 1000% shouldn't go to any store, buy an Android phone and just use it if you want to avoid Google. But Android in isolation is fine as long as you consider it a hobbyist smartphone platform.
  - lern_too_spel 6y ago
    If that operating system does a better job of escaping ads, why not?
- jeffhuys 6y ago
  Eh, I use Wipr. Exact same thing. PiHole if you want system-wide.
- scarface74 6y ago
  An ad blocker that intercepts all of your traffic is better for privacy than one that doesn’t?
  - t0mas88 6y ago
    If it's open source and people can check that it doesn't anything hidden, yes
    - 6y ago

AstralStorm 6y ago

Some industries need to die. This one is akin to making horse carriages nowadays, except more evil.

082349872349872 6y ago
Still a thing: http://www.glinkowski.pl/en/sports-carriage-driving http://www.glinkowski.pl/en/sports-carriage-driving To be fair, I think the long tail may cover any currently legal manufactures, now matter how technologically outdated, extending even to the paleolithic: https://www.goknapping.com/Products-Flint_Knapping_Tools.html https://www.goknapping.com/Products-Flint_Knapping_Tools.htm... (It's reassuring to see even knapping is split between mods and trads. Do they get into long flint vs obsidian flamewars, I wonder?)
ocdtrekkie 6y ago
Pretty much. It's incredible the mental gymnastics the adtech industry has gone through to believe it's important, or even fundamentally important to the world.

cryptoz 6y ago

Since there is already an incentive for apps to grow as big as possible to show ads to earn more money, I wonder if there is a legitimate way to slow-pivot all the app stores to an automatic developer payout; no IAP or monthly subscription per user per app or ads shown in app, simply a payout to devs based on app install size. Where does the money come to make those payouts and how do the app store owners still make money per download too? I wonder if, with increased care about privacy in consumer minds, Apple or Google would try an Apple-Arcade-style subscription for apps. Users could pay $5/month (or tired,lower/higher rates) and get access to a selection of 'paid' apps without having to pay per app. Devs would still be incentivized pretty much the same and users would have higher-quality apps with fewer ads. Just thinking out loud.

raverbashing 6y ago

To anyone that took GDPR seriously and not as a reason to shove another popup in everybody's face this doesn't come as a surprise It will be even better when advertisers (that is, the ones that pay for ads, not the ad networks) realize that "over tracking" and retargeting are just ways of parting them with their money but doesn't increase conversions. You have basic info about your user, you don't need to track them to 11

jariel 6y ago
These conversations are always so one-sided on HN. Not only is 're-targeting' immensely useful, it absolutely increases conversions. Targeting in general helps quite a lot. Ad targeting is the opposite of evil, it actually increases relevance by a significant degree, and increases market efficiency, wherein surpluses go to both sides. There's a huge market for products and services out there and it's getting harder to connect individuals and products on the long tail. Without tracking - the big winners will be the mega-brands that can run wide ad runs to most of the nation. It'll be cheaper to just tell everyone about McDonald's and impossible for the new snowboarding company to tell you about their new gear.
- fpgaminer 6y ago
  Apple is giving users the choice. Do they want to trade their privacy for your listed benefits? It's up to them. I don't see how that's a bad thing. If nobody decides to make that trade when given the choice... then I guess it will be a surprise to no one (including advertisers).
- gtufano 6y ago
  Unless, you know, by buying ads on snowboarding gear focused sites, as the industry has done for decades in the print industry.
  - square_usual 6y ago
    Or on apps about snowboarding, or on fora related to snowboarding, or by paying snowboarding content creators, there's a wealth of opportunities out there. I don't give a damn about snowboarding when I'm browsing, say, twitter. (Which, incidentally, for some reason has borked itself into thinking I like rowing.)

qtplatypus 6y ago

Can I say “Good”.

walrus01 6y ago

I've been using the full desktop version of the ublock origin plugin on firefox mobile for quite some time, and it's dramatically improved my mobile experience.

brobdingnagians 6y ago
Same, I downloaded Firefox for mobile specifically to get the ublock origin plugin. Then I discovered that I like their tab display with the two columns of thumbnails a lot more than other mobile browsers as well.
jyriand 6y ago
This plugin works only in android, right? Tried to install it on my iPhone but it said it’s not compatible with my browser although i have Firefox installed.
- captn3m0 6y ago
  Yup, Firefox on iOS isn't the full Firefox, its just a Webview (fake Safari) due to Apple's restrictions. So no addons anytime soon.
- AlexTrask 6y ago
  If you are interested in improve privacity on iPhone and user Firefox you can user Firefox focus but i will seed ads
- wayneftw 6y ago
  Try BlockBear for Safari on iOS.
rq1 6y ago
I'm using AdGuard (free) on Safari mobile and it wokrs great so far.
GekkePrutser 6y ago
Yes it's great... I also use other adblocking methods (DNS based) but uBlock Origin remains king. Only thing I really really miss from FF Mobile is the pull to refresh. I so wish they'd add that, because every time I open a tab with a news site that was already opened it shows stale information, and I have to open the hamburger menu to do a refresh. 2 actions instead of one. An option to have sites auto refresh when switching to the tab after xx minutes would be great too. Right now it's just too inconvenient.

raxxorrax 6y ago

Maybe the open source promise of Android was indeed a lie. To me this industry has no value to society at all. Not a fan of Apple, but they seem to be serious about privacy showing other companies how it is done. Microsoft could have really established itself as an alternative to Google on the same front, but they utterly failed by mirroring the worst aspects of the disastrous landscape we see on mobile devices. I hope their telemetry generates billions too, since that is probably in the range of their missed opportunities for both desktop and mobile devices. Some still pretend that users want personalized ads and want to be tracked. Yes, there are some that really do. Glad we get options for the other ones.

omnifischer 6y ago
At the end of the day, 1. Apple users are the ones that cannot browse without adblocker. Safari is not as good as ublock-origin 2. Most Apple users use google maps. > Not a fan of Apple, but they seem to be serious about privacy If they are honest then they can remove the default search engine from Google to DDG or whatever. They get billions from Google for default search engine. https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/1/21310591/apple-google-search-engine-safari-iphone-deal-billions-regulation-antitrust https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/1/21310591/apple-google-sear... BTW, Apple need to release a good search/maps product before complaining. 3. Even the cheapest iPhone cannot be afforded by > 80 % world. They do not care about >80 % world popln? They too need smartphones.
- kohtatsu 6y ago
  iPhones have longevity. The iPhone 5s from September 2013 has been receiving regular security updates, the latest being iOS 12.4.8 on Wednesday. It was the first 64-bit phone, and first iPhone (first phone?) with a Secure Enclave. They can be had for <$100 in good condition.
  - omnifischer 6y ago
    BTW, every one says this - but nobody uses it like a daily driver. Yes, it will work as a spare - with just one app - like whatsapp - but for many poor - they need 1. Uber or Ola 2. Facebook or WhatsApp 3. linkedin to whatever local app 4. youtube Why dont you try to use it for a week with all your existing apps? If it works as good - why would anyone buy newer?

NicoJuicy 6y ago

Apple didn't solve that the ad industry is an alternative for paying to see a website's content. So what will happen is that: - Safari/iOS users will be required to pay for a ad-supported website - Safari/iOS users will be denied access to the website

La1n 6y ago
Or those users will still see ads, they just won't be tracked and the ads will be less personalized.
- kube-system 6y ago
  Or ad networks will just use fingerprinting to generate a unique ID and continue business as normal.
dan1234 6y ago
>Safari/iOS users will be required to pay for a ad-supported website That's fine, just give me a convenient way to pay (and cancel) and subscription and I'll decide if the content justifies the price. If I'm not willing to pay for it, I'm probably not going to miss it. Sometimes I wonder how much copy is written as filler to wrap ads around. >Safari/iOS users will be denied access to the website And they'll move on to somewhere else (or fire up some temporary workaround if they really want access).

thomasedwards 6y ago

I wish Apple would kill Medium

asplake 6y ago
Before that, AMP
- threatofrain 6y ago
  AMP doesn't need help dying; I wouldn't be surprised if Google killed it soon because it never took off.
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    Oh, it took off big time. For Google.
- evilduck 6y ago
  They're doing something. Safari has automatically converted AMP links back to their original pages since iOS 11. It could stand to be a system-wide behavior for my own usage, but it'd be a little intrusive if you actually did want to share an AMP link for a specific reason if it automatically altered your clipboard or text messages.
  - jefftk 6y ago
    Chrome does it too, and the AMP project is supportive: https://9to5mac.com/2017/08/24/ios-11-safari-amp-links/ https://9to5mac.com/2017/08/24/ios-11-safari-amp-links/ The idea is, when a foo has <link rel=canonical href=bar>, if you go to share foo your browser will actually share the canonical url, bar.

SllX 6y ago

If an entire industry dies because users were given an explicit upfront choice, because of one popup like the article says, then it wasn’t a productive industry. We’ll see what really happens.

harpratap 6y ago
What will really happen is ads get more sinister and hidden. Product placements in movies will seem childish in comparison. Astro-turfing is already huge on Reddit, it will spread to all parts of media now, blurring the lines between genuine opinions and forced narrative. Ads, marketing and branding are integral part of capitalism, it's never going to go away from consumption focused societies.
- fwn 6y ago
  I don't think that there is currently any evidence that adding consent to ad tracking will have a significant impact on "sinister and hidden" advertisement. ..and it does not seem intuitive to me either, as it's a completely new set of companies launching those dubious ad formats and strategies. It's not likely that Google will start crafting a hard to scale astro turfing API or something, just because their ad network got less profitable. > Ads, marketing and branding are integral part of capitalism, it's never going to go away from consumption focused societies. Just to highlight: "Capitalism" and "consumption focused societies" aren't equivalent. ..or at least not in any common definition of the term capitalism. Historic examples of self-determined non-capitalistic societal models were highly "consumption focused" as well. I think that maybe post- or de-growth ideas are the only contemporary family of ideas I know that makes it a point not to be "consumption focused". But their ideas are, while interesting, still pretty loose on their edges.
  - harpratap 6y ago
    > and it does not seem intuitive to me either, as it's a completely new set of companies launching those dubious ad formats and strategies No it's really not. You can see it happening all the time on celebrity and "influencer" Twitter/Instagram/Tiktok. Most are pretty obvious, some are honest and use disclaimers that it's a paid ad but majority are just ads inside regular content without any disclaimers and such.

supernova87a 6y ago

But doesn't this privacy setting get nullified anyway by companies tracking your device at the cellular network level? I'm not too familiar with it, but regardless of whether you accept cookies, etc., they are able to ID you through your carrier anyway?

square_usual 6y ago
> tracking your device at the cellular network level I'm not aware of this happening at a large scale outside of the networks themselves, do you have any references for this?
- ceph_ 6y ago
  I believe Verizon was caught inserting super-cookies with an ad tracking identifier. But that method was much easier back when the majority of the web was just http.
- brailsafe 6y ago
  It's been happening at a large scale for a long time as part of the broader fingerprinting initiative by advertising companies. A lot of people think their phones are listening to them, but it's more like they're using heuristics about who you regularly interact with and what they've been searching for. It's disturbing. For example, I recently started getting very frequent and consistent ads across many websites from Warby Parker for the pair of glasses my gf was currently wearing. I asked her, and of course she had been looking to replace them on the same WiFi network.
murermader 6y ago
Yeah, I think you are right. Apps don't need access to GPS, internet or bluetooth to know your location. They can just log what cell tower you are connected to, and use that information to "estimate" your location every time you switch cell towers. I think that method even works in flight mode, as your phone is still listening for cell towers, but just not responding. But I think this info is limited to the OS, and can't be used by apps.

hn3333 6y ago

Unless all traffic is routed through Apple servers advertisers will still be able to track the ip address. (A visit to some url, say google.com, with login cookie, and the link between ip and user is made again.)

kohtatsu 6y ago
Seriously I hope IPv6-only never arrives. Let's just be hippies and share NAT'd IPv4's. Unironically. Edit: I've gone rogue and blocked IPv6 in DNSCloak. https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/dnscloak-secure-dns-client/id1452162351 https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/dnscloak-secure-dns-client/id1...
- Spivak 6y ago
  I mean we could be real real hippies and NAT IPv6. I really see so case for not doing this since people would still want to use private address space for internal networks bigger than their assigned public block.

tgv 6y ago

Will this also remove (part of) the power of shady companies like Emerdata Ltd, formerly known as Cambridge Analytica?

StevePlea 6y ago

without paywall: https://outline.com/pVuLZg https://outline.com/pVuLZg

anupamchugh 6y ago
Here’s the medium friend link without paywall from the author himself: https://medium.com/p/apple-is-killing-a-billion-dollar-ad-industry-with-one-popup-2f83d182837f?source=email-9833cc01f515--writer.postDistributed&sk=3b0e2ef3463837b34503764257d2f9b3 https://medium.com/p/apple-is-killing-a-billion-dollar-ad-in...

Joe8Bit 6y ago

In a previous life I worked in ad-tech, and I don't think it's as black and white as the OP makes it out to be. I think that's actually a Bad Thing™️ as this industry needs to profoundly change or die. This isn't a new, unexpected thing for sell or demand side ad-tech platforms, they've seen the death of IDFA coming for a few years. The reality is that this will likely stop more 'above board' players (a good thing) but the gray area and outright malicious, scummy ad and data companies will still attempt to generate unique identifiers through things like native fingerprinting. I think Apple will also stop them incerementally, but this sadly isn't an outright victory. I don't understand it myself, but people DO opt-in to personalised ads in pretty decent numbers, it's anecdata, but I've seen data from very large control trials (testing for exactly this scenario) where ~50% of users opt-in. The devil is in the detail with these things: what will the copy be? will alternatives be presented? how will users be able to link 'value' to what they're being asked for?

prox 6y ago
I also don’t believe in Ad-tech doom and gloom. Yes, ad companies won’t be hoarding as much data, but advertisement worked fine before it started to do it. Back to basics it is, treat me well as a customer, deliver as promised and use ads responsibly (aka no more hyper targetting)
- dividedbyzero 6y ago
  For me, the term ad-tech has become synonymous with the modern-day scummy data hoarders and surveillance corporations, maybe that's the same for others? It could make for a lot of misunderstandings. I guess most people would agree that advertisement in general can fulfill an important function, if done responsibly – but not like that. These tracking excesses really must die.
  - prox 6y ago
    Not only that, but we are (were?) in a race to the bottom, ever declining return on ads, so more ads must be delivered, more tracking must be done, creating more friction (ad-overload) I too believe ads can function responsibly, ads have run in newspapers for a century, so a equilibrium can exist.

sneak 6y ago

When did Medium get a “sign up” paywall? It feels like more and more content linked on HN is paywalled, adblockwalled, or otherwise obscured these days.

mark_l_watson 6y ago

Off topic, I have been enjoying the iOS and iPadOS version 14 betas. This privacy feature is pro-consumer and I am all for it! I pay money to Google (GCP, Play entertainment stuff) and FaceBook (Oculus VR addict, here!), but I don't want them using any of my data to enrich themselves or other companies. Everyone should read "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power." It was printed about 15 months ago, but is still highly relevant to both convince people that there is a serious problem and also advice on fighting back.

GekkePrutser 6y ago

This won't be the end of it. It's just one of the many battles. And iOS isn't for everyone. Yes it's great for protecting privacy but it's also extremely restrictive for the users. The fact that they don't even allow real third-party browsers is baffling in this day and age. I also can't use my Yubikey in OpenPGP mode which I really need for my password manager and SSH access. I know it supports U2F now but that's not enough (and was way too late as well). But I agree the advertising industry has to die. I don't believe in the 'working together' approach of the EFF with their plugins that stop blocking cookies when they see the privacy policy file. I mean, if you're not tracking me, then why need third party cookies in the first place? It'll never happen though. They'll always find a way to track us.

pantaloony 6y ago
Much like Flash, not allowing third-party browsers could be explained as a cynical control mechanism on Apple’s part... or as their not wanting to see tech support volume shoot up as Chrome and Firefox users complain their battery life is terrible. Or some combination of the two.
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  I understand their have their reasons.. But I don't like them taking that choice away from me. The problem is, right now we have only 2 choices. Living in the open world but getting all our information sucked dry by advertisers. Or live in Apple's protected little garden but not be allowed to leave it. And pay much more for hardware specs. Neither are very appealing.
  - platelminto 6y ago
    A new iPhone SE has flagship specs for $400-500, and Androids cheaper than that (and even much costlier ones) struggle to last 2-3 years - an iPhone easily lasts 4+. I don't want to turn this into an Android vs iOS debate, but want to highlight that one of the main complaints against getting an iPhone (cost) no longer really applies - it could even be considered a strongsuit. I agree that the walled garden can be annoying, but I've rarely found myself longing for Android customisation, and have very much noticed how some apps work much better on my iPhone. This is completely down to preference though. I also care deeply about privacy, but even with 0 consideration for it, I think I still would've switched - I am super happy seeing Apple pushing it this hard. (I recently went back to iOS after 2 phones and 5 years on Android)

kin 6y ago

I have a serious question. Obviously if one were to choose between an ad-free experience and an ad-full experience, one would choose ad-free. But, if ads were needed for monetization, wouldn't you choose personalized vs non-personalized? Personally, I would go with personalized because a non-personalized experienced usually has no relevancy and frankly it is inefficient use of money in this world. From there, it really comes down to companies invading your privacy, usually they make the wrong assumptions from it. Why can't there be a way for me to tell the ad-world what I'm in the market for and have them stop trying to snoop around and guess what I want? Most may say that making a Google search is enough to tell ads what I want but I think there are a ton of assumptions made there.

esrauch 6y ago
How would you imagine "tell them what you're in the market for" would work? I don't think it would work at scale; almost no user would take time to make a manually personalized ad profile instead of ... not doing that.
- jfk13 6y ago
  If I'm in the market for something, I'm likely to indicate that by doing a search for relevant terms. So the search engine could sell associated ad space to appropriate categories of advertizers. If I'm reading reviews about a certain product category, it's a fair bet I might be in the market for such a product. So the site could show me relevant ads. If I'm reading a site devoted to a particular topic or activity, the publisher might reasonably guess that I could be in the market for related products, and offer relevant ads. None of this requires any privacy-invasive tracking. If I'm reading a general news site, the site shouldn't have any more idea what I'm "in the market for" than the publisher of a print newspaper I might buy. If I'm browsing used-car listings, the site shouldn't have any idea what genre of novels I like to read, what my grocery cart usually contains, where I go to work out, or how many pets I have. Why does anyone think it's OK for a company to surreptitiously gather that sort of personal information about everyone?
- elliekelly 6y ago
  Why would it be any different from the way advertising worked before Facebook and Google? Vogue subscribers are probably in the market for new designer clothes. People who watch Cesar Milan are probably in the market for pet supplies. Someone driving down a highway is probably in the market for gas and a snack. Someone who searches for “affordable laptop” is probably in the market to buy a new computer. You don’t need to track someone’s every move to serve them relevant ads.

nerdjon 6y ago

This is the number one feature on iOS 14 that I cannot wait for. I am getting very tired of finding out that unrelated services know that I have used a specific app (like Facebook knows way too much). Somewhat related (even though this is focused on Apps). I have noticed an uptick in websites that don't support safari, likely due to how they handle cookies. I hope this does not become super common (but I can't imagine many sites wanting to loose out on the iOS market)

chadlavi 6y ago
I'm on the dev beta, and it's pretty stable. There's a public beta available now. If you're itching to try it out, I'd recommend it!
- nerdjon 6y ago
  I have heard that, my biggest concern is if there was a nasty iCloud bug introduced. I would run the risk of loosing a lot of important documents in my iCloud Drive. Maybe I will install it on my work iPhone but that is barely used right now.
- yannikyeo 6y ago
  Beta 3 is less stable than beta 2 for some. I normally wait till beta 5 or 6 before installing on real device.
sparker72678 6y ago
You can already get some of these benefit by going to Settings -> Privacy -> Advertising and turn on "Limit Ad Tracking". This sends an all-zeros IDFA to all APIs that request it^1. iOS 14 begins the new prompts, lets you toggle this on a per-app basis, and, by being in front of users is just about guaranteed to dramatically increase the number of users who are opted-in. [^1] https://support.appsflyer.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003734626-FAQ-Impact-of-Apple-Limit-Ad-Tracking-on-attribution https://support.appsflyer.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003734626...

christiansakai 6y ago

"Cry me a river" Says no one ever.

jayd16 6y ago

With this feature, is the information not tracked at all or only tracked by Apple and then made anonymous when given to apps?

scblock 6y ago

Personalized ads and all the awful tracking and profiling that goes with them are a plague and must be destroyed.

pronel 6y ago

Apple is a bit naive. How will they block adtech companies fingerprinting TF out of users? There's too much money on the plate. Companies such as Adjust have fingerprinting tech and announced this as one option against Apple's move. All GDPR compliant because they don't need to get user's approval but their customers need to. And do their customers ask for approval before fingerprinting? Isn't the approval not often mandatory for using the app? Or somewhere buried deep in the Privacy Statement and given afterwards? And if customers just fingerprinted without approval how would Apple ever find out that Appsflyer or Adjust just were used to fingerprint and to track you until you get your next iPhone? If Apple was serious about privacy they would have detected and banned anyone using fingerprint SDKs. As sad this sounds for most users: Adtech won't die, Apple will rather make fingerprinting tech even stronger.

m3kw9 6y ago

Apple news also use targeted ads and they are as shitty as any ad platform in recommending ads and no way to not see them.

mrweasel 6y ago

While I believe Apple making the right choice, perhaps they could also find a way to help app developers make money, without ads. Perhaps one of the reasons developer include ads and tracking is that recurring revenue is a problem for small developments shops.

grugagag 6y ago

Neither Internet or TV advertising ever worked for me in the US. As a matter of fact I always tended to avoid whatever was advertised to me or whoever targeted me since I know I will end up paying for that myself when I buy their product and I'd rather not. So as a customer I think they should offer me free ads blocking since seeing the ads would make me avoid those products. If we want to see this industry change we should all make clear it rarely works and it's an absolute waste of money. What worked were ads that were creative back in the day before they all became canned into the same thing, same voices, etc. Back in Europe the advertising USED TO BE a lot more fun, I'd genuinely enjoy watch some commercials on TV, to the point of watching an hour compilation of said best ads.

Skunkleton 6y ago
> Neither Internet or TV advertising ever worked for me in the US. This is a common idea that people hold, but I am pretty suspicious of it. First, at the macro scale, we know that ads are effective. If they weren't, it wouldn't be such a huge industry. Second, I think many people misunderstand what ads are doing. They aren't changing your mind usually, instead they are reminding and reinforcing something you already know. For example, my next phone will most certainly be an iPhone, but can an ad make me excited enough about it to mention that to a friend? Or buy a new phone sooner? Probably.
- brendoelfrendo 6y ago
  It's also fairly well understood that familiarity plays a role in brand choice. So, you may not care very much about what brand of toothpaste you buy (as an example), but if you're bombarded with advertisements for Crest, you're more likely to pick Crest. The advertisement isn't really meant to get you to go out and buy Crest RIGHT NOW, or even to get you excited about the next time you buy Crest. It's just there to make sure that next time you need toothpaste and are staring at a wall of functionally identical brands, Crest is the first one that jumps into your mind.

dylan604 6y ago

>But being the most popular mobile ecosystem I keep seeing quote similar to this about Apple's iOS being so popular, yet the numbers clearly show that Android devices/users out number iOS. Are they saying that even with those numbers, Android is unpopular and people would rather be an iOS user? Is the price point whats preventing them?

m12k 6y ago
Yeah, calling it the most popular requires defining popular in a rather unconventional manner... That said, as a data point, a handful of years ago I saw a report that the average iOS user generally had a quite a bit more purchasing power than the average Android user, so despite making up quite a bit less than 50% of the mobile market, iOS users actually come closer to making up 50% of the market that most advertisers care about reaching. I don't know if this is outdated these days, with more high-end Android phones than in the early days, but it still fits my anecdotal experience of Android phones being given to children as their first phone, and cheap Android phones being very popular in developing countries.
- scarface74 6y ago
  There is a reason that Google pays Apple 8 Billion+ a year to be the default search engine....
stmL 6y ago
I believe so. In my country, having an iPhone was a sign of higher income. An average Android phone with a known brand is about 1K local currency, iPhone SE is around 5K and iPhone 11 Pro is around 11K. Average junior developer earns around 5K monthly. Nowadays, even people that can't afford proper food buy them second hand or with installments. I, as an Android user, keep reading stories about how iPhone respects privacy and how it is more stable etc. Even though there is no add-on support for Firefox on iOS (for uBlock origin) and I know I won't be able to develop any app for my own iPhone (MacBooks are even more expensive around 20K) I still want to buy an iPhone to get rid of Google and its compulsory apps. I know if I care enough about my privacy I can get LineageOS or something, I just want something that works and not owned by Google.

deeblering4 6y ago

This is a big reason why I continue to use apple devices. They seem to be one of the few large tech companies that aligns themselves with users rights to privacy. Apple isn’t perfect. But they build very good privacy and security into their products. And they structure their UI and defaults in such a way that the average user benefits with no effort or specialized knowledge.

Silhouette 6y ago
But they build very good privacy and security into their products. And they structure their UI and defaults in such a way that the average user benefits with no effort or specialized knowledge. Sometimes they do, and I agree that they're much better than a lot of big tech companies. Still, their insistence on tying almost everything to iCloud and then not encrypting iCloud properly is a major black mark against them, which severely reduces the usefulness of their devices and associated services if you value privacy and security.
- lilyball 6y ago
  On the other hand, tying everything to iCloud and then losing all your data because you replaced your sole device and forgot your password would be disastrous. This is the scenario that requires Apple to retain the keys to your iCloud, and as long as they have those keys, they can be compelled to decrypt it under lawful government order.
  - tjoff 6y ago
    How do you prove that it is your account then?
  - Silhouette 6y ago
    The thing is, once data is in iCloud, there are other ways you can retrieve it and back it up yourself as long as you do have working authentication, and I can see no good argument for not offering E2E encryption across the board that is tied to such identification. Worst case, you generate a suitably robust key that is used for authentication and encryption, and you provide a means to export it and back it up however you want without sending it to any third party. You can still use all the snazzy secure enclaves and facial recognition and so on to protect a copy of that key that is held on each of your personal devices to enable easy but reasonably secure access, but the underlying technology is tried and tested, it does not have the lock-in problem, and it does not require data in iCloud to be accessible to anyone but the keyholder. Also note that this needn't necessarily be mandatory. If users are OK with trusting Apple, they could still use the current approach. But if you're going to claim to be a strong supporter of privacy and security, you should really have at least the option for proper encryption of everything for those people and businesses that want it.

nxpnsv 6y ago

Better targeting of ads based on content rather than visitors seems like a great idea... who is doing this?

j45 6y ago

Once this feature is released and verified live, this is a big reason for me to potentially move back to iPhone. I just hope Apple follows through on their promises and not backout of it like they did with some of the end to end encryption stuff with iCloud.

tobyhinloopen 6y ago

Good

king_magic 6y ago

Personalized ads are profoundly creepy. Glad to hopefully see them disappear.

soared 6y ago

Always interesting to see the "advertising industry needs to die" comments here. 40% of FAANG is built purely on advertising (7% of the S&P500). Some non-zero percent of commenters are employed by adtech funded companies.

alkonaut 6y ago
”My employer should switch to a different business model or go under” isn’t a weird opinion.
- soared 6y ago
  "The industry I work in should die for ethical reasons." - Skilled knowledge worker who could move to another industry, but the money bought out their ethics.
  - alkonaut 6y ago
    I said “change or”. That’s an important distinction. Lots of people work in industries that have questionable practices. It’s a pretty far jump from working at, say, a newspaper that shows ad-network ads (which I find questionable and I think falls into the category “find a new business model or die”), and working for something actually unethical. Also what I meant wasn’t that a whole industry such as online news should die, only change business model.

sparker72678 6y ago

Worth noting that you can already get some of these benefits today by going to Settings -> Privacy -> Advertising and turning on "Limit Ad Tracking". This sends an all-zeros IDFA to all APIs that request it^1. iOS 14 begins the new prompts, lets you toggle this on a per-app basis, and, by being in front of users is just about guaranteed to dramatically increase the number of users who are opted-in. [^1] https://support.appsflyer.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003734626-FAQ-Impact-of-Apple-Limit-Ad-Tracking-on-attribution https://support.appsflyer.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003734626...

AnonC 6y ago
> Settings -> Privacy -> Advertising and turning on "Limit Ad Tracking". This sends an all-zeros IDFA to all APIs that request it. Could you please clarify, even when “Limit Ad Tracking” is on, why the “Reset Advertising Identifier“ option below it is still there and asks if the identifier needs to be reset (on tapping it)? What does “Reset Advertising Identifier” do when “Limit Ad Tracking” is already on? Side note: The link you provided throws an error for me saying “could not connect to server”. Not sure if it’s a temporary issue.

sparker72678 6y ago

While I applaud the feature and hope it gets used by everyone, the idea that it's going to harm FB/Google/Etc. is unlikely. There's a good argument to be made here that it will actually _entrench_ them. Facebook's power comes not just from being creepy, but by having built an internet-wide advertising platform that anyone can run ads on. You run ads in one place and billions of people can see them. While IDFA blocking is nice, it does basically nothing to change FB's incentives. Until using the personal data they've collected to run ads is illegal, they'll continue to collect it (and probably after, let's be honest). All the while, the complexities of running an effective ad network get higher and higher, making it harder for 3rd parties to compete against FB. At the end of the day, we have to make ads targeted with previously collected personal data illegal. End of story.

eska 6y ago

If you're working in ads and this comes as a surprise to you, then you haven't been doing your homework. Steve Jobs himself, RIP, announced this over 10 years ago.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dutch3000 6y ago

you mean the ads for bicycles after i just bought one?