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Facebook apologizes to users for Apple’s monstrous efforts to protect privacy
- oblio 6y agoIn case some users miss the context, The Register is kind of like The Onion but for IT news, just with a bit less fiction and a bit more bite :-)
- onion2k 6y agoThat's really not what they are. The Onion is fictional news that parodies politics. The Reg reports real stuff but with a sarcastic tone.
- oblio 6y agoI'd say that these days The Onion is either a summary of American politics or even a forecast, rather than a parody :-D
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y agoThe Register has really sharp writers. They are serious journalism; not satire. That said, they deliberately take the role of British “Red Top” tabloids, which are known to be quite “cheeky.”
- philjohn 6y agoSeeing as they're British, it's probably more in the "Snarky tone" category than sarcastic.
- uniqueid 6y agoOnce upon a time, it was as widely known in the tech community as HN is today.
- firloop 6y agoParts of this fall flat as the author doesn’t grasp what they’re satirizing. >Facebook actually gave some of the money it made from running those ads through its system to the business that paid for those ads. Which doesn’t make any sense but shut up, Facebook is the good guy, ok? And Apple is wrong to be doing this. Facebook Audience Network, affected by these changes, includes display ads running in 3rd-party (read: not Facebook) apps. App makers showing ads receive a split of the ad revenue in those cases.
- tednash 6y agoBingo. Exactly what I thought.
- daminimal 6y agoSo, by this logic Facebook is the good guy, because it is receiving less money by helping 3rd parties without its capabilities also invade users privacy, while taking a cut of the profits?
- pm90 6y agoThe argument made by advertisers and Facebook is that this is anonymized data which helps in making advertisements more relevant to people.
- sheeshkebab 6y agoWhat’s wrong with showing ads simply based on content a person is looking at?
- lnanek2 6y agoThat's called contextual targeting: " If iOS 14 users opt out, they will still be shown ads, but they’ll be based on other methods like contextual targeting rather than based on their IDFA. " https://clearcode.cc/blog/apple-idfa/#apple-skadnetwork https://clearcode.cc/blog/apple-idfa/#apple-skadnetwork That works so poorly Facebook doesn't even bid on showing ads for those users currently: " And Facebook doesn’t even bid on iOS users that have Limit Ad Tracking (LAT) enabled " https://www.adexchanger.com/data-exchanges/what-do-apples-privacy-focused-idfa-changes-mean-for-facebook/ https://www.adexchanger.com/data-exchanges/what-do-apples-pr...
- anonymousab 6y agoDoes it work too poorly on its own, or too poorly compared to tracking ads? Perhaps their value will go up with less presence of the latter.
- Jumziey 6y agoSlightly opinionated, but very funny and scary at the same time. I guess you could say I’m emotionally confused
- phonebucket 6y agoI appreciate HN generally for its measured, evidence-based and logical approach to most things. But I can't help but feel that the anti-FB sentiment on HN goes too far when parody articles with no substantial points made shoot to the top of HN within minutes.
- ycombinete 6y agoFront pages are always filled with articles that can garner a large amount of upvotes, on the agreeableness of their title alone. I don’t think HN is immune to that.
- _def 6y agoThis displays the critical stance of HN users against Facebook, which is an important expression, culturally.
- lnanek2 6y ago> parody articles with no substantial points Personally, I found this article super useful. We've had long discussions at my company about what Facebook's announcement about not supporting IDFA opt-in means: https://twitter.com/rjonesy/status/1298662658934222848 https://twitter.com/rjonesy/status/1298662658934222848 This article made it much more clear. It's one of the only ones that addressed why Facebook says advertisers have to create a separate advertising account for iOS 14 ads, for example. What Facebook tells you: " To help preserve the fidelity of app install campaign measurement, we will require the creation and usage of a dedicated iOS 14 ad account " What the article explains: " Unfortunately, however, it will require them to set up a completely new advertising account to run campaigns for iOS users, because it’s not going to apply Apple’s new privacy protection measures any further than it has to " Makes sense. Facebook's recommendation to apps showing ads is to implement Facebook login or uploading hashed user information (Advanced Matching). Apple is already cracking down on those approaches, like saying any app that has social login must also support Apple login.
- tednash 6y ago> “That’s right, Facebook actually gave some of the money it made from running those ads through its system to the business that paid for those ads. Which doesn’t make any sense but shut up, Facebook is the good guy, ok? And Apple is wrong to be doing this.“ So it appears the author has no idea what a mobile advertising network is/does... FB aren’t wrong to highlight that this will have a detrimental impact for many thousands of publishers who offer content for free, due to the fact they run an ad supported model. Let’s see how it plays out...
- onion2k 6y agoFB aren’t wrong to highlight that this will have a detrimental impact for many thousands of publishers who offer content for free, due to the fact they run an ad supported model. Those apps will still show adverts, publishers will still get paid, and advertisers will still pay to show ads. The only thing that needs to change is the way Facebook choose which adverts to show. Instead of an algorithm based on huge swathes of personal data that they've tracked it'll need to be a simpler "what categories of ads should we show in this app?" form. Adverts will be a bit less effective, which could drive revenues down a bit, but the sky is not falling on the ad model. The real thing that Facebook are sad about is the fact that they will no longer be able to sell access to the tracking data. That's a lucrative business, and it's one that only really benefits Facebook and data brokers. Cutting off their supply of tracking data isn't a bad thing.
- disgruntledphd2 6y agoFacebook's and Google's first-party businesses will be totally fine. It's the marketplaces (ad sense, audience network) along with all the smaller players in mobile measurement/attribution/advertising that are going to be harmed by this. File this under actions by a megacorp that increase the power of them and other megacorps.
- thor24 6y ago+1 on this. I expect Mobile Attribution Companies (like branch.io etc.) to die a slow death because of this. In the short term I expect companies like Liveramp (which acts as DMP (Data Management Platform)) to get more business because one theory here is all free apps will start to force users to login (using email/mobile number) which effectively becomes another ID you can track folks with across-apps over time.
- corty 6y agoVery nice writing. The Register is always good for a laugh, but this one stands out.
- Hnrobert42 6y agoInteresting that you say that. Personally, I thought the article’s use of sarcasm was unprofessional. It is not at all objective, a core tenet of journalism. As a result, I noticed errors like the statements that Facebook can no longer sell user data. Actually, FB does not sell data. FB sells ad placement based on user data. Still bad, but much less so. If the Reg got that fundamental fact wrong, what else did they get wrong?
- Dylan16807 6y ago> much Citation badly needed, especially considering microtargeting.
- sokoloff 6y agoNot GP, but: Micro-targeted ad placement affects me today. Selling my underlying data affects me tomorrow and forevermore.
- Dylan16807 6y agoNot if the entity selling the ad takes notes.
- sokoloff 6y ago"Dylan might want to buy this jacket" transmits a lot less information than "Dylan skis, Dylan lives in zip code XYZ where he might not own a jacket naturally, Dylan's household income range is M, and Dylan was looking at ski vacation packages".
- Dylan16807 6y ago
- blackoil 6y agoWill it affect other networks like Doubleclick/Google and more important, Apple equally or is it something specific to do with the way FB works?
- breakfastduck 6y agoIt's not specifically targeting facebook, they're just massive benefactors of the way it works currently. Basically Apple is going to force apps to request permission to track users outside of the app they're currently in, which at the moment they can do by default. Facebook just happens to do this a LOT, so this will sting them particularly badly.
- izacus 6y agoThey split the setting in two and the 3rd party tracking setting is off by default, Apple's tracking setting is on by default. So it won't affect all networks equally - it continues tracking users for Apple's own network and other uses.
- pseudalopex 6y agoiOS 14 has a prompt for third party tracking.[1] It isn't off by default. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/22/apple-ios-14-ad-tracking/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/22/apple-ios-14-ad-tracking/
- kstenerud 6y ago"We’re encouraged by conversations and efforts already taking place in the industry - including within the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the recently announced Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media (PRAM). We look forward to continuing to engage with these industry groups to get this right for people and small businesses.” Translation: "At least we have these guys house trained, so it's not a total loss."
- duncan_bayne 6y agoThe W3C would never ... oh wait ... I remember DRM and EME. Nevermind, yes, of course they'd roll over.
- tialaramex 6y agoIt's a consortium, that is, it exists to represent the interests of corporate members. It's actually set up that way partly because his stupid toy hypermedia system made a lot of people very rich and Sir Tim would like some of that money. Now, it should not come as an enormous surprise that most of the W3C's corporate members do not have your individual interests close to their hearts. And so you can't really expect them to consistently vote for things that help you and hurt them. If you would like to work on technology standardisation but you aren't a corporation find an IETF Working Group that's doing something interesting to you and pitch in. Unlike the W3C the IETF isn't a membership organisation. Indeed it arguably isn't an organisation at all which makes it pretty unique among Standards Development Organisations...
- ffpip 6y agoA comment from yesterday - To be fair though, don't you remember how the DNT header worked really well for everybody involved, and how all these advertisers today universally respect it, and how they totally didn't abandon the entire concept as soon as it started seeing mainstream use and platforms started turning it on by default? What could go wrong if we give them another spot at the table? I mean, PRAM has already released so many good plans, like... a mission statement. But that counts! I mean, come on, it has 'Responsible' right in its name! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24286463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24286463
- detaro 6y agopreviously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24284613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24284613
- dang 6y agoAlso https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24284046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24284046
- msolujic 6y agoThis reminds to that brilliant ad in 80's I want my MTV [1] where people are used to put pressure to networks in order to get MTV on Some numbers: Estimated revenue loss of 50% from audience networks [2] [1] https://totally80s.com/article/march-1982-i-want-my-mtv-campaign-launched https://totally80s.com/article/march-1982-i-want-my-mtv-camp... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/26/facebook-apple-ios-14-could-cut-audience-network-revenue-in-half.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/26/facebook-apple-ios-14-could-...
- byefruit 6y agoThis isn't necessarily a principled campaign from Apple. Apple no longer has an ad network which means it can't take it's cut from ad revenue. By reducing the effectiveness of ads on the platform it pushes more people to in app purchases which it receives a heft chunk of.
- AdmiralGinge 6y agoI'm cautiously optimistic about this, even if it is self-interested. Ads are very much a necessary evil rather than something desirable in society I think, and providing developers with an alternative business model isn't a bad thing.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoI'm actually ok with corporate self-interest if it benefits the consumers and their privacy. I mean Google (the ad company) spent a lot of R&D money into making browsers and the internet faster. For me it means the internet is faster, for them they get more ad impressions and goodwill. Win-win, although they ballsed up the goodwill part.
- rightbyte 6y agoThey spent alot of money to make Javascript faster, so they could push apps from being local to being dumb terminals. Probably to ensure espionage and making the users reliant on big corp?
- trasz 6y agoAn average web site isn’t any faster than it was 10 or 20 years ago (unless you still had a modem back then). Overall the Web is in much worse place, with decentralized hyperdocuments replaced with centralized application server model. FB and Google turned internet into AOL.
- thih9 6y ago> Ads are very much a necessary evil Apple isn't blocking ads per se. They're reducing effectiveness of ads that don't respect user's privacy. The other kind of ads (e.g. sponsored videos, privacy friendly ads, etc) could still work. I don't think ads that don't respect user's privacy are a necessary evil.
- ffpip 6y agoI'm whitelisting this site on my adblock just because of this article. They earned it.
- SllX 6y agoJust a friendly reminder of the facts on the ground that the change that great folks at El Reg are reporting on and the folks at Facebook in their blog post are posting about is a toggle in iOS 14, which while there in previous operating system releases as an opt-out toggle, will be an opt-in sort of toggle. iOS will now ask for explicit permission on behalf of Apps to let them track you using an identifier Apple made available to developers like Facebook (“IDFA” aka “Identifier for Advertisers”) rather than relying on the implicit permission of an opt-out toggle. This does not kill all forms of tracking, nor does it eliminate IDFA as an an option, but it does make it more obvious to iPhone/iPad users what exactly is going on behind the curtains with this tracking tool and let them make an informed and explicit choice about whether they want any part of that.
- bad_user 6y agoI always wondered if that advertising ID is GDPR compliant, given that the setting is currently opt-out, instead of opt-in. Even if it is low entropy.
- Nextgrid 6y agoI don’t think it would be, however the party considered in breach would be the app developers and not Apple. Consent should be opt-in and granular (a user might wish to opt-in for one app but opt-out for another one) so every app should’ve already implemented their own toggle (like iOS 14 would force them to) instead of just using it in the background and pointing users to the system-wide setting if they want to opt-out (which isn’t ideal if the user wants to remain opted-in for some apps only).
- krageon 6y ago> the party considered in breach would be the app developers Given that this feature is entirely made by Apple, that's not a reasonable conclusion.
- wastedhours 6y ago
- leshenka 6y agoWon't someone please think of advertisers!
- cblconfederate 6y agoThe interesting aspect is that advertisers can measure the impact of FB-targeting in ads to see whether facebook's promises were true
- jefftk 6y agoAdvertisers could already measure the effect of targeting: run two groups of ads, one targeted and one not, and compare their impact.
- occamschainsaw 6y agoI also hope these changes disincentivize the use of FB sdk (which I think benefits greatly from the current cross app tracking system) for other app developers. I am not sure how much value log in with FB adds to an app anymore.
- njsubedi 6y agoI think Apple made this move to increase their Search Ads business. Now that those app install ads on Facebook and such are going to be a lot less effective, iOS app developers and publishers will flock to Apple’s Search Ads. I see this as a double win for Apple - free publicity, and more revenue.
- kevsim 6y agoThe title should be that Facebook apologizes to its _customers_, not its _users_. Its customers are people buying ads, not the users using the social network. As the saying goes, if you're not paying, you're the product.
- cataphract 6y agoTo be fair, the original title is "Facebook apologizes to users, businesses for Apple’s monstrous efforts to protect its customers' privacy"
- jp555 6y agoSo the I'm a "product" of Wikipedia? WordPress? Blender? Linux? mySQL?
- kevsim 6y agoI guess the saying could have appended "when dealing with for-profit businesses" but that loses a bit of catchiness and brevity.
- jp555 6y agoOr maybe it's just a cynical oversimplification? Am I a product of the Oracle DBs behind the websites I use for free? How about credit cards? Isn't the merchant and issuing bank the customer there? As long as I pay off my monthly balance, it's free for me. My Facebook data is worthless. ONLY in aggregate is FB data valuable, and only if it is kept mostly secret from their customers (advertisers). The more FB data you're using, the less you know about me.
- gigatexal 6y agoGood. Let Facebook’s app die in a fire. Their propensity for user data is second maybe only to Google. It’s creepy. And doesn’t really do much in the way of good. I laud Apple for their move here.
- nuker 6y agoIm seriously pissed that Garmin Connect iOS app has Facebook SDK in it. I found it googling what apps were crashing because of recent few FB SDK bugs. My Garmin watch has most sensitive data ever, health data like exercise, sleep and heart rate, and location from GPS.
- nuker 6y agoThis is going to be epic (accidental pun). A vs FANG gang[0]. Follow the money. Apple gets its money from consumers buying devices. Amazon from selling stuff to consumers. FB and Google just feed on people's data. [0] FAANG = Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix (big tobacco)[1] and Alphabet (Google) [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-48864769 https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-48864769
- bitxbit 6y agoI know Apple does somethings wrong (App Store) but they’re one of few manufactures keeping the big ad-driven tech companies in check.
- andy_ppp 6y agoNo, they are apologetic towards their customers.
- dancemethis 6y agoTo monopolize breach of privacy* It's laughable at best that anyone would believe Apple isn't continuing to make use of their massive personal information collection to appease their partners, "official" and "unofficial".
- nuker 6y ago> .. Apple isn't continuing to make use of their massive personal information collection They don't, they sell expensive devices, successfully because they don't need your data.
- egwynn 6y agoThey have a ton of data, and they certainly get some value from it. But unlike Facebook, profiting from the collection of data isn’t an existential issue for Apple. They could lose all of the data tomorrow and still be an extremely profitable business. That’s not true for a company like Facebook. I’m not saying that Apple occupies any kind of absolute moral high-ground, but their business model lets them safely and publicly take this kind of posture on privacy.
- corobo 6y ago> While it’s difficult to quantify the impact to publishers and developers at this point with so many unknowns, in testing we’ve seen more than a 50 per cent drop in Audience Network publisher revenue when personalization was removed from mobile app ad install campaigns Yessss. Hopefully this is just step one in the collapse of Facebook but I’m not that hopeful yet.
- elliekelly 6y agoMy impression is that this might make it more difficult for facebook to track people in the short term only. Surely facebook can and will find other ways to achieve the same result through device fingerprinting, etc. It probably won’t be as simple and easy as the IDFA but I don’t imagine it will be particularly difficult for facebook either. And considering how much revenue they claim they’ll lose it seems it would be a worthwhile use of resources. I’m not really familiar with how facebook advertising works and I hope I’m wrong but it doesn’t seem like an impossible ask to me and I’m guessing most of the engineers at facebook are far more skilled developers and data harvesters than I.
- gramakri 6y agoI had to double check that I am not reading the onion!
- m3kw9 6y agoThe FB apologies are starting to become sarcastic
- abledon 6y agoprobably what happens when everyone codes using the 'Don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness later' principle when handling errors
- stunt 6y agoI think Facebook should blame itself and other ad-networks for opening their platform to all kind of abuses like fake information and political campaigns with nasty agendas. They made tracking so harmful with no respect to users privacy that everyone hates it now. It used to be that at least half of the users would prefer to see relevant ads until tracking become the evil thing that is right now.
- simonebrunozzi 6y ago> Facebook has apologized ... and promised it will do its best to invade their privacy on other platforms. Fantastic irony. As much as I dislike The Register, this sentence made me smile.
- freediver 6y agoWondering what other big ad-companies are going to be hurt by this the most?
- InsomniacL 6y agoTo play devils advocate, App developers will loose revenue from ads as they're not as efficient at showing ads users are likely to click on. Those developers may change their business model from 'free - ad supported' to 'features locked behind an in-app purchase' which Apple receive around a 30% cut of. I personally don't feel strongly one way or the other, both contain shady practices.
- avanderveen 6y agoThere's three independent issues here affecting users and developers: 1. People are tracked in ways they don't understand without their knowledge or consent. 2. Apple requires that in-app purchases go through the App Store. 3. Apple does not allow 3rd-party app stores. These can all be independently tackled and it would be a shame to gate solutions for one problem on solving the others first or at the same time. For now, apps can change their business models to ensure profits. Later, when the other issues are taken care of, they can take advantage of that as well.
- rocho 6y agoTo limit ad tracking (LAT) on Android, go to Settings > Privacy > Advanced > Ads and toggle on Opt out of Ads Personalization.
- retpirato 6y agoOne of the comments said it best: "Bad guy vs bad guy Privacy-invading ad giant flummoxed by developer-gouging overpriced hardware slinger. A plague on both their houses." I don't use either one, & never will.
- retpirato 6y agoanother comment suggested Apple may really be doing this because they aren't getting their 30% cut of the money going between facebook & these add providers. Honestly it wouldn't surprise me.
- snalla 6y agoI've honestly been surprised at how much traffic Facebook has in my household [1]. I use a Ubiquiti UniFi system at home and have the UniFi controller installed which gives stats on traffic. It's just two people at home. Facebook's traffic clocks in at 5.22GB on the network (from the beginning of time for the controller). To give context, my wife and I don't use our Facebook accounts at all. She hasn't logged in in 3 years and I log in maybe once a month to once every two months. Surprised by how many apps in our household use the Facebook SDK and pipe data to them. Additional context, I don't even have "fun" apps. Just food delivery, Office suite (outlook, word, etc), streaming services, etc. LinkedIn makes sense, we've both been looking for jobs and use it on a daily (if not hourly) basis but seeing Facebook APIs on the same level as LinkedIn is astonishing. [1] https://imgur.com/HGwAXFK https://imgur.com/HGwAXFK
- gfo 6y agoI haven't seen this, but I do run a PiHole along with uBlock Origin and rarely visit Facebook's site directly. Can I assume you aren't using either of these tools?
- snalla 6y agoYea, you can. I don't use anything like that.
- yeswecatan 6y agoI don't have anything insightful to add, just wanted to say that's a pretty cool dashboard. I wonder if OpenWRT has any plugins that achieve the same result.
- emiliosic 6y agoSo Facebook users are not the people using its service, but the advertisers that pay to collect data from them. Glad they made this abundantly clear. Facebook users are the product they're selling.
- amadeuspagel 6y agoWhat an obnoxiously written article.
- ashtonkem 6y agoAnd now FB discovers the downsides of low credibility; even if they had a good faith argument to make, few will trust them as the messenger.