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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 co

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.
  - JoshTriplett 6y ago
    > There is a whole industry that depends on tracking IDFA to function And hopefully that will become "was" at some point. > it is not about being creepy The ad industry is a poor judge of what's creepy; their interests are not aligned with user interests. > 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. The advertising industry has had a very long time to come up with solutions to protect the user's privacy. The only way it'll ever happen is if it's inflicted upon them. The less ready they are, the better.
    - crakhamster01 6y ago
      > hopefully that will become "was" at some point > their interests are not aligned with user interests How do you propose apps monetize going forward? The vast majority of users do not want to pay for the apps/utilities on their phones, but still appreciate the value these apps provide them nonetheless. Targeted advertising enables apps to provide these services to users for free by having marketing budgets front the cost. The removal of IDFA really only cripples the little guy, and speeds up the consolidation of wealth among Apple, Amazon, Google, and FB. I'm curious what revenue model you would suggest for apps that wish to remain free, if not advertising-based?
      - JoshTriplett 6y ago
        > The vast majority of users do not want to pay for the apps/utilities on their phones, but still appreciate the value these apps provide them nonetheless. Chicken and egg problem. There are enough free apps that they drag down user expectations for pricing. It's hard to figure out value on an absolute scale ("hmmm, is this worth $4?"), and easy to compare value on a relative scale ("wow, $8 seems expensive for an app"). Ads push the app market downwards. > I'm curious what revenue model you would suggest for apps that wish to remain free The same revenue model I'd suggest for any other kind of regularly produced content that can't charge or doesn't want to: patronage, subscriptions, sponsorships, merch, add-ons or regular updates that people want to pay for, services people want to pay for. Have you ever read some of the behind-the-scenes details from YouTube channels that support the people making them? Ads don't even come close to paying the bills, even if you're huge. Patronage, subscriptions, sponsorships, and merchandise do.
  - BLKNSLVR 6y ago
    > something simple as knowing if your marketing campaign is effective becomes very hard I know I'm looking at this too simply but, fundamentally, is it not an increase in sales that defines the success of a marketing campaign? If the other methods of measurement are click-throughs, or verified views, or whatever else there may be, aren't these all essentially of meta-value only in comparison to actual sales? That's the perspective of a company that actually sells "things" though, do you mean from the perspective of an advertising company? There's a lot of meta going on. I guess that, from an advertising company perspective, they need stats to prove their campaigns are more effective then those of their competitors, which means they need to have more accurate or complete data on the various markets - and the more accurate and complete the data, the more invasive and present the tracking must be. What a race to the bottom. > There is a whole industry that depends on tracking IDFA to function Just because an industry exists, doesn't mean it's right. There's a whole industry that depends on the US voice carriers taking no action on spoofed number scam phone calls too.
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    > it is not about being creepy, something simple as knowing if your marketing campaign is effective becomes very hard But is is creepy, regardless of the reasons behind it, and some people might not be comfortable with that. Collecting that data also creates an ever-growing liability with the risk of the data eventually leaking and falling into malicious hands (including intelligence agencies) even if the original owner of the data wasn't misusing it.
fomine3 6y ago
Ad industry is sucks but we should take care about sustainability of free journalism, services and app ecosystem. Apple (one of richest group in society) was going to banning thing too quickly.

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.
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  > There is a whole industry that depends on tracking IDFA to function And hopefully that will become "was" at some point. > it is not about being creepy The ad industry is a poor judge of what's creepy; their interests are not aligned with user interests. > 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. The advertising industry has had a very long time to come up with solutions to protect the user's privacy. The only way it'll ever happen is if it's inflicted upon them. The less ready they are, the better.
  - crakhamster01 6y ago
    > hopefully that will become "was" at some point > their interests are not aligned with user interests How do you propose apps monetize going forward? The vast majority of users do not want to pay for the apps/utilities on their phones, but still appreciate the value these apps provide them nonetheless. Targeted advertising enables apps to provide these services to users for free by having marketing budgets front the cost. The removal of IDFA really only cripples the little guy, and speeds up the consolidation of wealth among Apple, Amazon, Google, and FB. I'm curious what revenue model you would suggest for apps that wish to remain free, if not advertising-based?
    - JoshTriplett 6y ago
      > The vast majority of users do not want to pay for the apps/utilities on their phones, but still appreciate the value these apps provide them nonetheless. Chicken and egg problem. There are enough free apps that they drag down user expectations for pricing. It's hard to figure out value on an absolute scale ("hmmm, is this worth $4?"), and easy to compare value on a relative scale ("wow, $8 seems expensive for an app"). Ads push the app market downwards. > I'm curious what revenue model you would suggest for apps that wish to remain free The same revenue model I'd suggest for any other kind of regularly produced content that can't charge or doesn't want to: patronage, subscriptions, sponsorships, merch, add-ons or regular updates that people want to pay for, services people want to pay for. Have you ever read some of the behind-the-scenes details from YouTube channels that support the people making them? Ads don't even come close to paying the bills, even if you're huge. Patronage, subscriptions, sponsorships, and merchandise do.
- BLKNSLVR 6y ago
  > something simple as knowing if your marketing campaign is effective becomes very hard I know I'm looking at this too simply but, fundamentally, is it not an increase in sales that defines the success of a marketing campaign? If the other methods of measurement are click-throughs, or verified views, or whatever else there may be, aren't these all essentially of meta-value only in comparison to actual sales? That's the perspective of a company that actually sells "things" though, do you mean from the perspective of an advertising company? There's a lot of meta going on. I guess that, from an advertising company perspective, they need stats to prove their campaigns are more effective then those of their competitors, which means they need to have more accurate or complete data on the various markets - and the more accurate and complete the data, the more invasive and present the tracking must be. What a race to the bottom. > There is a whole industry that depends on tracking IDFA to function Just because an industry exists, doesn't mean it's right. There's a whole industry that depends on the US voice carriers taking no action on spoofed number scam phone calls too.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  > it is not about being creepy, something simple as knowing if your marketing campaign is effective becomes very hard But is is creepy, regardless of the reasons behind it, and some people might not be comfortable with that. Collecting that data also creates an ever-growing liability with the risk of the data eventually leaking and falling into malicious hands (including intelligence agencies) even if the original owner of the data wasn't misusing it.

fomine3 6y ago

Ad industry is sucks but we should take care about sustainability of free journalism, services and app ecosystem. Apple (one of richest group in society) was going to banning thing too quickly.