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Evergreen point that if users actually wanted this tracking, if they actually believed that ads and tracking made their timelines better, then they would say "y

Evergreen point that if users actually wanted this tracking, if they actually believed that ads and tracking made their timelines better, then they would say "yes" when asked if they wanted to be tracked. Apple's change doesn't make tracking opt-in or opt-out, it forces users to make a choice, with both choices being equally easy to make. It's a perfect compromise between default privacy and default tracking -- presenting the user with an unskipable dialog that makes sure that neither option is buried in a setting someplace, that presents both options on equal terms. So Facebook wants to argue that it's a worse experience for consumers if they're not being tracked, but the truth is that they know a large portion of users don't want the experience that Facebook is offering. That's why Facebook is scared. Not because Apple is bullying users into being private, not because (in this case) they're attacking the Open web, but because Facebook knows that when users are presented with a clear choice that makes it equally easy to opt into or out of tracking, they choose to opt out. Advertisers are always saying that people want what they're offering. But they are so stinking scared about being asked to prove it.

LeanderK 6y ago
I think the problem is that facebook never had to fight for tracking. Everyone just just got tracked and fb could do what they want. They never cared whether it was really useful, they just tried to show as much relevant ads as possible. A complete disregard for the user-experience thanks to it's monopoly, which also shows in fb getting unpopular (at least in my circles).
- JKCalhoun 6y ago
  I don't know. When I first heard people talking about dark patterns in UI design, Facebook was the platform that immediately sprung to my mind. It was always laughable (?) the hoops you had to go through to turn on various aspects of privacy in their settings. And it was constantly changing, requiring users to constantly go back into settings to turn off yet another flag that was introduced default-on. They seem to have known very early on that user's would not appreciate their crap.
- danShumway 6y ago
  I'm a bit of an ideologue on this point, but I would argue it's not just Facebook -- nearly all modern advertising is divorced from the idea that ads need to provide value to consumers. At best, ads are treated as an annoyance that users put up with in order to access content that they want. But the advertising industry desperately doesn't want to acknowledge that. They want to stick their heads in the sand and ignore that most users don't want to see anything that they're making. They want to argue that most users are benefiting from ads, even though that's clearly not true. A system that aligned incentives between advertisers and consumers, where advertisements themselves actually needed to justify themselves and inform/entertain users enough that they provided positive value to the viewer -- that system would look very, very different from the advertising world we have today. I think that disconnect is why you see people in the advertising industry fighting about ideas like users' Right to Filter, or why they're so paranoid about users having more control over which ads they see. Advertisers know that nobody likes ads and that for the average consumer, their ads aren't providing any kind of actual value. There's no incentive for most online advertisers to make ads that improve the quality of anyone's life -- the biggest incentive in the current system is to alter consumer behavior against their will regardless of whether that ad helps or hurts the viewer.
bohemian99 6y ago
Presenting both options on equal terms is hard to measure, Apple is calling it "Tracking" when other (Facebook's) advertising networks do it, but they are calling it "Personalized Ads" when their advertising network does it. Apple doesn't mind if users turn off the data feed to Facebook, but obviously they don't want users disabling the same data feed to their advertising network.
- reilly3000 6y ago
  It’s very possible to personalize ads without personal information. It’s not possible to de-personalize Facebook, its whole knowledge graph is built around identities. Permission to use that data can be managed internally but it’s always gathered and processed initially as personalized.
  - andrewflnr 6y ago
    Ok, but is that actually what Apple is doing? If the distinction is purely hypothetical, it's not relevant.
- danShumway 6y ago
  It's OK to be angry that Apple exempts themselves from privacy requirements, but that doesn't mean that users aren't showing their true preferences when they opt out of tracking. The options in regards to Facebook are still being presented on equal terms. It would of course be good for Apple to call their own behavior "tracking" as well, because that's what it is; that is the most accurate word for what is happening. "Personalized ads" do not accurately reflect what is happening because ads can be personalized in lots of different ways, only some of which involve user tracking. But I don't think that has anything to do with Facebook's argument. Facebook's argument here isn't "everyone wants to exploit users, but only Apple is getting to do it", their argument is that users like tracking, that the tracking Facebook does is not exploitative. Well if that's the case, then if you show users a dialog that asks them whether or not they want to be tracked and there's a "yes" button and a "no" button, then users who do want to be tracked will click "yes." When I say that the options are shown on equal terms, I mean that neither option is privileged for Facebook. It's exactly the same amount of work for a user to opt into Facebook tracking as it is for them to opt out if it. That means that Facebook can't blame application defaults for consumer behavior, consumers are actually making a real choice here.
the_snooze 6y ago
>So Facebook wants to argue that it's a worse experience for consumers if they're not being tracked, but the truth is that they know a large portion of users don't want the experience that Facebook is offering. I think this is true for a lot of people on social media. They're there for the people and topics they care enough about to explicitly opt into. Ads and recommendations can fuck right off.
skybrian 6y ago
It’s an unwarranted assumption that people given a question to answer always understand what it’s asking and answer truthfully. Another possibility is that many users won’t understand or care much and will just click at random to make the dialog go away. Or they might use default rules like saying “no” to anything they don’t understand. Since we can’t ask users what they meant, it’s not something we can know. For more skepticism about the over-interpretation of survey results: https://carcinisation.com/2020/12/11/survey-chicken/ https://carcinisation.com/2020/12/11/survey-chicken/
- nsomaru 6y ago
  So this argument reduces to: “People might not understand a question which is important that they understand. So let’s just not ask them in case they misunderstand and assume they answer in a way that is beneficial to us.” Does that sound right?
  - skybrian 6y ago
    Not at all. I didn’t suggest any alternative. Given the controversy, I’m not sure there’s a better one. But you might compare to what browsers do these days for visiting websites with fishy-looking certificates. They don’t just put up a dialog, they heavily discourage it, because the assumption is that many users would say “yes” just to get rid of the dialog.
    - marcodave 6y ago
      And with the vastly-majority of sites now using HTTPS certificates, the "invalid SSL certificate" page has become exceptional enough to have me actually read the "why" is the browser complaining so much, instead of just clicking on the "eh, whatever, I know the risk, drive me in!" button, which I would have clicked without remorse 15-20 years ago.
- neogodless 6y ago
  In general this is a an argument that users shouldn't be given a choice because "you" know better than some/many users. So "who" knows enough to force an option on everyone because some users might not understand this choice between having Facebook track information about them or not? Would you argue that increasingly targeted advertisement is enough of a net good that the choice to avoid it should be gone?
ricw 6y ago
This describes it pretty much spot on. It’s the change to make it transparent and clear to end users. One of the core accusations against google and Facebook is that they have been doing this on the sly and in-transparently, as is well documented in the book surveillance capitalism by zuboff. They have done this for decades, with google paving the way, by slowly and surely chipping away at peoples privacy. People then just give in over time, amplified by single sided terms of service that allow them to pretty much change anything at any time. This is hopefully one of the major turning points where this kind of behaviour will no longer be tolerated. Expose privacy. Make it explicit. Let people actually decide.

LeanderK 6y ago

I think the problem is that facebook never had to fight for tracking. Everyone just just got tracked and fb could do what they want. They never cared whether it was really useful, they just tried to show as much relevant ads as possible. A complete disregard for the user-experience thanks to it's monopoly, which also shows in fb getting unpopular (at least in my circles).

JKCalhoun 6y ago
I don't know. When I first heard people talking about dark patterns in UI design, Facebook was the platform that immediately sprung to my mind. It was always laughable (?) the hoops you had to go through to turn on various aspects of privacy in their settings. And it was constantly changing, requiring users to constantly go back into settings to turn off yet another flag that was introduced default-on. They seem to have known very early on that user's would not appreciate their crap.
danShumway 6y ago
I'm a bit of an ideologue on this point, but I would argue it's not just Facebook -- nearly all modern advertising is divorced from the idea that ads need to provide value to consumers. At best, ads are treated as an annoyance that users put up with in order to access content that they want. But the advertising industry desperately doesn't want to acknowledge that. They want to stick their heads in the sand and ignore that most users don't want to see anything that they're making. They want to argue that most users are benefiting from ads, even though that's clearly not true. A system that aligned incentives between advertisers and consumers, where advertisements themselves actually needed to justify themselves and inform/entertain users enough that they provided positive value to the viewer -- that system would look very, very different from the advertising world we have today. I think that disconnect is why you see people in the advertising industry fighting about ideas like users' Right to Filter, or why they're so paranoid about users having more control over which ads they see. Advertisers know that nobody likes ads and that for the average consumer, their ads aren't providing any kind of actual value. There's no incentive for most online advertisers to make ads that improve the quality of anyone's life -- the biggest incentive in the current system is to alter consumer behavior against their will regardless of whether that ad helps or hurts the viewer.

bohemian99 6y ago

Presenting both options on equal terms is hard to measure, Apple is calling it "Tracking" when other (Facebook's) advertising networks do it, but they are calling it "Personalized Ads" when their advertising network does it. Apple doesn't mind if users turn off the data feed to Facebook, but obviously they don't want users disabling the same data feed to their advertising network.

reilly3000 6y ago
It’s very possible to personalize ads without personal information. It’s not possible to de-personalize Facebook, its whole knowledge graph is built around identities. Permission to use that data can be managed internally but it’s always gathered and processed initially as personalized.
- andrewflnr 6y ago
  Ok, but is that actually what Apple is doing? If the distinction is purely hypothetical, it's not relevant.
danShumway 6y ago
It's OK to be angry that Apple exempts themselves from privacy requirements, but that doesn't mean that users aren't showing their true preferences when they opt out of tracking. The options in regards to Facebook are still being presented on equal terms. It would of course be good for Apple to call their own behavior "tracking" as well, because that's what it is; that is the most accurate word for what is happening. "Personalized ads" do not accurately reflect what is happening because ads can be personalized in lots of different ways, only some of which involve user tracking. But I don't think that has anything to do with Facebook's argument. Facebook's argument here isn't "everyone wants to exploit users, but only Apple is getting to do it", their argument is that users like tracking, that the tracking Facebook does is not exploitative. Well if that's the case, then if you show users a dialog that asks them whether or not they want to be tracked and there's a "yes" button and a "no" button, then users who do want to be tracked will click "yes." When I say that the options are shown on equal terms, I mean that neither option is privileged for Facebook. It's exactly the same amount of work for a user to opt into Facebook tracking as it is for them to opt out if it. That means that Facebook can't blame application defaults for consumer behavior, consumers are actually making a real choice here.

the_snooze 6y ago

>So Facebook wants to argue that it's a worse experience for consumers if they're not being tracked, but the truth is that they know a large portion of users don't want the experience that Facebook is offering. I think this is true for a lot of people on social media. They're there for the people and topics they care enough about to explicitly opt into. Ads and recommendations can fuck right off.

skybrian 6y ago

It’s an unwarranted assumption that people given a question to answer always understand what it’s asking and answer truthfully. Another possibility is that many users won’t understand or care much and will just click at random to make the dialog go away. Or they might use default rules like saying “no” to anything they don’t understand. Since we can’t ask users what they meant, it’s not something we can know. For more skepticism about the over-interpretation of survey results: https://carcinisation.com/2020/12/11/survey-chicken/ https://carcinisation.com/2020/12/11/survey-chicken/

nsomaru 6y ago
So this argument reduces to: “People might not understand a question which is important that they understand. So let’s just not ask them in case they misunderstand and assume they answer in a way that is beneficial to us.” Does that sound right?
- skybrian 6y ago
  Not at all. I didn’t suggest any alternative. Given the controversy, I’m not sure there’s a better one. But you might compare to what browsers do these days for visiting websites with fishy-looking certificates. They don’t just put up a dialog, they heavily discourage it, because the assumption is that many users would say “yes” just to get rid of the dialog.
  - marcodave 6y ago
    And with the vastly-majority of sites now using HTTPS certificates, the "invalid SSL certificate" page has become exceptional enough to have me actually read the "why" is the browser complaining so much, instead of just clicking on the "eh, whatever, I know the risk, drive me in!" button, which I would have clicked without remorse 15-20 years ago.
neogodless 6y ago
In general this is a an argument that users shouldn't be given a choice because "you" know better than some/many users. So "who" knows enough to force an option on everyone because some users might not understand this choice between having Facebook track information about them or not? Would you argue that increasingly targeted advertisement is enough of a net good that the choice to avoid it should be gone?

ricw 6y ago

This describes it pretty much spot on. It’s the change to make it transparent and clear to end users. One of the core accusations against google and Facebook is that they have been doing this on the sly and in-transparently, as is well documented in the book surveillance capitalism by zuboff. They have done this for decades, with google paving the way, by slowly and surely chipping away at peoples privacy. People then just give in over time, amplified by single sided terms of service that allow them to pretty much change anything at any time. This is hopefully one of the major turning points where this kind of behaviour will no longer be tolerated. Expose privacy. Make it explicit. Let people actually decide.