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Apple to delay privacy change threatening Facebook, mobile ad market

308 points by shaabanban 6y ago

firloop 6y ago
Apple's blog post about their plans: "We are committed to ensuring users can choose whether or not they allow an app to track them. To give developers time to make necessary changes, apps will be required to obtain permission to track users starting early next year. More information, including an update to the App Store Review Guidelines, will follow this fall." https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=hx9s63c5 https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=hx9s63c5
- dudus 6y ago
  This reads as just another popup you'll need to click before you can use any app. Just like cookies.
  - gowld 6y ago
    Consent is sexy.
  - iainmerrick 6y ago
    Except there will be an option to deny tracking. Hopefully Apple will require and enforce a genuine free choice and opt-in. With GDPR cookie warnings, you’re required to opt in, but everybody uses dark UI patterns to make you “opt in” (like forcing you to uncheck each tracker individually, and claiming it takes several minutes to “update your preferences”)
    - Nextgrid 6y ago
      The problem with the GDPR is the lack of enforcement which allows criminal companies to get away with bullshit like this. With the potential of huge fines (and the fact that the cases seem very straightforward and there's plenty of strong evidence of a breach) I think the only explanation for this blatant lack of enforcement is that the same people who are supposed to enforce the law are in bed with those that break this same law.
  - kjakm 6y ago
    This will be more similar to giving location or push permissions that a cookie warning. You have to actively opt-in to allowing an app access to your IDFA on an app-by-app basis. They can ask you to do this one time and if you say no the only way that setting will ever change is if you go to the iOS settings app and enable tracking for that app. Currently you can opt out on a system level. The change will make it opt in on an app level.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    Presumably you would only see it once after installing the app versus every time you visit a website with a cookie policy.
  - asutekku 6y ago
    The pop-up is literally “allow tracking” and “disallow tracking” and disallowing does not give the advertisers any kind of information about cross-app usage. It is not something you can as a developer circumvent.
    - MayeulC 6y ago
      There are hundreds of ways to fingerprint you and your device, without an avertising ID. You just need a few (5-7?) To uniquely identify someone. A few examples that come to my mind: Current battery level, typing speed, phone model, OS version, battery wear (guessable from charge/discharge rate), charge rate (depends on the charger), finger width, propensy to use features differently (scrolling, zooming, selecting text), clipboard contents, RTC lag, microbenchmark performance... System preferences alone is probably enough (brightness level, airplane mode, dark mode). If a fingerprinting library is present in more than one app, I find it unlikely that both fingerprints couldn't be linked to the same user. If one of these apps has a log-in, they can probably link that up with the rest of browsing history, on-device and cross-device. Sounds far-fetched? I don't think so. I rather think I'm underestimating the issue. I think one technical answer to that would be to "taint" every measurement of a potential identifier, and track its usage across the program. If the app tries to submit information that is somewhat related, block it. Alternatively, compute a score and block it above a certain threshold (that will be gamed, but could help a transition). Or use a RR-like mechanism to change the measurement to a dummy value, and replay up to the exfiltration point.
      - K0nserv 6y ago
        What you've said is accurate, but one thing that's different in this case compared to the web is Apple's walled garden. The walled garden certainly has problems but in this case a real benefit is that Apple forbids these kinds of technical workarounds. You can implement them, but do you want to run the risk of your app being banned from the only distribution channel on iOS because of it?
        Nextgrid 6y ago
        That walled garden still appears to have major holes in its fences, as shown by the Facebook SDK having infected every single mainstream app for the sole purpose of stalking the user in the background (over time Facebook can correlate the traffic by date/time, IP address, device type, etc and link different instances of the SDK together).
  - K0nserv 6y ago
    You can turn off being asked in settings in which case it will just look like you asked not to be tracked to every app.
wrkronmiller 6y ago
I would love to have been a fly on the wall in that meeting. Having already pissed off the advertisers, Apple felt threatened enough to turn around and alienate its power users. Couldn't have been an easy decision...
- atomicUpdate 6y ago
  I suspect this news will get far less attention than the initial changes, so Apple still gets (almost) all of the good PR from the change without actually hurting the app developers. They certainly still get to claim they are focused on privacy even if they decide to kick the can a few more times, since the notifications/controls will come “eventually”.
ocdtrekkie 6y ago
This is unfortunate. Adtech is a cancer. We don't need to give it time to adapt, we need to shut it down.
- idiotallover 6y ago
  The only cancer is people spewing compost without any depth to their thinking. Adtech has powered things since dawn of civilization. Here educate yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_advertising If you just flat out ban shit without nuanced understanding, you hurt people more than help. Facebook will pivot, they will charge people for video or gaming or oculus. But there will be no shopify, no tv shows, no radio shows and no DTC companies which number in the thousands and will eventually be in the millions. So just becuase you have some vendetta against facebook, should everyone else suffer for your stupidity?
  - baddox 6y ago
    > If you just flat out ban shit without nuanced understanding, you hurt people more than help. Absolutely. We should have understanding and we ban shit that is harmful.
  - GekkePrutser 6y ago
    Showing some ads is one thing. Tracking every aspect of people's lives is another entirely. And that's what adtech has only become since the internet enabled it to do so.
  - dcdevito 6y ago
    Good riddance to that, I say. Ad tech is bad user experience, period. We don’t need it. Don’t try to belittle someone for their opinion. Ass.
  - matthewmacleod 6y ago
    If you just flat out ban shit without nuanced understanding I’m sure you appreciate the irony of this given your “banning invasive tracking will be the end of civilisation” shtick. Let’s compromise and permit advertising generally, while absolutely working as hard as possible to crush creepy and abusive practices, like secretly tracking individuals without their permission. Seems like everybody could reasonably sign up to that.
tomcat27 6y ago
Zuck probably begged Tim
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- m0zg 6y ago
  Zuck needs this least of all - people post their lives to FB via Instagram, all you need is a high quality, high cardinality object detector, and some NLP. For ads shown on e.g. Instagram or FB, there should be no impact at all. Google could mine Photos I suppose, but there's no user graph there, and no text blurb, and no "likes", so it's less valuable. Google is also more reliant on tracking due to DoubleClick and ad exchanges. Be that as it may, Google search ads should also be unaffected. Where this really hurts are ads shown in apps which are not controlled by Google/FB. Those would need an ID to know who you are in order to boost relevance. And that's being withdrawn. I'm not sure how much exposure FB has to that, though. I know Google is heavily exposed.
  - GekkePrutser 6y ago
    Well Facebook was the biggest name complaining in the media that this would seriously hurt their ad revenue. I also wonder why, because their apps already require a user to sign in. It must reference to cross-app tracking, I'm also surprised they were so dependent on that.
    - dialtone 6y ago
      Facebook didn’t complain... they said they would shut off FAN which generated a whole of $2B in revenue for them in 2018 when they make $80B this year. They were telling their customers to find an alternative monetization strategy since this wasn’t going to be worth it for them.
      - GekkePrutser 6y ago
        I'm not the only one viewing that as a complaint: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/09/facebook-complains-apple-responds-ios-14s-big-privacy-change-gets-postponed/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/09/facebook-complains-a...
AnonHP 6y ago
(Re-posting on this thread) What a bummer! As an iOS user, I was eagerly looking forward to this feature, wanting to tell others about it and how the upgrade to iOS 14 would be worth it just to clearly expose apps that want to track users. I already have ad tracking limited in my settings (Settings->Privacy->Limit Ad Tracking), but that was something I had to explicitly turn on, and there’s no notice on which apps use the ID for advertising.
- novok 6y ago
  Well it is effectively the same thing what your doing, I think it applies to every single app either way.
- gowld 6y ago
  The only reason you are so desperate for this feature is that Apple refuses to let you install a firewall on the phone you supposedly own. Otherwise you could be running pihole today.
  - untog 6y ago
    Not really. Pi Hole is great but it comes much later in the process and is an inexact process trying to filter out internet requests. The filter Apple has stops apps from being able to get the identifying data in the first place. It's a lot better.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      PiHole only works insofar as tracking requests use a different domain. It’s great, but it’s not a panacea.
  - iainmerrick 6y ago
    You could do that, maybe, but the typical non-technical user could not.
  - bacondude3 6y ago
    iPhones can easily have a Pi-Hole equivalent: https://nextdns.io/ https://nextdns.io/
librish 6y ago
One thing that removes a lot of credibility from Apple's "for the good of the user" communication on this is that they broke out the personalization for their own ad network as an option, put it in a different location, and made it opt-out instead of opt-in. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/08/07/apple-ad-network-gets-special-privileges-that-facebook-google-wont-on-ios14/#4d31d1dc7515 https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/08/07/apple-a...
- wnevets 6y ago
  > One thing that removes a lot of credibility from Apple's "for the good of the user" communication I feel like taking billions from Google to be the default search engine on iOS also did that
- gamblor956 6y ago
  One could argue that the initial policy was anti competitive because it artificially inflated Apple's offering over its competitors...
  - aaomidi 6y ago
    Probably was.
  - madeofpalk 6y ago
    What's "Apple's offering"?
    - notatoad 6y ago
      their own ad network, as described in top of this comment chain.
      - madeofpalk 6y ago
        I don't even know what "Apple Advertising" is. Is it app store ads?
      - 6y ago
kentf 6y ago
A cynical take is that all these ad platforms drive a ton of app installs for Apple and create stickiness on iOS. Without all these targeted ads, it will decrease app downloads and with the App Store already under such scrutiny they decided to measure twice and cut once.
- clement_b 6y ago
  This is not that cynical! Apple pulled the plug on something they created on purpose (ID for Advertisers) without really understanding the impact of that decision on their own App Store bottom line. So many in app purchases are initiated by users acquired via ad campaigns. Remove the campaigns, remove the users, remove the revenue, maybe even more (i.e. Developer's interest for iOS) But, I bet this is mostly antitrust related, the risk is too big on that front in the current context. Now, what I wonder is whether they'll adjust to play by the same rules as everyone else (and not using some extra features as detailed in the Forbes article mentioned in another comment [0]) or revert in some way. [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/08/07/apple-ad-network-gets-special-privileges-that-facebook-google-wont-on-ios14/#e8b644475152 https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/08/07/apple-a...
GekkePrutser 6y ago
Bad Apple. What was Facebook going to do? Pull out of iOS? They had all the power.
- save_ferris 6y ago
  It’s worth noting that Apple and Facebook very recently sparred over the 30% App Store fee related to donations[0]. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Facebook offered to back down on that controversy if Apple agreed to this, but of course this is pure speculation. 0: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/28/apple-blocked-facebook-update-apple-fees/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/28/apple-blocked-facebook-...
  - GekkePrutser 6y ago
    Good point, I'm sure there would have been some quid pro quo there.
andy_ppp 6y ago
Any chance a cheque has been written behind closed doors here?
- nip180 6y ago
  A cheque? Unlikely. Was this a part of a closed door negotiation? Likely.
curiousllama 6y ago
I understand why they delayed, and it may be the right decision. However, tracking-by-default is a dark pattern in software, and it needs to be driven out. In no other domain is implicit, cross-arena tracking by default acceptable. Computers _should be_ no exception.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mayneack 6y ago
  In the US, at least, your license plate can get scanned by cameras driving around and you show up on security cameras (with improving facial recognition). What's a domain analogous to computers without tracking? I suppose all those are "by computers" at the end of the day, but I can't think of anything I do that isn't tracked somehow.
  - dvionoth 6y ago
    that's scary to hear. where I live there was a very short lived experiment with facial recognition at a train station and when it ended it showed that the general public was not in favour of it.
- crazygringo 6y ago
  > In no other domain is implicit, cross-arena tracking by default acceptable. Maybe you don't think it should be acceptable, but it's the norm everywhere. Computers aren't an exception. Your purchases are tracked by credit card companies. Your license plate is tracked by road cameras. Your financial history is tracked by credit bureaus. Your phone calls are tracked by your telephony provider. And you haven't opted into any of them. In fact, except for the annoying cookie pop-ups on websites, I've never encountered opt-in tracking anywhere in my life. Everything is tracking-by-default, and you're lucky if you get an option to opt out anywhere.
  - likeabbas 6y ago
    Giving examples of a bad pattern doesn't make the pattern less bad. This should have never been the default behavior.
submeta 6y ago
That‘s really sad. I thought only a company like Apple has the financial power and the balls to push back the ads industry. Apparently not.
shaabanban 6y ago
While the delay does disappoint me as a user, I can definitely understand the "give developers more time" angle. It seems doubtful to me that big ad tech hasn't already been working on ways to circumvent this policy and it feels like a few extra months won't exactly make a world of difference for them. I do hope this gives the "little guy" more time to rethink Ad strategy to not involve tracking.
- criddell 6y ago
  They are giving the cockroaches time to find a new place to hide before they turn the lights on.
jmarinez 6y ago
One, if not the main, feature to upgrade to iOS 14 is now delayed to any of the 365 days of 2021. Clear message: "Save adtech and continue to screw your customers". Bravo Apple, Bravo!!
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  Less than 90 days ago this proposed feature hadn't been announced and now you are vilifying them for delaying it a few months?
gigatexal 6y ago
No! I was enjoying the idea of being able to deny every app that asks. Oh well.
- ianlevesque 6y ago
  You can go turn it off in settings phone-wide already today.
  - hu3 6y ago
    Shouldn't it be off by default?
    - ianlevesque 6y ago
      No, app install ads were quite useful to me as a developer in the past. And judging by the retention rate on the people that installed via those ads, they derived value from them as well.
vanc_cefepime 6y ago
As much as I like iOS in this regard, it’s a shame Apple felt this threatened to delay this feature. I’m sure privacy is a high priority to Apple but when it comes to money, expect them to do this more often. Privacy users are already taking things into their own hands anyway, so this only hurts the tech novices. Edit: It’s funny how on HN, you can tell the ones who get triggered when you say something disparaging about adtech. Just interesting to see here vs other tech media outlets.
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  Yeah, I'm curious which large partner or top 10 app provider said they'd delist on iOS if not given a stay of execution. The number of companies that could cause this decision is small.
  - mmacvicarprett 6y ago
    It is more complicated than that. There is a whole industry that depends on tracking IDFA to function, it is not about being creepy, something simple as knowing if your marketing campaign is effective becomes very hard. On one side we have hoarders of data like Facebook and Google, on another side there are legitimate use cases like app publishers measuring marketing performance. SKAdNetwork was poorly designed, it did not involve publishers and channels and till this week it was literally impossible to test. A 3 month period will allow all actors in the advertising industry to integrate and come up with solutions that protect the user's privacy. If this was released in the current state, you are giving the whole advertising market in a silver plate to google and facebook, who because of their huge share of SDK integrations are much better prepared to overcome the limitations. The market would also shrink instantly, many publishers and channels would disappear, specially the small ones.
    - GekkePrutser 6y ago
      Even if it's just used to measure click throughs etc, as the user I'd still want to have the ability to choose whether to allow that. It's up to the ad business to convince me to do so. That they really want to use it for non-nefarious purposes. As a user I really don't care whether they can measure what they want. The adtech business must realise they've undermined consumer confidence so much that the only reason they're getting away with it is that it's so hidden. Though personally my trust is so far gone that I really want the whole advertising industry to die. But I'm pretty sure most people would still be OK with it, if it is proven to be done in a non-malicious way. I still hear a lot of "targeted ads are more useful because they annoy me less" from people around me :) But really they have a LOT to make up for.
Cantbekhan 6y ago
Just as they put this ad online https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l61NE0eqkw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l61NE0eqkw ... "Privacy. That’s iPhone. – Over Sharing"
- hu3 6y ago
  "Comments are turned off." I was about to grab some popcorn.
BTCOG 6y ago
A couple influencers these days couple make a viral video on how to go into settings and switch this off and then you've effectively got the update anyway.
marketingtech 6y ago
Given the App Store antitrust lawsuit and "big bully" PR issue that Apple is facing, they probably realize that now would be a terrible timing for them to flex their muscles and crush a multi-billion dollar ecosystem (even if it's the ethical thing to do). Facebook's concern isn't oriented around their revenue - it's about the 3rd party advertising ecosystem on mobile in general ($2B of FB's $80B revenue). FB and Google will take a small hit from their 3rd party mobile ad networks going away, but they still have their dominant 1st party businesses to fall back on. Who this really hurts are the apps that don't directly sell their own ads and rely on a 3rd party network to monetize. Those apps' revenues will be chopped in half overnight, sending a shockwave throughout the entire mobile ecosystem. FB and Google get poked in one eye, but most ad-supported apps will be blinded.
- disgruntledphd2 6y ago
  It also kills off all the smaller players in mobile advertising, of which there are many (mostly focused on gaming, because that's what makes money on mobile).
Yizahi 6y ago
What will really happen - apps won't work without accepting tracking. So technically users will be given a choice, and in practice there will be none. Just like now - "Oh, you don't want to give us your contacts, sms, location and all photos? Fine, here is an app with every function disabled. You want to actually use the app? Give us permissions."
- chillacy 6y ago
  Even so, it's still better at the end of the day if users are at least aware that they are paying for their services with their data.
- Tarq0n 6y ago
  GDPR has some protections against degrading functionality, assuming they ever start enforcing it.
GeekyBear 6y ago
This is a change that will take an existing setting and make sure the user is aware of it. If you want to flip the switch right now for all third party apps: Go to Settings > Privacy > Advertising. Turn on Limit Ad Tracking.
mlazos 6y ago
Apple has a massive user base now, I imagine they are preparing to make sure users stay in their ecosystem for everything. I won’t be surprised if they eventually use their own Siri search service instead of google as the default. Once they have all of the users locked in to their ecosystem I think apple’s own ad network will eventually be touted as “secure” and Apple will avoid antitrust scrutiny because everyone opts in to this ecosystem, voluntarily paying higher prices for access. It’s pretty genius really.
_qulr 6y ago
Here's the technical detail that everyone seems to be missing: IDFA is an Apple API. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/adsupport/asidentifiermanager/1614151-advertisingidentifier https://developer.apple.com/documentation/adsupport/asidenti... "The advertisingIdentifier is an alphanumeric string unique to each device, that you only use for advertising." Apple created an API for advertisers that gives them a unique identifier, specifically for the purpose of tracking users. This has been available since iOS 6, released in 2012. Shame, shame on advertisers for using the thing that Apple made for them to use! If Apple cares so much about privacy, why did they make this in the first place? Where has Apple been for the past 8 years?
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  They made it all they could control it. Before this the advertisers were sneaking out other data like the Mac address etc. The advertiser I'd had always been opt in so it was progress for privacy.
  - _qulr 6y ago
    > They made it all they could control it. Didn't seem to work. > The advertiser I'd had always been opt in so it was progress for privacy. It's opt out: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202074 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202074
kingnothing 6y ago
As a current Android user, this was one of the driving reasons I was considering coming back to Apple. Maybe I'll switch "early next year".
WoefullyInept 6y ago
I cringe reading the deluded opinions from people in this thread that clearly do not understand the impact on the app ecosystem, let alone how ad tech works. I'd liken it to reading a post on mumsnet.com with 100+ middle aged women arguing about 5g.
- curiousllama 6y ago
  Would you care to describe the misunderstanding?
- paulnechifor 6y ago
  > people in this thread that clearly do not understand the impact on the app ecosystem The entitlement of ad tech is unbelievable. > I'd liken it to reading a post on mumsnet.com with 100+ middle aged women arguing Yeah, women, amirite?
- K0nserv 6y ago
  I don't think people in the thread don't understand as much as they don't care about ad tech and the ecosystem. As technologist we understand the invasive and creepy nature of ad tech and would like to see it gone, sure there'll be lots of second order effects but personally I am just tired of ads and ad tech. The "Do No Track" header is the perfect example, largely abandonded because when ad companies realised how many people would set it they just ignored it altogether. Thankfully with Apple's changes they, as the gatekeeps of the walled garden, can ban apps that don't respect the user's "don't track me" signal. The ad industry has had an abundance of chances to fix these issues, but haven't. As a user I welcome Apple forcing their hand even if the business models of many apps will be broken as a result. It's a cleansing by fire if you will.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  As far as I'm concerned adtech is a cancer on society that is wasting enormous amounts of people's time for dubious value (even if we assume that ads "generate" money to pay for services, how much of that money is wasted by the overheads of the advertising industry/business model itself?) and has corrupted many industries (before advertising and the idea of "engagement", who would intentionally build a world-scale cesspool that uses algorithms to intentionally encourage hatred and misinformation?). If adtech collapses, a lot of scum will go out of business and will be replaced by something more lean that people would be happy to pay for (a social network can easily operate on $1/month/user). Nothing of value will be lost.
diebeforei485 6y ago
Is anything changing except the timeline? Pushing things forward a quarter is not really a big deal if we're still getting the privacy improvements.
segmondy 6y ago
I think with the Epic battle and the rumors that Google is about to head to court is probably the reason that shook em to hold off on this.
asawfofor 6y ago
So did Apple just bully Facebook into those additional election season changes?

308 points by shaabanban 6y ago

Apple's blog post about their plans: "We are committed to ensuring users can choose whether or not they allow an app to track them. To give developers time to make necessary changes, apps will be required to obtain permission to track users starting early next year. More information, including an update to the App Store Review Guidelines, will follow this fall." https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=hx9s63c5 https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=hx9s63c5

dudus 6y ago
This reads as just another popup you'll need to click before you can use any app. Just like cookies.
- gowld 6y ago
  Consent is sexy.
- iainmerrick 6y ago
  Except there will be an option to deny tracking. Hopefully Apple will require and enforce a genuine free choice and opt-in. With GDPR cookie warnings, you’re required to opt in, but everybody uses dark UI patterns to make you “opt in” (like forcing you to uncheck each tracker individually, and claiming it takes several minutes to “update your preferences”)
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    The problem with the GDPR is the lack of enforcement which allows criminal companies to get away with bullshit like this. With the potential of huge fines (and the fact that the cases seem very straightforward and there's plenty of strong evidence of a breach) I think the only explanation for this blatant lack of enforcement is that the same people who are supposed to enforce the law are in bed with those that break this same law.
- kjakm 6y ago
  This will be more similar to giving location or push permissions that a cookie warning. You have to actively opt-in to allowing an app access to your IDFA on an app-by-app basis. They can ask you to do this one time and if you say no the only way that setting will ever change is if you go to the iOS settings app and enable tracking for that app. Currently you can opt out on a system level. The change will make it opt in on an app level.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  Presumably you would only see it once after installing the app versus every time you visit a website with a cookie policy.
- asutekku 6y ago
  The pop-up is literally “allow tracking” and “disallow tracking” and disallowing does not give the advertisers any kind of information about cross-app usage. It is not something you can as a developer circumvent.
  - MayeulC 6y ago
    There are hundreds of ways to fingerprint you and your device, without an avertising ID. You just need a few (5-7?) To uniquely identify someone. A few examples that come to my mind: Current battery level, typing speed, phone model, OS version, battery wear (guessable from charge/discharge rate), charge rate (depends on the charger), finger width, propensy to use features differently (scrolling, zooming, selecting text), clipboard contents, RTC lag, microbenchmark performance... System preferences alone is probably enough (brightness level, airplane mode, dark mode). If a fingerprinting library is present in more than one app, I find it unlikely that both fingerprints couldn't be linked to the same user. If one of these apps has a log-in, they can probably link that up with the rest of browsing history, on-device and cross-device. Sounds far-fetched? I don't think so. I rather think I'm underestimating the issue. I think one technical answer to that would be to "taint" every measurement of a potential identifier, and track its usage across the program. If the app tries to submit information that is somewhat related, block it. Alternatively, compute a score and block it above a certain threshold (that will be gamed, but could help a transition). Or use a RR-like mechanism to change the measurement to a dummy value, and replay up to the exfiltration point.
    - K0nserv 6y ago
      What you've said is accurate, but one thing that's different in this case compared to the web is Apple's walled garden. The walled garden certainly has problems but in this case a real benefit is that Apple forbids these kinds of technical workarounds. You can implement them, but do you want to run the risk of your app being banned from the only distribution channel on iOS because of it?
      - Nextgrid 6y ago
        That walled garden still appears to have major holes in its fences, as shown by the Facebook SDK having infected every single mainstream app for the sole purpose of stalking the user in the background (over time Facebook can correlate the traffic by date/time, IP address, device type, etc and link different instances of the SDK together).
- K0nserv 6y ago
  You can turn off being asked in settings in which case it will just look like you asked not to be tracked to every app.

wrkronmiller 6y ago

I would love to have been a fly on the wall in that meeting. Having already pissed off the advertisers, Apple felt threatened enough to turn around and alienate its power users. Couldn't have been an easy decision...

atomicUpdate 6y ago
I suspect this news will get far less attention than the initial changes, so Apple still gets (almost) all of the good PR from the change without actually hurting the app developers. They certainly still get to claim they are focused on privacy even if they decide to kick the can a few more times, since the notifications/controls will come “eventually”.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago

This is unfortunate. Adtech is a cancer. We don't need to give it time to adapt, we need to shut it down.

idiotallover 6y ago
The only cancer is people spewing compost without any depth to their thinking. Adtech has powered things since dawn of civilization. Here educate yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_advertising If you just flat out ban shit without nuanced understanding, you hurt people more than help. Facebook will pivot, they will charge people for video or gaming or oculus. But there will be no shopify, no tv shows, no radio shows and no DTC companies which number in the thousands and will eventually be in the millions. So just becuase you have some vendetta against facebook, should everyone else suffer for your stupidity?
- baddox 6y ago
  > If you just flat out ban shit without nuanced understanding, you hurt people more than help. Absolutely. We should have understanding and we ban shit that is harmful.
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  Showing some ads is one thing. Tracking every aspect of people's lives is another entirely. And that's what adtech has only become since the internet enabled it to do so.
- dcdevito 6y ago
  Good riddance to that, I say. Ad tech is bad user experience, period. We don’t need it. Don’t try to belittle someone for their opinion. Ass.
- matthewmacleod 6y ago
  If you just flat out ban shit without nuanced understanding I’m sure you appreciate the irony of this given your “banning invasive tracking will be the end of civilisation” shtick. Let’s compromise and permit advertising generally, while absolutely working as hard as possible to crush creepy and abusive practices, like secretly tracking individuals without their permission. Seems like everybody could reasonably sign up to that.

tomcat27 6y ago

Zuck probably begged Tim

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m0zg 6y ago
Zuck needs this least of all - people post their lives to FB via Instagram, all you need is a high quality, high cardinality object detector, and some NLP. For ads shown on e.g. Instagram or FB, there should be no impact at all. Google could mine Photos I suppose, but there's no user graph there, and no text blurb, and no "likes", so it's less valuable. Google is also more reliant on tracking due to DoubleClick and ad exchanges. Be that as it may, Google search ads should also be unaffected. Where this really hurts are ads shown in apps which are not controlled by Google/FB. Those would need an ID to know who you are in order to boost relevance. And that's being withdrawn. I'm not sure how much exposure FB has to that, though. I know Google is heavily exposed.
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  Well Facebook was the biggest name complaining in the media that this would seriously hurt their ad revenue. I also wonder why, because their apps already require a user to sign in. It must reference to cross-app tracking, I'm also surprised they were so dependent on that.
  - dialtone 6y ago
    Facebook didn’t complain... they said they would shut off FAN which generated a whole of $2B in revenue for them in 2018 when they make $80B this year. They were telling their customers to find an alternative monetization strategy since this wasn’t going to be worth it for them.
    - GekkePrutser 6y ago
      I'm not the only one viewing that as a complaint: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/09/facebook-complains-apple-responds-ios-14s-big-privacy-change-gets-postponed/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/09/facebook-complains-a...

AnonHP 6y ago

(Re-posting on this thread) What a bummer! As an iOS user, I was eagerly looking forward to this feature, wanting to tell others about it and how the upgrade to iOS 14 would be worth it just to clearly expose apps that want to track users. I already have ad tracking limited in my settings (Settings->Privacy->Limit Ad Tracking), but that was something I had to explicitly turn on, and there’s no notice on which apps use the ID for advertising.

novok 6y ago
Well it is effectively the same thing what your doing, I think it applies to every single app either way.
gowld 6y ago
The only reason you are so desperate for this feature is that Apple refuses to let you install a firewall on the phone you supposedly own. Otherwise you could be running pihole today.
- untog 6y ago
  Not really. Pi Hole is great but it comes much later in the process and is an inexact process trying to filter out internet requests. The filter Apple has stops apps from being able to get the identifying data in the first place. It's a lot better.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    PiHole only works insofar as tracking requests use a different domain. It’s great, but it’s not a panacea.
- iainmerrick 6y ago
  You could do that, maybe, but the typical non-technical user could not.
- bacondude3 6y ago
  iPhones can easily have a Pi-Hole equivalent: https://nextdns.io/ https://nextdns.io/

librish 6y ago

One thing that removes a lot of credibility from Apple's "for the good of the user" communication on this is that they broke out the personalization for their own ad network as an option, put it in a different location, and made it opt-out instead of opt-in. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/08/07/apple-ad-network-gets-special-privileges-that-facebook-google-wont-on-ios14/#4d31d1dc7515 https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/08/07/apple-a...

wnevets 6y ago
> One thing that removes a lot of credibility from Apple's "for the good of the user" communication I feel like taking billions from Google to be the default search engine on iOS also did that
gamblor956 6y ago
One could argue that the initial policy was anti competitive because it artificially inflated Apple's offering over its competitors...
- aaomidi 6y ago
  Probably was.
- madeofpalk 6y ago
  What's "Apple's offering"?
  - notatoad 6y ago
    their own ad network, as described in top of this comment chain.
    - madeofpalk 6y ago
      I don't even know what "Apple Advertising" is. Is it app store ads?
    - 6y ago

kentf 6y ago

A cynical take is that all these ad platforms drive a ton of app installs for Apple and create stickiness on iOS. Without all these targeted ads, it will decrease app downloads and with the App Store already under such scrutiny they decided to measure twice and cut once.

clement_b 6y ago
This is not that cynical! Apple pulled the plug on something they created on purpose (ID for Advertisers) without really understanding the impact of that decision on their own App Store bottom line. So many in app purchases are initiated by users acquired via ad campaigns. Remove the campaigns, remove the users, remove the revenue, maybe even more (i.e. Developer's interest for iOS) But, I bet this is mostly antitrust related, the risk is too big on that front in the current context. Now, what I wonder is whether they'll adjust to play by the same rules as everyone else (and not using some extra features as detailed in the Forbes article mentioned in another comment [0]) or revert in some way. [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/08/07/apple-ad-network-gets-special-privileges-that-facebook-google-wont-on-ios14/#e8b644475152 https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/08/07/apple-a...

GekkePrutser 6y ago

Bad Apple. What was Facebook going to do? Pull out of iOS? They had all the power.

save_ferris 6y ago
It’s worth noting that Apple and Facebook very recently sparred over the 30% App Store fee related to donations[0]. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Facebook offered to back down on that controversy if Apple agreed to this, but of course this is pure speculation. 0: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/28/apple-blocked-facebook-update-apple-fees/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/28/apple-blocked-facebook-...
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  Good point, I'm sure there would have been some quid pro quo there.

andy_ppp 6y ago

Any chance a cheque has been written behind closed doors here?

nip180 6y ago
A cheque? Unlikely. Was this a part of a closed door negotiation? Likely.

curiousllama 6y ago

I understand why they delayed, and it may be the right decision. However, tracking-by-default is a dark pattern in software, and it needs to be driven out. In no other domain is implicit, cross-arena tracking by default acceptable. Computers _should be_ no exception.

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mayneack 6y ago
In the US, at least, your license plate can get scanned by cameras driving around and you show up on security cameras (with improving facial recognition). What's a domain analogous to computers without tracking? I suppose all those are "by computers" at the end of the day, but I can't think of anything I do that isn't tracked somehow.
- dvionoth 6y ago
  that's scary to hear. where I live there was a very short lived experiment with facial recognition at a train station and when it ended it showed that the general public was not in favour of it.
crazygringo 6y ago
> In no other domain is implicit, cross-arena tracking by default acceptable. Maybe you don't think it should be acceptable, but it's the norm everywhere. Computers aren't an exception. Your purchases are tracked by credit card companies. Your license plate is tracked by road cameras. Your financial history is tracked by credit bureaus. Your phone calls are tracked by your telephony provider. And you haven't opted into any of them. In fact, except for the annoying cookie pop-ups on websites, I've never encountered opt-in tracking anywhere in my life. Everything is tracking-by-default, and you're lucky if you get an option to opt out anywhere.
- likeabbas 6y ago
  Giving examples of a bad pattern doesn't make the pattern less bad. This should have never been the default behavior.

submeta 6y ago

That‘s really sad. I thought only a company like Apple has the financial power and the balls to push back the ads industry. Apparently not.

shaabanban 6y ago

While the delay does disappoint me as a user, I can definitely understand the "give developers more time" angle. It seems doubtful to me that big ad tech hasn't already been working on ways to circumvent this policy and it feels like a few extra months won't exactly make a world of difference for them. I do hope this gives the "little guy" more time to rethink Ad strategy to not involve tracking.

criddell 6y ago
They are giving the cockroaches time to find a new place to hide before they turn the lights on.

jmarinez 6y ago

One, if not the main, feature to upgrade to iOS 14 is now delayed to any of the 365 days of 2021. Clear message: "Save adtech and continue to screw your customers". Bravo Apple, Bravo!!

ogre_codes 6y ago
Less than 90 days ago this proposed feature hadn't been announced and now you are vilifying them for delaying it a few months?

gigatexal 6y ago

No! I was enjoying the idea of being able to deny every app that asks. Oh well.

ianlevesque 6y ago
You can go turn it off in settings phone-wide already today.
- hu3 6y ago
  Shouldn't it be off by default?
  - ianlevesque 6y ago
    No, app install ads were quite useful to me as a developer in the past. And judging by the retention rate on the people that installed via those ads, they derived value from them as well.

vanc_cefepime 6y ago

As much as I like iOS in this regard, it’s a shame Apple felt this threatened to delay this feature. I’m sure privacy is a high priority to Apple but when it comes to money, expect them to do this more often. Privacy users are already taking things into their own hands anyway, so this only hurts the tech novices. Edit: It’s funny how on HN, you can tell the ones who get triggered when you say something disparaging about adtech. Just interesting to see here vs other tech media outlets.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
Yeah, I'm curious which large partner or top 10 app provider said they'd delist on iOS if not given a stay of execution. The number of companies that could cause this decision is small.
- mmacvicarprett 6y ago
  It is more complicated than that. There is a whole industry that depends on tracking IDFA to function, it is not about being creepy, something simple as knowing if your marketing campaign is effective becomes very hard. On one side we have hoarders of data like Facebook and Google, on another side there are legitimate use cases like app publishers measuring marketing performance. SKAdNetwork was poorly designed, it did not involve publishers and channels and till this week it was literally impossible to test. A 3 month period will allow all actors in the advertising industry to integrate and come up with solutions that protect the user's privacy. If this was released in the current state, you are giving the whole advertising market in a silver plate to google and facebook, who because of their huge share of SDK integrations are much better prepared to overcome the limitations. The market would also shrink instantly, many publishers and channels would disappear, specially the small ones.
  - GekkePrutser 6y ago
    Even if it's just used to measure click throughs etc, as the user I'd still want to have the ability to choose whether to allow that. It's up to the ad business to convince me to do so. That they really want to use it for non-nefarious purposes. As a user I really don't care whether they can measure what they want. The adtech business must realise they've undermined consumer confidence so much that the only reason they're getting away with it is that it's so hidden. Though personally my trust is so far gone that I really want the whole advertising industry to die. But I'm pretty sure most people would still be OK with it, if it is proven to be done in a non-malicious way. I still hear a lot of "targeted ads are more useful because they annoy me less" from people around me :) But really they have a LOT to make up for.

Cantbekhan 6y ago

Just as they put this ad online https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l61NE0eqkw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l61NE0eqkw ... "Privacy. That’s iPhone. – Over Sharing"

hu3 6y ago
"Comments are turned off." I was about to grab some popcorn.

BTCOG 6y ago

A couple influencers these days couple make a viral video on how to go into settings and switch this off and then you've effectively got the update anyway.

marketingtech 6y ago

Given the App Store antitrust lawsuit and "big bully" PR issue that Apple is facing, they probably realize that now would be a terrible timing for them to flex their muscles and crush a multi-billion dollar ecosystem (even if it's the ethical thing to do). Facebook's concern isn't oriented around their revenue - it's about the 3rd party advertising ecosystem on mobile in general ($2B of FB's $80B revenue). FB and Google will take a small hit from their 3rd party mobile ad networks going away, but they still have their dominant 1st party businesses to fall back on. Who this really hurts are the apps that don't directly sell their own ads and rely on a 3rd party network to monetize. Those apps' revenues will be chopped in half overnight, sending a shockwave throughout the entire mobile ecosystem. FB and Google get poked in one eye, but most ad-supported apps will be blinded.

disgruntledphd2 6y ago
It also kills off all the smaller players in mobile advertising, of which there are many (mostly focused on gaming, because that's what makes money on mobile).

Yizahi 6y ago

What will really happen - apps won't work without accepting tracking. So technically users will be given a choice, and in practice there will be none. Just like now - "Oh, you don't want to give us your contacts, sms, location and all photos? Fine, here is an app with every function disabled. You want to actually use the app? Give us permissions."

chillacy 6y ago
Even so, it's still better at the end of the day if users are at least aware that they are paying for their services with their data.
Tarq0n 6y ago
GDPR has some protections against degrading functionality, assuming they ever start enforcing it.

GeekyBear 6y ago

This is a change that will take an existing setting and make sure the user is aware of it. If you want to flip the switch right now for all third party apps: Go to Settings > Privacy > Advertising. Turn on Limit Ad Tracking.

mlazos 6y ago

Apple has a massive user base now, I imagine they are preparing to make sure users stay in their ecosystem for everything. I won’t be surprised if they eventually use their own Siri search service instead of google as the default. Once they have all of the users locked in to their ecosystem I think apple’s own ad network will eventually be touted as “secure” and Apple will avoid antitrust scrutiny because everyone opts in to this ecosystem, voluntarily paying higher prices for access. It’s pretty genius really.

_qulr 6y ago

Here's the technical detail that everyone seems to be missing: IDFA is an Apple API. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/adsupport/asidentifiermanager/1614151-advertisingidentifier https://developer.apple.com/documentation/adsupport/asidenti... "The advertisingIdentifier is an alphanumeric string unique to each device, that you only use for advertising." Apple created an API for advertisers that gives them a unique identifier, specifically for the purpose of tracking users. This has been available since iOS 6, released in 2012. Shame, shame on advertisers for using the thing that Apple made for them to use! If Apple cares so much about privacy, why did they make this in the first place? Where has Apple been for the past 8 years?

GekkePrutser 6y ago
They made it all they could control it. Before this the advertisers were sneaking out other data like the Mac address etc. The advertiser I'd had always been opt in so it was progress for privacy.
- _qulr 6y ago
  > They made it all they could control it. Didn't seem to work. > The advertiser I'd had always been opt in so it was progress for privacy. It's opt out: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202074 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202074

kingnothing 6y ago

As a current Android user, this was one of the driving reasons I was considering coming back to Apple. Maybe I'll switch "early next year".

WoefullyInept 6y ago

I cringe reading the deluded opinions from people in this thread that clearly do not understand the impact on the app ecosystem, let alone how ad tech works. I'd liken it to reading a post on mumsnet.com with 100+ middle aged women arguing about 5g.

curiousllama 6y ago
Would you care to describe the misunderstanding?
paulnechifor 6y ago
> people in this thread that clearly do not understand the impact on the app ecosystem The entitlement of ad tech is unbelievable. > I'd liken it to reading a post on mumsnet.com with 100+ middle aged women arguing Yeah, women, amirite?
K0nserv 6y ago
I don't think people in the thread don't understand as much as they don't care about ad tech and the ecosystem. As technologist we understand the invasive and creepy nature of ad tech and would like to see it gone, sure there'll be lots of second order effects but personally I am just tired of ads and ad tech. The "Do No Track" header is the perfect example, largely abandonded because when ad companies realised how many people would set it they just ignored it altogether. Thankfully with Apple's changes they, as the gatekeeps of the walled garden, can ban apps that don't respect the user's "don't track me" signal. The ad industry has had an abundance of chances to fix these issues, but haven't. As a user I welcome Apple forcing their hand even if the business models of many apps will be broken as a result. It's a cleansing by fire if you will.
Nextgrid 6y ago
As far as I'm concerned adtech is a cancer on society that is wasting enormous amounts of people's time for dubious value (even if we assume that ads "generate" money to pay for services, how much of that money is wasted by the overheads of the advertising industry/business model itself?) and has corrupted many industries (before advertising and the idea of "engagement", who would intentionally build a world-scale cesspool that uses algorithms to intentionally encourage hatred and misinformation?). If adtech collapses, a lot of scum will go out of business and will be replaced by something more lean that people would be happy to pay for (a social network can easily operate on $1/month/user). Nothing of value will be lost.

diebeforei485 6y ago

Is anything changing except the timeline? Pushing things forward a quarter is not really a big deal if we're still getting the privacy improvements.

segmondy 6y ago

I think with the Epic battle and the rumors that Google is about to head to court is probably the reason that shook em to hold off on this.

asawfofor 6y ago

So did Apple just bully Facebook into those additional election season changes?