4 ms·

It pops up a big scary per-app dialog (https://mobiledevmemo.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image-12.png https://mobiledevmemo.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/im

by masto 6y ago

It pops up a big scary per-app dialog (https://mobiledevmemo.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image-12.png https://mobiledevmemo.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image-1...) that the app wants to “track you across apps and websites owned by other companies”. I just wish people understood how much they’re being manipulated by Apple’s marketing here. Credit to them: they’re the best in the world —- if Tim Cook decided to sell cigarettes, he’d have most of us on two packs a day and believing it’s good for us by Christmas. Apple is a giant corporation, they’re not your friend. They can be total jerks when it suits them. They happen to have failed at their own advertising network and had the brilliant idea to spin this as if they “care” about your “privacy”. It is a convenience of the moment to sell more devices like the iPad Pro I’m typing this on. The level of rhetoric has reached foaming-at-the-mouth proportions, and we can no longer have a rational discussion that acknowledges the nuances. Even the word “tracking” is so loaded with evil connotations and indistinguishable in most people’s minds from the ever-cited, rarely existent “selling my personal information” that few can see beyond the word to make a conscious choice about what level of tracking is acceptable. (NONE! I can already hear the shouting.) IDFA is a random identifier that’s been used for attribution and audience targeting (for which Apple provided it). Digital advertising has a fairly unique property, which is that it’s possible (at least sometimes) to connect the dots between “I paid for an ad for my product” and “someone bought the product”. If you’re spending money on advertising and offered the choice between casting it into the void and hoping your sales pick up, versus only paying for successful “conversions”, that second option is going to be pretty attractive. I saw an ad on Facebook for a food delivery service. I signed up and have been enjoying their products and benefitting from fewer grocery trips. I’m ok with that. And I’m ok if there was a little anonymous tag that allowed Facebook to get paid for the service they provided to the company. I’m less ok if they collect information on how much red meat I’m buying and sell it to my insurance company, but that’s not what we’re talking about here and I pretty wound up when people assume that all “tracking” is the same.

jonplackett 6y ago
I disagree. 1) Marketing alone is not why you have an iPad Pro. All other tablets kinda suck compared to it. It's at least 5 years ahead of anything else in hardware and the software is probably further than that. 2) Facebook also not your friend. Corporations can't be friends. 3) Why would anyone _want_ to be tracked if they can avoid it? 4) From a business' POV, sure tracking is useful, but as a consumer, I don't care. I would rather not be tracked - in this instance I think it's nearly even possible to say Apple are being my friend, working for my interests. Also IDFA was introduced as a more private device ID, I doubt they expected it to be exploited this way and are now fixing it. 5) The reason FB cares about this tracking isn't for tracking installs of other apps, it's about their ability (or not) to build up a comprehensive identity of who you, what you do, where you go and what you like, from all the apps and websites you've ever visited.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
  5 continued. Facebook is slurping every bit they can get by trick and treat. They bring business to other app developers and businesses who in turn hand over customer data and , while not insignificant, a small amount of money for advertising, or nothing for just the free services. A lot of people never leave Facebook, or Insta. It's a part of their identity. A huge part of peoples lives are on Facebook and Facebook will not relinquish a bit or back down from their methods without existential threats to their business.
- justapassenger 6y ago
  > 3) Why would anyone _want_ to be tracked if they can avoid it? People get value in return. Free to use product and ads about stuff they’re interested in. For some it’s not enough of value proposition, but for others consider it fair value exchange.
  - jonplackett 6y ago
    I still wouldn't categorise that as wanting to be tracked, just begrudgingly accepting it. I'd also say that's a better argument for google, where them knowing some stuff about me probably does give better search results - but facebook just want to give me better adverts, which is of marginal (approaching zero) benefit to me.
  - anonymousab 6y ago
    Nothing wrong with making the value proposition/tradeoff an upfront and obvious decision. Might even encourage competition from tools that have a different proposition.
  - SllX 6y ago
    There’s two options in that dialog box: 1. Allow Tracking 2. Ask App Not to Track. People that see it that way can choose option 1 when presented with the choice.
  - kergonath 6y ago
    If the users are making a choice, then opting in would not be a problem. It’s informed consent, so they are aware of what they are giving away for the service, right? Nothing like companies helping themselves without the users even knowing the monetary value of what they are giving away. In other words: if your demand is legitimate, you have no reason to whine about opt in.
stubtoe 6y ago
“People are really emphatic about not being tracked and that’s annoying. Therefore they are somehow wrong.” Great logic.
SllX 6y ago
I anticipated comments like yours in-thread which is why I posted my initial commentary. I have no romantic attachments to Apple in particular, after all they were the SOBs that provided IDFAs and set the initial policy, which is why this was a “friendly reminder” on what this policy going forward is and what it isn’t. What appears to you to be a “scary dialogue box” appears to me to be an adequate and accurate description of what IDFAs are used for and why Apple provided IDFAs in the first place. Tracking users and across apps and websites from different companies is IDFAs working as intended. Now you can be as cynical or romantic about why Apple is doing this now as you want, to me it’s a half-step towards correcting a mistake they initially made, and to others it is clearly something else, but let’s not kid ourselves into believing that just because Apple stripped the paint off of an advertiser’s favorite toy that this is somehow going to be the death knell of user tracking and the app-based advertising industry is doomed on iPhones and iPads. Facebook and Google are big boys, they may not like this new change, but they’ll learn to adapt around it because adapting to new situations and facts on the ground is just another cost of doing business. Business plans aren’t set in stone since time immemorial, sometimes they need alterations to remain relevant and operable.
- etse 6y ago
  Regarding your last point, I feel the same way about the 30% Apple tax.
  - SllX 6y ago
    It’s off-topic, but so do I. Mind I wouldn’t care if I could install apps (native, not PWAs) through Safari distributed through a means that cuts Apple out of the loop and download them right to my home screen, or in future versions, my App Library.
valuearb 6y ago
> just wish people understood how much they’re being manipulated by Apple’s marketing here. Credit to them: they’re the best in the world —- if Tim Cook decided to sell cigarettes, he’d have most of us on two packs a day and believing it’s good for us by Christmas. This is such a hoary old argument usually made by those who believe a product value is only measured by the cost of the hardware components comprising it, not how it was packaged or how it works or the experience it’s custom software enables. Of course in this case, if your job is selling snake oil, you think everyone’s job is selling snake oil.

by masto 6y ago

jonplackett 6y ago

I disagree. 1) Marketing alone is not why you have an iPad Pro. All other tablets kinda suck compared to it. It's at least 5 years ahead of anything else in hardware and the software is probably further than that. 2) Facebook also not your friend. Corporations can't be friends. 3) Why would anyone _want_ to be tracked if they can avoid it? 4) From a business' POV, sure tracking is useful, but as a consumer, I don't care. I would rather not be tracked - in this instance I think it's nearly even possible to say Apple are being my friend, working for my interests. Also IDFA was introduced as a more private device ID, I doubt they expected it to be exploited this way and are now fixing it. 5) The reason FB cares about this tracking isn't for tracking installs of other apps, it's about their ability (or not) to build up a comprehensive identity of who you, what you do, where you go and what you like, from all the apps and websites you've ever visited.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
5 continued. Facebook is slurping every bit they can get by trick and treat. They bring business to other app developers and businesses who in turn hand over customer data and , while not insignificant, a small amount of money for advertising, or nothing for just the free services. A lot of people never leave Facebook, or Insta. It's a part of their identity. A huge part of peoples lives are on Facebook and Facebook will not relinquish a bit or back down from their methods without existential threats to their business.
justapassenger 6y ago
> 3) Why would anyone _want_ to be tracked if they can avoid it? People get value in return. Free to use product and ads about stuff they’re interested in. For some it’s not enough of value proposition, but for others consider it fair value exchange.
- jonplackett 6y ago
  I still wouldn't categorise that as wanting to be tracked, just begrudgingly accepting it. I'd also say that's a better argument for google, where them knowing some stuff about me probably does give better search results - but facebook just want to give me better adverts, which is of marginal (approaching zero) benefit to me.
- anonymousab 6y ago
  Nothing wrong with making the value proposition/tradeoff an upfront and obvious decision. Might even encourage competition from tools that have a different proposition.
- SllX 6y ago
  There’s two options in that dialog box: 1. Allow Tracking 2. Ask App Not to Track. People that see it that way can choose option 1 when presented with the choice.
- kergonath 6y ago
  If the users are making a choice, then opting in would not be a problem. It’s informed consent, so they are aware of what they are giving away for the service, right? Nothing like companies helping themselves without the users even knowing the monetary value of what they are giving away. In other words: if your demand is legitimate, you have no reason to whine about opt in.

stubtoe 6y ago

“People are really emphatic about not being tracked and that’s annoying. Therefore they are somehow wrong.” Great logic.

SllX 6y ago

I anticipated comments like yours in-thread which is why I posted my initial commentary. I have no romantic attachments to Apple in particular, after all they were the SOBs that provided IDFAs and set the initial policy, which is why this was a “friendly reminder” on what this policy going forward is and what it isn’t. What appears to you to be a “scary dialogue box” appears to me to be an adequate and accurate description of what IDFAs are used for and why Apple provided IDFAs in the first place. Tracking users and across apps and websites from different companies is IDFAs working as intended. Now you can be as cynical or romantic about why Apple is doing this now as you want, to me it’s a half-step towards correcting a mistake they initially made, and to others it is clearly something else, but let’s not kid ourselves into believing that just because Apple stripped the paint off of an advertiser’s favorite toy that this is somehow going to be the death knell of user tracking and the app-based advertising industry is doomed on iPhones and iPads. Facebook and Google are big boys, they may not like this new change, but they’ll learn to adapt around it because adapting to new situations and facts on the ground is just another cost of doing business. Business plans aren’t set in stone since time immemorial, sometimes they need alterations to remain relevant and operable.

etse 6y ago
Regarding your last point, I feel the same way about the 30% Apple tax.
- SllX 6y ago
  It’s off-topic, but so do I. Mind I wouldn’t care if I could install apps (native, not PWAs) through Safari distributed through a means that cuts Apple out of the loop and download them right to my home screen, or in future versions, my App Library.

valuearb 6y ago

> just wish people understood how much they’re being manipulated by Apple’s marketing here. Credit to them: they’re the best in the world —- if Tim Cook decided to sell cigarettes, he’d have most of us on two packs a day and believing it’s good for us by Christmas. This is such a hoary old argument usually made by those who believe a product value is only measured by the cost of the hardware components comprising it, not how it was packaged or how it works or the experience it’s custom software enables. Of course in this case, if your job is selling snake oil, you think everyone’s job is selling snake oil.