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> For years, Apple helped by offering an “identifier for advertisers” (IDFA), giving advertisers a way to track people’s behaviour on its devices. (...) But las

> For years, Apple helped by offering an “identifier for advertisers” (IDFA), giving advertisers a way to track people’s behaviour on its devices. (...) But last year, citing privacy concerns, Apple turned off IDFA by default and forced apps to ask people if they want to be tracked. And everyone praised Apple for it. But if Apple really care about privacy, they'd never allowed for IDFA in the first place… > Google will soon offer most users of Android, its mobile operating system, the ability to opt out of ad tracking. I'll believe it when they pass some independent audits from EU countries xD

gjsman-1000 5y ago
Apple invented IDFA at the time as a compromise to prevent companies from building much more complicated and invasive tracking systems of their own. But of course they did anyway, Apple's ability to control those systems increased, and so it was time to stop providing it so easily.
FearlessNebula 5y ago
Why does Facebook even need the IDFA? Isn’t your Facebook account UUID also a unique ID that only you have? It’s not like people are browsing Facebook without logging in.
- ajayyy 5y ago
  to link between the facebook app and other apps with the facebook ads sdk
  - FearlessNebula 5y ago
    They can’t use your Facebook account or something else for that? I’m pretty ignorant about ad tech, it’s something I’d like to learn more about.
    - babypuncher 5y ago
      So here's how IDFA works. User logs in to the Facebook app, and Facebook ties the user's IDFA to their Facebook account. User opens non-Facebook app X that uses the Facebook SDK for ads/tracking. App X sends the IDFA to Facebook, who then looks it up in their database and sees it on your account. They can now tie all user activity tracked by app X to the user's Facebook account. Without IDFA, this kind of cross-app tracking becomes considerably more difficult.
      - FearlessNebula 5y ago
        Great explanation. Do you know of any resources where I can learn more about this? I find it really interesting.

gjsman-1000 5y ago

Apple invented IDFA at the time as a compromise to prevent companies from building much more complicated and invasive tracking systems of their own. But of course they did anyway, Apple's ability to control those systems increased, and so it was time to stop providing it so easily.

FearlessNebula 5y ago

Why does Facebook even need the IDFA? Isn’t your Facebook account UUID also a unique ID that only you have? It’s not like people are browsing Facebook without logging in.

ajayyy 5y ago
to link between the facebook app and other apps with the facebook ads sdk
- FearlessNebula 5y ago
  They can’t use your Facebook account or something else for that? I’m pretty ignorant about ad tech, it’s something I’d like to learn more about.
  - babypuncher 5y ago
    So here's how IDFA works. User logs in to the Facebook app, and Facebook ties the user's IDFA to their Facebook account. User opens non-Facebook app X that uses the Facebook SDK for ads/tracking. App X sends the IDFA to Facebook, who then looks it up in their database and sees it on your account. They can now tie all user activity tracked by app X to the user's Facebook account. Without IDFA, this kind of cross-app tracking becomes considerably more difficult.
    - FearlessNebula 5y ago
      Great explanation. Do you know of any resources where I can learn more about this? I find it really interesting.