9 ms·

... And nothing of value was lost. If it's detremental to your business to not be able to track users on such a granular level, it's a bad business. I'm sure

by cheeze 6y ago

... And nothing of value was lost. If it's detremental to your business to not be able to track users on such a granular level, it's a bad business. I'm sure Facebook will survive here. 100% biased, can't stand that company.

DLA 6y ago
Same. Good if FB takes a hit!
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
> If it's detremental to your business to not be able to track users on such a granular level, it's a bad business. Except that Apple still allows tracking on this granular level, it's just that now they have to explicitly ask users to allow this. Says a lot about Facebook's (and others) business model if it only works when the vast majority of users are mostly unaware of the amount of tracking they do, but the minute you make these users aware of the tracking and ask for their permission, the business model falls apart.
- ghj 6y ago
  To be fair if you add an opt-in step to anything, it will kill that thing. No moral judgement, just human laziness. If it doesn't kill it, it still becomes something everyone loathes (e.g., how you need an extra click to accept cookies on every site you use).
  - tmhrtly 6y ago
    I think in some situations if users see value in the opt-in then it can be ok. E.g. your phone asking you if you're happy to share your location with an app. I sure as hell want my mapping app to know where I am, but I also feel very comforted that I still get a say in the process. The thing about this tracking opt-in is that no user would ever want it because it's solely there to exploit them. So in this case I think you're 100% right.
    - cortesoft 6y ago
      Wouldn't the value in this situation be "you get to use Facebook"? If they didn't make money off their users, Facebook wouldn't exist. Would you be ok if they did it that way? A warning that says "by using Facebook, you are agreeing to be tracked", at which point the user could either continue or uninstall the app?
      - maps7 6y ago
        I think the new changes will hurt facebook competitors more. Everyone knows Facebook and it has a brand. They want to collect some info? Most people won't care - they just want to use the app like they always have. They might think twice with a new app that they don't know
        tmhrtly 6y ago
        I hope it might have the effect that those newer apps instead choose to innovate with their business models and pursue directions that don't require the user to sacrifice their privacy.
      - Someone 6y ago
        That wouldn’t fly in the EU because if the GDPR. https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/article29/document.cfm?action=display&doc_id=51030#page5 https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/article29/document.cfm?action=...: “If consent is bundled up as a non-negotiable part of terms and conditions it is presumed not to have been freely given.“
      - iguy 6y ago
        Aren't they free to make their app not work at all without this setting? If so, then they must still find enough in letting you use facebook without it, even if less than they would like.
        colejohnson66 6y ago
        IIRC, Apple’s rules say an app is prohibited from not functioning if it’s denied permission.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    If you add an opt-in step to anything people don't want, it will kill that thing. If people were opting into getting an actual cookie rather than a tracker for advertisers to understand and target their behavior, you'd have 100% uptake. That people won't opt into something that they didn't ask for and isn't primarily for their benefit is unsurprising.
  - jug 6y ago
    I think it’s a stretch to call Apple’s solution opt-in. It is answering to a Yes/No question where your reply to allow tracking is no more obnoxious than to prevent it.
  - cma 6y ago
    Most people gladly opt in to use their webcam for Zoom.
    - echelon 6y ago
      That's the key feature. That's why they're using the product. I opt-in to using my car to drive, and I opt-in to using my laptop to write code. I don't opt-in for tracking, advertising, or other negative externalities.
      - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
        I think that was the parent commenter's point. That is, "opt-in never works" is only true if the thing you want the user to opt in to is something someone would never want in the first place. And I don't even think it has to be the primary feature. As someone else mentioned about maps, map apps are still plenty useful without location tracking (indeed, analog maps worked well for millennia without it), but I know if I opt in to location tracking while using a map app that I'm going to get a lot of additional useful features, so I do it.
  - amelius 6y ago
    > To be fair if you add an opt-in step to anything, it will kill that thing. That's like saying if you put a price on something, it will kill that thing. No, it doesn't.
    - dreamcompiler 6y ago
      It will certainly kill anything users wouldn't normally want. If my business model depends on stuffing a shit sandwich into my user's pocket without them knowing, and then something changes so I now have to ask them "Would you like a shit sandwich?" my business model will be in big trouble.
- giantrobot 6y ago
  It's not even just the amount of tracking that Facebook et al do but the pervasive scope of it all. It's also a serious abuse of language. Facebook and others use the word "ad" hoping people assume the definition is the old school television or print ad; "here's our thing buy it and it'll make you happier". Beyond whatever massage it had that advertisement only affected you if you turned to that page or watched it during your show. The content creator got paid to use some of their space/time to let an advertiser reach their audience. For Facebook (and Google and others) and "ad" means a content creator is not just selling their own space or time but they're selling their audience. To them an "ad" is a means to hoover up a vast amount of data on people. Because of their reach and the fact they run a social network the data amounts to tons of PII. There's little regulatory control over the collection, storage, or dissemination of this data. The person being surveilled has no meaningful way to control what data is collected or what's done with it. Even opt-ins don't provide meaningful data to someone to make an informed choice about "ads". Apple making some of the scope of their tracking clear is a step in the right direction for users. People shouldn't have to participate in a dystopian panopticon just to use an app or a website. If the apps or website somehow can't survive without surveillance that would give Stasi agents a boner they can fuck right off alongside Facebook.
  - shajznnckfke 6y ago
    Isn’t it common knowledge at this point that our browsing history is used to target ads? Who hasn’t had the experience of searching for a product and then seeing ads for it?
    - rightbyte 6y ago
      Took a long time for me to notice since I didn't even think that it could be possible.
    - giantrobot 6y ago
      For starters, it's not just browsing history but all of your activity on pages or in apps that use Facebook's spywa..."ads". This includes activity times, connections to other users, and even proximity to places or other people (Bluetooth beacons etc). This is all on top of the voluntary PII you might have fed directly into a Facebook profile or the shadow profile they helpfully created for you when your friend uploaded their contacts into Facebook. There's zero oversight of how that data is used or who it's sold to and what those buyers do with it. We've already seen a number of cases where this harvested data was sold to unscrupulous or outright criminal concerns. So it's not just Facebook using browsing history to sell you boxes of Tide. They're selling dossiers on you to groups literally trying to gaslight and manipulate you, to subconsciously influence you to do things, or to just make you generally feel like shit. Facebook exacerbates this behavior by "advertisers" by using your dossier to stick you in a filter bubble while at the same time showing you content that maximizes "engagement" and nothing else. The dog wagging and gaslighting are not common knowledge or well understood by most people. Neither are the shadow profiles or the access of data by any organization that drove a dump truck full of money to Menlo Park. They're worse than the old school information brokers and credit reporting agencies because they feed all of your behavior into their graphs rather than just transaction history or public data.
- amelius 6y ago
  > but the minute you make these users aware of the tracking and ask for their permission, the business model falls apart. Unless you break the service in case the permission is revoked. Then users gladly enable the permission.
- olliej 6y ago
  I thought the model was you had to ask permission, not that you just had to tell them. E.g. it's not a cookie banner type thing, you provide the text for the dialog, and the dialog gives users a yes/no option. So there's no ambiguity about what the user's intent in, and any developer who ignores it wouldn't be able to argue that they didn't understand.
switch11 6y ago
agree 100% with you To me it's a miracle Facebook is allowed to do business given how many scummy things they do The Western World claims to be honest and transparent and talks a lot about ethics etc However, you never see stuff like Facebook or the Tik Tok ban in countries like China and INdia which are supposedly riddled with corruption America it seems corruption is completely OK as long as there is enough bread and circuses for the common people
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Facebook is banned in China
  - snazz 6y ago
    And TikTok is banned in India
    - raverbashing 6y ago
      Yes and good for them. Nothing of value was lost.
dathinab 6y ago
Facebook owns masses of Photos "gifted" to them by their users many with good quality. That alone can be turned into endless streams of money (selling them to advertisement companies). And that's just one of many points. So yes this won't get anywhere close to killing FB even if it is adopted by other platforms like Android. Still it hurts revenue and this companies don't work on a morlaic basis but a pure monetary one, moral only matter because overstepping it to far makes you lose customers and trust from the government and with that potential more regulations.
jokoon 6y ago
Why do you think it will survive? If one is optimistic, this could be the the downfall of facebook. If FB is scummy it doesn't increase its chances of survival. To be honest I'm sure there will be millions of other opportunities to gather data, by other companies. Facebook does it the easy way. Data gathering is a business now, I'm sure there are people who specialize in data gathering operations, a little like oil prospecting, the obstacle here is just getting the legal consent of consumers.
- asutekku 6y ago
  Why would it not survive? Facebook is a huge advertsing platform. Only thing that changes is that they can’t target iOS users as well as before, but that’s it. People will still pay fb to show ads.
  - thehappypm 6y ago
    If anything, the entire advertising industry takes a hit, and Facebook being Facebook, is still going to have the best targeting of iOS users out there.
- austhrow743 6y ago
  Facebook isn't running on tight margins. It can eat a huge blow to revenue and just keep trucking.
jariel 6y ago
"... And nothing of value was lost." This is definitely not true. There is considerable value in advertising, it's just not apparent to you. In fact - advertising that is 'well targeted' is considerably less annoying than ads that are poorly targetted. The economic value of a well targeted ad is probably 10x otherwise. Ergo - unless you are willing to pay for apps - you might now see 10x more ads appearing on pages than otherwise. The moment you build something, and have to get the word out - your perspective will turn right upside down. As a creator you don't want to bother people who are not interested, but you definitely want to put up ads for those who may be. A lot of ads are just a waste of time, but there is a lot of efficiency in the communication there and that has value. The better we are able to connect people with the things they want, the better we all are. Of course, privacy matters as well, and this presents with a great paradox, in that, losing privacy may not be worth it for some people, but it's surprisingly hard to be objective when we've only been on one side of the fence.
- snazz 6y ago
  I agree that relevant ads are better than completely random ones for everyone involved. But there is a significant middle ground between “show this user a random ad” and “show this user an ad based on data collected through tracking”. There’s also “show this user an ad similar to what they’re currently looking at”, like the search ads on DuckDuckGo. I find that these kinds of ads are just as relevant as targeted ads. The big disadvantage compared to using tracking is the inability for advertisers to select demographics directly (instead, they would have to choose pages or search terms to appear near).
  - wolco 6y ago
    A random ad would be strange. An ad based on the content of the page or type of site would actually fit in better.
- johnday 6y ago
  > The economic value of a well targeted ad is probably 10x otherwise. > Ergo - unless you are willing to pay for apps - you might now see 10x more ads appearing on pages than otherwise. I'm afraid that this is nonsense. If the economic value of selling bread went down by 10x, do you think people would start offering you 10x as much bread?
ie7eyrdueu 6y ago
I'm a fanboy for most of the 'evil' companies but I still see all the appstore drama as silly. If people are already willing to pay 30% then they're either making a significant return anyway or the production>distribution overhead is just that much simpler. Either way, they are clearly already getting something worth the price, they would just prefer to be making even more. Nothing stops people from only publishing Android apps, people chase Apple because of the convenience of the platform and the spending habits of its users. Both of these things are results of Apple's aggressive micromanagement of its platform not things that happened despite of it.

by cheeze 6y ago

DLA 6y ago

Same. Good if FB takes a hit!

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

> If it's detremental to your business to not be able to track users on such a granular level, it's a bad business. Except that Apple still allows tracking on this granular level, it's just that now they have to explicitly ask users to allow this. Says a lot about Facebook's (and others) business model if it only works when the vast majority of users are mostly unaware of the amount of tracking they do, but the minute you make these users aware of the tracking and ask for their permission, the business model falls apart.

ghj 6y ago
To be fair if you add an opt-in step to anything, it will kill that thing. No moral judgement, just human laziness. If it doesn't kill it, it still becomes something everyone loathes (e.g., how you need an extra click to accept cookies on every site you use).
- tmhrtly 6y ago
  I think in some situations if users see value in the opt-in then it can be ok. E.g. your phone asking you if you're happy to share your location with an app. I sure as hell want my mapping app to know where I am, but I also feel very comforted that I still get a say in the process. The thing about this tracking opt-in is that no user would ever want it because it's solely there to exploit them. So in this case I think you're 100% right.
  - cortesoft 6y ago
    Wouldn't the value in this situation be "you get to use Facebook"? If they didn't make money off their users, Facebook wouldn't exist. Would you be ok if they did it that way? A warning that says "by using Facebook, you are agreeing to be tracked", at which point the user could either continue or uninstall the app?
    - maps7 6y ago
      I think the new changes will hurt facebook competitors more. Everyone knows Facebook and it has a brand. They want to collect some info? Most people won't care - they just want to use the app like they always have. They might think twice with a new app that they don't know
      - tmhrtly 6y ago
        I hope it might have the effect that those newer apps instead choose to innovate with their business models and pursue directions that don't require the user to sacrifice their privacy.
    - Someone 6y ago
      That wouldn’t fly in the EU because if the GDPR. https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/article29/document.cfm?action=display&doc_id=51030#page5 https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/article29/document.cfm?action=...: “If consent is bundled up as a non-negotiable part of terms and conditions it is presumed not to have been freely given.“
    - iguy 6y ago
      Aren't they free to make their app not work at all without this setting? If so, then they must still find enough in letting you use facebook without it, even if less than they would like.
      - colejohnson66 6y ago
        IIRC, Apple’s rules say an app is prohibited from not functioning if it’s denied permission.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  If you add an opt-in step to anything people don't want, it will kill that thing. If people were opting into getting an actual cookie rather than a tracker for advertisers to understand and target their behavior, you'd have 100% uptake. That people won't opt into something that they didn't ask for and isn't primarily for their benefit is unsurprising.
- jug 6y ago
  I think it’s a stretch to call Apple’s solution opt-in. It is answering to a Yes/No question where your reply to allow tracking is no more obnoxious than to prevent it.
- cma 6y ago
  Most people gladly opt in to use their webcam for Zoom.
  - echelon 6y ago
    That's the key feature. That's why they're using the product. I opt-in to using my car to drive, and I opt-in to using my laptop to write code. I don't opt-in for tracking, advertising, or other negative externalities.
    - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
      I think that was the parent commenter's point. That is, "opt-in never works" is only true if the thing you want the user to opt in to is something someone would never want in the first place. And I don't even think it has to be the primary feature. As someone else mentioned about maps, map apps are still plenty useful without location tracking (indeed, analog maps worked well for millennia without it), but I know if I opt in to location tracking while using a map app that I'm going to get a lot of additional useful features, so I do it.
- amelius 6y ago
  > To be fair if you add an opt-in step to anything, it will kill that thing. That's like saying if you put a price on something, it will kill that thing. No, it doesn't.
  - dreamcompiler 6y ago
    It will certainly kill anything users wouldn't normally want. If my business model depends on stuffing a shit sandwich into my user's pocket without them knowing, and then something changes so I now have to ask them "Would you like a shit sandwich?" my business model will be in big trouble.
giantrobot 6y ago
It's not even just the amount of tracking that Facebook et al do but the pervasive scope of it all. It's also a serious abuse of language. Facebook and others use the word "ad" hoping people assume the definition is the old school television or print ad; "here's our thing buy it and it'll make you happier". Beyond whatever massage it had that advertisement only affected you if you turned to that page or watched it during your show. The content creator got paid to use some of their space/time to let an advertiser reach their audience. For Facebook (and Google and others) and "ad" means a content creator is not just selling their own space or time but they're selling their audience. To them an "ad" is a means to hoover up a vast amount of data on people. Because of their reach and the fact they run a social network the data amounts to tons of PII. There's little regulatory control over the collection, storage, or dissemination of this data. The person being surveilled has no meaningful way to control what data is collected or what's done with it. Even opt-ins don't provide meaningful data to someone to make an informed choice about "ads". Apple making some of the scope of their tracking clear is a step in the right direction for users. People shouldn't have to participate in a dystopian panopticon just to use an app or a website. If the apps or website somehow can't survive without surveillance that would give Stasi agents a boner they can fuck right off alongside Facebook.
- shajznnckfke 6y ago
  Isn’t it common knowledge at this point that our browsing history is used to target ads? Who hasn’t had the experience of searching for a product and then seeing ads for it?
  - rightbyte 6y ago
    Took a long time for me to notice since I didn't even think that it could be possible.
  - giantrobot 6y ago
    For starters, it's not just browsing history but all of your activity on pages or in apps that use Facebook's spywa..."ads". This includes activity times, connections to other users, and even proximity to places or other people (Bluetooth beacons etc). This is all on top of the voluntary PII you might have fed directly into a Facebook profile or the shadow profile they helpfully created for you when your friend uploaded their contacts into Facebook. There's zero oversight of how that data is used or who it's sold to and what those buyers do with it. We've already seen a number of cases where this harvested data was sold to unscrupulous or outright criminal concerns. So it's not just Facebook using browsing history to sell you boxes of Tide. They're selling dossiers on you to groups literally trying to gaslight and manipulate you, to subconsciously influence you to do things, or to just make you generally feel like shit. Facebook exacerbates this behavior by "advertisers" by using your dossier to stick you in a filter bubble while at the same time showing you content that maximizes "engagement" and nothing else. The dog wagging and gaslighting are not common knowledge or well understood by most people. Neither are the shadow profiles or the access of data by any organization that drove a dump truck full of money to Menlo Park. They're worse than the old school information brokers and credit reporting agencies because they feed all of your behavior into their graphs rather than just transaction history or public data.
amelius 6y ago
> but the minute you make these users aware of the tracking and ask for their permission, the business model falls apart. Unless you break the service in case the permission is revoked. Then users gladly enable the permission.
olliej 6y ago
I thought the model was you had to ask permission, not that you just had to tell them. E.g. it's not a cookie banner type thing, you provide the text for the dialog, and the dialog gives users a yes/no option. So there's no ambiguity about what the user's intent in, and any developer who ignores it wouldn't be able to argue that they didn't understand.

switch11 6y ago

agree 100% with you To me it's a miracle Facebook is allowed to do business given how many scummy things they do The Western World claims to be honest and transparent and talks a lot about ethics etc However, you never see stuff like Facebook or the Tik Tok ban in countries like China and INdia which are supposedly riddled with corruption America it seems corruption is completely OK as long as there is enough bread and circuses for the common people

raverbashing 6y ago
Facebook is banned in China
- snazz 6y ago
  And TikTok is banned in India
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    Yes and good for them. Nothing of value was lost.

dathinab 6y ago

Facebook owns masses of Photos "gifted" to them by their users many with good quality. That alone can be turned into endless streams of money (selling them to advertisement companies). And that's just one of many points. So yes this won't get anywhere close to killing FB even if it is adopted by other platforms like Android. Still it hurts revenue and this companies don't work on a morlaic basis but a pure monetary one, moral only matter because overstepping it to far makes you lose customers and trust from the government and with that potential more regulations.

jokoon 6y ago

Why do you think it will survive? If one is optimistic, this could be the the downfall of facebook. If FB is scummy it doesn't increase its chances of survival. To be honest I'm sure there will be millions of other opportunities to gather data, by other companies. Facebook does it the easy way. Data gathering is a business now, I'm sure there are people who specialize in data gathering operations, a little like oil prospecting, the obstacle here is just getting the legal consent of consumers.

asutekku 6y ago
Why would it not survive? Facebook is a huge advertsing platform. Only thing that changes is that they can’t target iOS users as well as before, but that’s it. People will still pay fb to show ads.
- thehappypm 6y ago
  If anything, the entire advertising industry takes a hit, and Facebook being Facebook, is still going to have the best targeting of iOS users out there.
austhrow743 6y ago
Facebook isn't running on tight margins. It can eat a huge blow to revenue and just keep trucking.

jariel 6y ago

"... And nothing of value was lost." This is definitely not true. There is considerable value in advertising, it's just not apparent to you. In fact - advertising that is 'well targeted' is considerably less annoying than ads that are poorly targetted. The economic value of a well targeted ad is probably 10x otherwise. Ergo - unless you are willing to pay for apps - you might now see 10x more ads appearing on pages than otherwise. The moment you build something, and have to get the word out - your perspective will turn right upside down. As a creator you don't want to bother people who are not interested, but you definitely want to put up ads for those who may be. A lot of ads are just a waste of time, but there is a lot of efficiency in the communication there and that has value. The better we are able to connect people with the things they want, the better we all are. Of course, privacy matters as well, and this presents with a great paradox, in that, losing privacy may not be worth it for some people, but it's surprisingly hard to be objective when we've only been on one side of the fence.

snazz 6y ago
I agree that relevant ads are better than completely random ones for everyone involved. But there is a significant middle ground between “show this user a random ad” and “show this user an ad based on data collected through tracking”. There’s also “show this user an ad similar to what they’re currently looking at”, like the search ads on DuckDuckGo. I find that these kinds of ads are just as relevant as targeted ads. The big disadvantage compared to using tracking is the inability for advertisers to select demographics directly (instead, they would have to choose pages or search terms to appear near).
- wolco 6y ago
  A random ad would be strange. An ad based on the content of the page or type of site would actually fit in better.
johnday 6y ago
> The economic value of a well targeted ad is probably 10x otherwise. > Ergo - unless you are willing to pay for apps - you might now see 10x more ads appearing on pages than otherwise. I'm afraid that this is nonsense. If the economic value of selling bread went down by 10x, do you think people would start offering you 10x as much bread?

ie7eyrdueu 6y ago

I'm a fanboy for most of the 'evil' companies but I still see all the appstore drama as silly. If people are already willing to pay 30% then they're either making a significant return anyway or the production>distribution overhead is just that much simpler. Either way, they are clearly already getting something worth the price, they would just prefer to be making even more. Nothing stops people from only publishing Android apps, people chase Apple because of the convenience of the platform and the spending habits of its users. Both of these things are results of Apple's aggressive micromanagement of its platform not things that happened despite of it.