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Ask HN: Does Apple profit from sharing user data?
I see how Facebook and Google clearly profit from selling my data. I don’t immediately see the benefit to Apple of allowing companies to track users. I know Apple is making moves towards privacy but the fact that apps and websites on my iPhone can still track me relatively easily makes me wonder why.
- wmf 6y agoGiven their business models, maybe certain major apps would have refused to support iOS if they weren't allowed to track their users.
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- taylorlapeyre 6y agoI'm not sure, but it's worth pointing out that more and more of Apple's revenue is coming from software services, not hardware.
- wmeredith 6y agoI don’t think you “see clearly” at all. Saying that Google and Facebook sell user data is to fundamentally misunderstand their business model. And I see this said all the time. Google and Facebook sell ad not data. They make lots of money because their ads are effective, because they target them using data. They hoard their data on users. Keeping it a secret is their moat. Data is the golden goose. They will not/do not sell it. (They do buy data in huge volumes to supplement their already massive proprietary data troves and build ever granular market segments.) I’m not defending what anyone in the targeted marketing space does. But there are data brokers, and Google and Facebook are not among them.
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- 2rsf 6y ago> They make lots of money because their ads are effective, because they target them using data It is easy to see that they are using data to target users, but do we have data that shows how effective are they ? The fact that everyone is using them doesn't necessarily means effectiveness, it could simply be due to popularity (big user base), ease of use (you buy an ad once and get a lot of coverage, good or bad) or managers being afraid to go against the stream.
- labcomputer 6y agoThis is a distinction without a difference. Goobook sell campaign attribution (so you can see which campaigns resulted in sales and/or clicks). They also allow you to micro-target campaigns to specific demographics. Combine these two, and it becomes trivial to infer data about particular individuals. The only difference, as far as I can see, between a data broker and Goobook is that the broker does the linking for you and sends the data as a nicely-formatted table.
- ksk 6y agohttps://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-US#infosharing https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-US#infosharing "We provide personal information to our affiliates and other trusted businesses or persons to process it for us, based on our instructions and in compliance with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures. For example, we use service providers to help us with customer support." I'd like to know who those 'affiliates' are, and the exact nature of the data 'processing'. "We may share non-personally identifiable information publicly and with our partners — like publishers, advertisers, developers, or rights holders. For example, we share information publicly to show trends about the general use of our services. We also allow specific partners to collect information from your browser or device for advertising and measurement purposes using their own cookies or similar technologies." Who are these 'partners' ? Exactly what kind of non PII information is shared? Their "for example" doesn't cut it. I'd like a detailed list. --- As an aside, I liked this statement from their original Privacy Policy. " Google does not willfully disclose individually identifiable information about its customers to any third party without first receiving that customer’s permission." https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/10/opinion/google-privacy-policy.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/10/opinion/googl...
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- yokoprime 6y agoThey don't sell your personal data. They allow ad-tracking, but you do have some control over that. The benefit for apple is mainly in apps
- alexmingoia 6y agoNot really. They don’t sell user data and the only targeted ads they have are in the News App and App Store, both of which you can opt out of targeting.
- bluelu 6y agoApple wants to block Google and Facebook from tracking users for "privacy" reasons. But you will see, that 1 or 2 years later, they will launch their own "privacy protecting" ad network or demand a cut from facebook or google so they can show their ads on apple devices and access user targeting features under the disguise of privacy approved partners.
- tobylane 6y agoApple launched their privacy protecting ad network iAd 10 years ago, it mostly closed 4 years ago.