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No surprise. Every company with an ad platform uses a pixel. Meta, Google, Reddit, Microsoft. Advertisers add it to their site to get access to things like trac

No surprise. Every company with an ad platform uses a pixel. Meta, Google, Reddit, Microsoft. Advertisers add it to their site to get access to things like tracking of performance if their ads, and custom audiences for retargeting or look-alike audiences. In exchange, that ad platform gets your browsing data. It's not great, but everyone is doing it so I wouldn't consider the fact that TikTok, one of the biggest social media platforms, does it too as news.

sfvegandude 4y ago
Apple has an ad platform. Do they use this?
- eek2121 4y ago
  Apple's ad platform does not track users or their behavior.
  - novok 4y ago
    Lol yes they do: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-advertising/ https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-advertisin... Here are a couple: Apple News and Stocks: The topics and categories of the stories you read and the publications you follow, subscribe to, or turn on notifications from. Advertising: Your interactions with ads delivered by Apple’s advertising platform.
  - realusername 4y ago
    They do and unlike a browser you have no control over it
    - sfvegandude 4y ago
      If this were the case, it would be a huge lawsuit, given they state the opposite: You can turn off Personalized Ads on your iOS or iPadOS device by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Apple Advertising and tapping to turn off Personalized Ads. On Mac, go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Privacy, click Apple Advertising, and deselect Personalized Ads. The Personalized Ads option may be unavailable if you are a minor, have a managed account, or are in a location where Apple does not deliver advertising to its apps.
      - realusername 4y ago
        That's up to you to believe that yeah (also the wording isn't very clear on what is still included either), I prefer just cutting off the data.
  - sfvegandude 4y ago
    The be precise: Apple’s advertising platform does not track you, meaning that it does not link user or device data collected from our apps with user or device data collected from third parties for targeted advertising or advertising measurement purposes, and does not share user or device data with data brokers.
- secondcoming 4y ago
  They don’t need to do this if they’re routing all your traffic through their servers
jjeaff 4y ago
Do all the ad companies require this pixel on every page of your site? In other words, could you not have an ad platform specific page that embeds the pixel and acts as the landing page for any of your ads? If so, I don't see any problem with that. The only customers accessing that page would be incoming ad clicks.
- tomnipotent 4y ago
  Facebook and Google let marketers re-target audiences using on-site activity.
- Ozzie_osman 4y ago
  No. They don't even require it at all, but they encourage you to do so to get access to certain things. Without the pixel, the platform sees a click on their side. But if you wanted to pay for other conversions, eg a purchase, you'd need to send an event back (either via pixel or via API). As an other example, if you wanted to retarget, you'd also need the pixel. Let's say you wanted to target users who added an item to their cart but never purchased, the pixel would fire a "added to cart" event. Finally, if you want look-alike audiences, you'd want to pixel as many users as broadly across your site as possible. As an example of this last one, you might want to tell the ad platform to show your ad to people who seem to resemble people who have made purchases on your site. Having the pixel let's them build that list of users who purchased on your site, then try to target users who seem to have similar interests/location/browsing habits. The funny part about this is the platform might implicit learn to target your ad to people who have visited a competitor. But since you add the pixel too, they show the competitor ad to people who visit you. So the ad platform is really a weapons dealer here. So Yea, you could decide to only use the pixel in a limited way, or not use it at all, but you'd miss out on better targeting, optimization, and reporting. If you put the pixel on a lan
novok 4y ago
I basically want a browser list that bans specific 'big providers' systematically and then access those providers via a provider specific sandbox limited to just them. Kind of like firefox account containers, with a premade set, without the bad perf / bugs of firefox.
leksak 4y ago
TFA:"Consumer Reports found that the company uses some of the same techniques as Google, Meta, and other companies to collect personal data" It's even the article byline!

sfvegandude 4y ago

Apple has an ad platform. Do they use this?

eek2121 4y ago
Apple's ad platform does not track users or their behavior.
- novok 4y ago
  Lol yes they do: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-advertising/ https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-advertisin... Here are a couple: Apple News and Stocks: The topics and categories of the stories you read and the publications you follow, subscribe to, or turn on notifications from. Advertising: Your interactions with ads delivered by Apple’s advertising platform.
- realusername 4y ago
  They do and unlike a browser you have no control over it
  - sfvegandude 4y ago
    If this were the case, it would be a huge lawsuit, given they state the opposite: You can turn off Personalized Ads on your iOS or iPadOS device by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Apple Advertising and tapping to turn off Personalized Ads. On Mac, go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Privacy, click Apple Advertising, and deselect Personalized Ads. The Personalized Ads option may be unavailable if you are a minor, have a managed account, or are in a location where Apple does not deliver advertising to its apps.
    - realusername 4y ago
      That's up to you to believe that yeah (also the wording isn't very clear on what is still included either), I prefer just cutting off the data.
- sfvegandude 4y ago
  The be precise: Apple’s advertising platform does not track you, meaning that it does not link user or device data collected from our apps with user or device data collected from third parties for targeted advertising or advertising measurement purposes, and does not share user or device data with data brokers.
secondcoming 4y ago
They don’t need to do this if they’re routing all your traffic through their servers

jjeaff 4y ago

Do all the ad companies require this pixel on every page of your site? In other words, could you not have an ad platform specific page that embeds the pixel and acts as the landing page for any of your ads? If so, I don't see any problem with that. The only customers accessing that page would be incoming ad clicks.

tomnipotent 4y ago
Facebook and Google let marketers re-target audiences using on-site activity.
Ozzie_osman 4y ago
No. They don't even require it at all, but they encourage you to do so to get access to certain things. Without the pixel, the platform sees a click on their side. But if you wanted to pay for other conversions, eg a purchase, you'd need to send an event back (either via pixel or via API). As an other example, if you wanted to retarget, you'd also need the pixel. Let's say you wanted to target users who added an item to their cart but never purchased, the pixel would fire a "added to cart" event. Finally, if you want look-alike audiences, you'd want to pixel as many users as broadly across your site as possible. As an example of this last one, you might want to tell the ad platform to show your ad to people who seem to resemble people who have made purchases on your site. Having the pixel let's them build that list of users who purchased on your site, then try to target users who seem to have similar interests/location/browsing habits. The funny part about this is the platform might implicit learn to target your ad to people who have visited a competitor. But since you add the pixel too, they show the competitor ad to people who visit you. So the ad platform is really a weapons dealer here. So Yea, you could decide to only use the pixel in a limited way, or not use it at all, but you'd miss out on better targeting, optimization, and reporting. If you put the pixel on a lan

novok 4y ago

I basically want a browser list that bans specific 'big providers' systematically and then access those providers via a provider specific sandbox limited to just them. Kind of like firefox account containers, with a premade set, without the bad perf / bugs of firefox.

leksak 4y ago

TFA:"Consumer Reports found that the company uses some of the same techniques as Google, Meta, and other companies to collect personal data" It's even the article byline!