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Apple's App Tracking Transparency policy blew up the digital ads ecosystem

12 points by Terretta 4y ago

ijidak 4y ago
Seems like this could end up being an anti-trust issue.. Apple is stacking the deck in favor of its own ad platform. Using a competitive advantage in one industry to gain an unfair advantage in another. Which seems like the definition of an anti-trust violation. Of course, like Netscape v Microsoft, this will be a hollow victory for Facebook. It will probably be too little too late.
hunglee2 4y ago
outstanding thread, obvious in hindsight that Apple's commitment to privacy was really an attempt to heist the ad market. Facebook was too toxic a brand at the time for their argument to carry any weight, which is mainly how we seem to be making judgements these days
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
  Yup it is good to not be toxic and mean in business. http://www.paulgraham.com/mean.html http://www.paulgraham.com/mean.html
draw_down 4y ago
lern_too_spel 4y ago
Privacy from thee but not from me. Of course this was going to happen. Apple is in the business of making money. If it can make more money by showing you ads in addition to charging you, of course it will do so.
- Terretta 4y ago
  To be fair, between the two dialog boxes in the example, the one that says “not shared with third parties” is a stance not taken by the “thees”. So ok, rules for me, not for thee: “Thou shalt not redistribute customer data outside the first party firm the customer trusted.”
joshstrange 4y ago
I have to assume these people are being intentionally dense to paint a picture that does not match up with reality. Won't anyone think of the poor facebooks of the world? Cry me a river. I trust Apple with targeted ads about a billion times more than I trust Facebook, Google, or any of the scummy fly by night ad networks. This entire twitter thread seems to start with the premise that Apple's ads are the same as FB's and I'm sorry but I just don't believe that for a minute. From the outside looking in it would appear that Apple's moves, while beneficial to them, are also very beneficial to end users. Facebook being hurt by these moves is simply icing on the cake, they are a terrible company doing terrible things with impunity, I won't shed a tear for them. People keep pretending that Apple is doing some kind of bait and switch and as if they are pulling back the curtain screaming "See!!! Apple's making money off ads!!! The hypocrisy!!!", spare me. Apple has never said they are anti-ad, they are anti-tracking and selling user's info which almost all these ad networks do (directly or indirectly). Things are not black and white, Apple can be anti-scummy ad networks AND have their own ad network at the same time. Those positions are not mutually exclusive. Wake me up if Apple starts selling data and/or if they break their own rules on how an ad network is allowed to run on their OS.
- Terretta 4y ago
  > Apple has never said they are anti-ad, they are anti-tracking and selling user's info which almost all these ad networks do (directly or indirectly). Seems pretty evident in the wording on their dialog box: your data won’t go to any third parties. The ones yelling don’t (can’t) say that.

12 points by Terretta 4y ago

Seems like this could end up being an anti-trust issue.. Apple is stacking the deck in favor of its own ad platform. Using a competitive advantage in one industry to gain an unfair advantage in another. Which seems like the definition of an anti-trust violation. Of course, like Netscape v Microsoft, this will be a hollow victory for Facebook. It will probably be too little too late.

hunglee2 4y ago

outstanding thread, obvious in hindsight that Apple's commitment to privacy was really an attempt to heist the ad market. Facebook was too toxic a brand at the time for their argument to carry any weight, which is mainly how we seem to be making judgements these days

ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
Yup it is good to not be toxic and mean in business. http://www.paulgraham.com/mean.html http://www.paulgraham.com/mean.html

draw_down 4y ago

lern_too_spel 4y ago

Privacy from thee but not from me. Of course this was going to happen. Apple is in the business of making money. If it can make more money by showing you ads in addition to charging you, of course it will do so.

Terretta 4y ago
To be fair, between the two dialog boxes in the example, the one that says “not shared with third parties” is a stance not taken by the “thees”. So ok, rules for me, not for thee: “Thou shalt not redistribute customer data outside the first party firm the customer trusted.”

joshstrange 4y ago

I have to assume these people are being intentionally dense to paint a picture that does not match up with reality. Won't anyone think of the poor facebooks of the world? Cry me a river. I trust Apple with targeted ads about a billion times more than I trust Facebook, Google, or any of the scummy fly by night ad networks. This entire twitter thread seems to start with the premise that Apple's ads are the same as FB's and I'm sorry but I just don't believe that for a minute. From the outside looking in it would appear that Apple's moves, while beneficial to them, are also very beneficial to end users. Facebook being hurt by these moves is simply icing on the cake, they are a terrible company doing terrible things with impunity, I won't shed a tear for them. People keep pretending that Apple is doing some kind of bait and switch and as if they are pulling back the curtain screaming "See!!! Apple's making money off ads!!! The hypocrisy!!!", spare me. Apple has never said they are anti-ad, they are anti-tracking and selling user's info which almost all these ad networks do (directly or indirectly). Things are not black and white, Apple can be anti-scummy ad networks AND have their own ad network at the same time. Those positions are not mutually exclusive. Wake me up if Apple starts selling data and/or if they break their own rules on how an ad network is allowed to run on their OS.

Terretta 4y ago
> Apple has never said they are anti-ad, they are anti-tracking and selling user's info which almost all these ad networks do (directly or indirectly). Seems pretty evident in the wording on their dialog box: your data won’t go to any third parties. The ones yelling don’t (can’t) say that.