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But Apple is tracking you. They build an advertising profile using your behavior on iOS and your personal information (and at least for me, that included PII th

by jsnell 4y ago

But Apple is tracking you. They build an advertising profile using your behavior on iOS and your personal information (and at least for me, that included PII that I would never have consented to them using for ad targeting; but they just took it, and hid the opt-out in an obscure settings menu). They then allow targeting of ads based on these fine-grained profiles. Just how is this better than FB?

JKCalhoun 4y ago
That they have PII would be a surprise to me.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  What do you mean? Apple is literally running your phone, they have more PII data on you than any pretty much any online add network (now they might not use all of it although I believe they use a lot of them. But they definitely have it) .
nightpool 4y ago
Can you give some examples / links for this? it's almost impossible to search for, with everybody talking about Apple's IDFA changes
- jsnell 4y ago
  Here is Apple's privacy policy on ads: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-advertising/ https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-advertisin... > We create segments, which are groups of people who share similar characteristics, and use these groups for delivering targeted ads. > We may use information such as the following to assign you to segments: > ... The music, movies, books, TV shows, and apps you download ... > ... The topics and categories of the stories you read and the publications you follow, subscribe to, or enable notifications from ... > ... Your name, address, age, gender, ... > ... your App Store searches and browsing activity ... > ... information stored on your device, such as the apps you frequently open ... There's a lot more, that's just a sample of the data they use. The only thing they promise explicitly either not to have or not to use is: > No Apple Pay transactions or Health app data is accessible to Apple’s advertising platform, or is used for advertising purposes. Apple does not know or make available to advertisers information about your sexual orientation, religious beliefs, or political affiliations.
  - JKCalhoun 4y ago
    > We may use information such as the following to assign you to segments My take is that this information is used to give you some sort of cohort identifier that is itself devoid of PII.
    - nightpool 4y ago
      Isn't that the definition of an "advertising profile"?
    - no_way 4y ago
      Ironically that's kinda similar what Google FLoC was supposed to be.
    - thomasahle 4y ago
      Doesn't really matter if the segment you, if they also store the data they need to do the actual segmentation. Besides, depending on how many segments you are assigned to, you're probably the only one in the intersection of all of them.
    - hyuuu 4y ago
      dont all ad platforms work this way?
  - reaperducer 4y ago
    That's not ideal, but it's certainly much better than every other ad company out there. Apple can at least enumerate the ways it profiles you in plan text, and most of it makes perfect sense. (Though I'd be happier if they excluded age and gender.) The other companies profiling information requires a massive spreadsheet, or even a JSON dump that no human being can make sense of. And that's just for their internal data, not the data they sell (oops, "share with trusted partners").
    - dialtone 4y ago
      That's not how it works. Every ad vendor has a privacy page with this stuff spelled out in the same way.
shuckles 4y ago
First of all, your definition of tracking is different from the one used by Apple. Apple’s definition of tracking is sharing information about an identifiable person between unrelated parties. Think Facebook buying all your purchases from Mastercard. Apple simply does not do that. Next, Apple’s cohorts and interest information about audiences is not nearly as detailed as Facebook or Google. And even at a far less detailed level, they have started asking users for permission to personalize in a modal. The other ad networks have never asked in that way. It seems like you have a problem with how Apple personalizes ads, but that’s a different conversation than whether they track and if tracking without consent is acceptable.
- jsnell 4y ago
  Yes, of course Apple would try to define tracking in a way that doesn't apply to their data collection. But the fact is that they are taking my activity across apps, my PII entered for non-ads purposes, and allowing ad targeting using that. What is the word you'd use for that instead of "tracking"? Why is that OK, but the advertising profiles built by other companies aren't? I don't have a problem with how Apple tracks people for ad targeting. They're not a particularly bad actor, but they're not a particularly good actor either. And a thing I do have a problem with is people thinking that Apple isn't doing all of this and giving them a free pass.
  - SllX 4y ago
    You linked to the privacy policy, so did you miss this part? > Apple’s advertising platforms receive information about the ads you tap and view against a random identifier not tied to your Apple ID. In other words it isn’t tied to your Apple ID, or the information linked to it, or the PII you enter for non-Advertising purposes. If you go into the News or Stocks settings, you can also reset that identifier at-will, and as you pointed out, you can also just turn it off. Completely opt-out. Facebook’s entire business model is predicated on not letting you opt-out of tracking and being able to link it to a social profile they host, whereas Apple can take it or leave it.
  - shuckles 4y ago
    I think you’re trying to argue Apple’s definition is contrived, but I don’t see it. Buying identifiable information from a poorly regulated data market is very unlike personalizing ads based on first party data. Apple isn’t trying particularly hard to hide that it personalizes ads. It puts up a modal telling users about it and giving them a choice in the apps where it advertises. I’m not sure why you imply that Apple is fomenting confusion.

by jsnell 4y ago

JKCalhoun 4y ago

That they have PII would be a surprise to me.

cycomanic 4y ago
What do you mean? Apple is literally running your phone, they have more PII data on you than any pretty much any online add network (now they might not use all of it although I believe they use a lot of them. But they definitely have it) .

nightpool 4y ago

Can you give some examples / links for this? it's almost impossible to search for, with everybody talking about Apple's IDFA changes

jsnell 4y ago
Here is Apple's privacy policy on ads: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-advertising/ https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-advertisin... > We create segments, which are groups of people who share similar characteristics, and use these groups for delivering targeted ads. > We may use information such as the following to assign you to segments: > ... The music, movies, books, TV shows, and apps you download ... > ... The topics and categories of the stories you read and the publications you follow, subscribe to, or enable notifications from ... > ... Your name, address, age, gender, ... > ... your App Store searches and browsing activity ... > ... information stored on your device, such as the apps you frequently open ... There's a lot more, that's just a sample of the data they use. The only thing they promise explicitly either not to have or not to use is: > No Apple Pay transactions or Health app data is accessible to Apple’s advertising platform, or is used for advertising purposes. Apple does not know or make available to advertisers information about your sexual orientation, religious beliefs, or political affiliations.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  > We may use information such as the following to assign you to segments My take is that this information is used to give you some sort of cohort identifier that is itself devoid of PII.
  - nightpool 4y ago
    Isn't that the definition of an "advertising profile"?
  - no_way 4y ago
    Ironically that's kinda similar what Google FLoC was supposed to be.
  - thomasahle 4y ago
    Doesn't really matter if the segment you, if they also store the data they need to do the actual segmentation. Besides, depending on how many segments you are assigned to, you're probably the only one in the intersection of all of them.
  - hyuuu 4y ago
    dont all ad platforms work this way?
- reaperducer 4y ago
  That's not ideal, but it's certainly much better than every other ad company out there. Apple can at least enumerate the ways it profiles you in plan text, and most of it makes perfect sense. (Though I'd be happier if they excluded age and gender.) The other companies profiling information requires a massive spreadsheet, or even a JSON dump that no human being can make sense of. And that's just for their internal data, not the data they sell (oops, "share with trusted partners").
  - dialtone 4y ago
    That's not how it works. Every ad vendor has a privacy page with this stuff spelled out in the same way.

shuckles 4y ago

First of all, your definition of tracking is different from the one used by Apple. Apple’s definition of tracking is sharing information about an identifiable person between unrelated parties. Think Facebook buying all your purchases from Mastercard. Apple simply does not do that. Next, Apple’s cohorts and interest information about audiences is not nearly as detailed as Facebook or Google. And even at a far less detailed level, they have started asking users for permission to personalize in a modal. The other ad networks have never asked in that way. It seems like you have a problem with how Apple personalizes ads, but that’s a different conversation than whether they track and if tracking without consent is acceptable.

jsnell 4y ago
Yes, of course Apple would try to define tracking in a way that doesn't apply to their data collection. But the fact is that they are taking my activity across apps, my PII entered for non-ads purposes, and allowing ad targeting using that. What is the word you'd use for that instead of "tracking"? Why is that OK, but the advertising profiles built by other companies aren't? I don't have a problem with how Apple tracks people for ad targeting. They're not a particularly bad actor, but they're not a particularly good actor either. And a thing I do have a problem with is people thinking that Apple isn't doing all of this and giving them a free pass.
- SllX 4y ago
  You linked to the privacy policy, so did you miss this part? > Apple’s advertising platforms receive information about the ads you tap and view against a random identifier not tied to your Apple ID. In other words it isn’t tied to your Apple ID, or the information linked to it, or the PII you enter for non-Advertising purposes. If you go into the News or Stocks settings, you can also reset that identifier at-will, and as you pointed out, you can also just turn it off. Completely opt-out. Facebook’s entire business model is predicated on not letting you opt-out of tracking and being able to link it to a social profile they host, whereas Apple can take it or leave it.
- shuckles 4y ago
  I think you’re trying to argue Apple’s definition is contrived, but I don’t see it. Buying identifiable information from a poorly regulated data market is very unlike personalizing ads based on first party data. Apple isn’t trying particularly hard to hide that it personalizes ads. It puts up a modal telling users about it and giving them a choice in the apps where it advertises. I’m not sure why you imply that Apple is fomenting confusion.