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Apple’s ad business set to boom on the back of its own anti-tracking crackdown

• bndr 4y ago
  I'm not sure how the anti-trust / anti-monopoly laws work, but isn't it conflict of interest, if you limit others in how they can use your platform, but allow yourself to do the same things you're limiting others in? Or am I wrong?
  • imwillofficial 4y ago
    I don’t deliver Apple is offering anything different that third parties can’t see. Anyone confirm or deny?
    • loeg 4y ago
      My hearsay impression is that Apple can and do track in ways they prevent 3rd parties from doing on their platform.
      • onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
        They ABSOLUTELY do. They track everything about the device - and the user has almost no control over it. Sure, they aren't tracking what you're doing INSIDE the FB app. But they track every time you use it, where you use it, the context that led to that usage, etc.
        • falcolas 4y ago
          > Sure, they aren't tracking what you're doing INSIDE the FB app. But they track every time you use it, where you use it, the context that led to that usage, etc. So does Facebook (as much as they're able and allowed to), being fair.
          • onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
            FB can't track every time you open Pinterest on an iPhone. Apple can and does.
            • falcolas 4y ago
              To be clear, I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm just saying that individual applications can track those metrics for their own properties. And, to be fair, while I don't want Apple tracking that data (however useful/useless it may be), I wouldn't want Facebook tracking it either.
            • Nextgrid 4y ago
              FB absolutely can and does correlate events and various metadata sent by the "Facebook SDK" spyware which litters most mainstream apps. ATT does not prevent that because the fingerprint it collects, combined with your IP address is sufficient to link all the separate instances of the SDK by correlating enough events.
      • scarface74 4y ago
        Every (smart) merchant uses information from its interaction with its customers to target better. What overall law do you want the government to pass?
  • NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
    You seem to be suggesting there isn't a level playing field: can you explain why? Apple doesn't limit anyone from advertising; they just limit third-party tracking, no?
    • onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
      Rules for thee not for me (Apple Advertising).
      • colejohnson66 4y ago
        You can enable and disable personalized adverts from Apple in the settings
        • onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
          But they're not set to disabled by default like 3rd party tracking is. Gee, I wonder why...
          • JimDabell 4y ago
            If I use an Apple device then I am clearly using an Apple product and I have a relationship with Apple. If I use an application then I am clearly using their product and I have a relationship with the application developers. If that application embeds third-party tracking, I am not clearly doing anything with the third party and I don’t have a relationship with that third party. Therefore Apple requires that the application developers ask for my consent first. Only one of these needs the user’s consent, and it’s clear why. Apple can act fairly and still hold third-party tracking to a different standard.
            • lovecg 4y ago
              But that argument is not limited to tracking, isn't it. For example if I use an application that integrates with Shopify or Stripe, by that logic Apple would also be in the right to ask for consent (while the integration with Apple Pay would be pop-up free). In fact I don't see any reason why Apple shouldn't go after those businesses next - there's a clear privacy angle they can play here too. As much as I like Apple Pay as a consumer, I don't think Apple should get a blanket pass on favoring its own infrastructure over any third-party integrations just because the user is less confused about their relationship with Apple.
  • pier25 4y ago
    You mean like Apple not allowing third party browser engines?
  • perryizgr8 4y ago
    They've been doing it for years now with Apple music, and other stuff. Why do you think they will be stopped now?
  • scarface74 4y ago
    Yes, just like Facebook can’t limit others from scheduling ads and Google can’t limit other search engines from just being plugs in. Also cable companies can’t limit others from carrying channels. Do you think advertisers on Facebook, Google or Amazon get access to all of the data that the platform vendor has? Do you also want everyone to get access to Google’s search algorithm? If I had a dollar every time someone on HN yelled “anti trust” about anything no matter how little legal sense it made, I could be my own VC.
  • jannes 4y ago
    Par for the course in big tech. They love walled gardens.
  • SoftTalker 4y ago
    Apple isn't the only online advertising platform, and they don't have anything close to a monopoly there. They are free to build their own ad tech and keep it to themselves, or give themselves preferential access.
    • shrewduser 4y ago
      That's missing the point, Apple owns the platform and are using that dominance to push people out while pushing themselves in. Using your dominance in one industry like that could fall afoul of anti monopoly laws.
      • paulmd 4y ago
        > That's missing the point, Apple owns the platform People make a lot of to-do about it, but, that's not really an unusual thing in the market anymore. Sony has exclusive control of their store, does not permit sideloading, and no, the hardware isn't subsidized. https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/325504-sony-finally-turns-a-profit-on-499-ps5 https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/325504-sony-finally-turns... Regardless of whether you feel that's also bad, it goes to establish that this is not unusual or particularly noteworthy behavior.
  • pwinnski 4y ago
    Is there any evidence anywhere that Apple is doing, or is intending to do, the same things they've blocked others from doing? Apple hasn't stopped anybody from advertising, they've only stopped them from doing overly-intrusive cross-app personal tracking. They don't seem to intend to do over-intrusive cross-app personal tracking themselves, so it seems to be a level playing field. So far, at least.
    • badwolf 4y ago
      >they've only stopped them from doing overly-intrusive cross-app personal tracking. It's important to remember, they aren't stopping them from doing the overly-intrusive cross-app tracking, they just make you actively consent to an app allowing that tracking.
      • hn92726819 4y ago
        I'm not familiar -- do you have to actively consent to Apple's tracking too? As in, do they give themselves some advantage over other ad platforms?
        • novok 4y ago
          You do have to consent, but there are many parts where they don't let you say no and continue using, while all third parties are forced to make you say no and to continue using. Apple is doing the classic "we don't share with third parties, we just collect a shit ton of data from everywhere and then make people buy our data indirectly via our ad sale services" like google and facebook do today. So it's not shared with third parties, but because of their scale it might as well be in effect size .
        • pkaler 4y ago
          > I'm not familiar -- do you have to actively consent to Apple's tracking too? It's called App Tracking Transparency and there is a scary prompt when Facebook/others do it. It's called Personalization and a friendly prompt when Apple does it.
  • gamblor956 4y ago
    No, you're not wrong. If Apple follows through with this it's pretty much the textbook definition of an antitrust violation: leveraging their market power in one market to circumvent competition in the target market.
    • scarface74 4y ago
      When I watch Netflix, I have no reason to be surprised or shocked that Netflix is using that information to target movies I want to watch. It’s the same with Amazon and Facebook. What I don’t expect is that when I shop on Amazon I get ads showing me what I searched for and bought on Amazon to show up on Facebook (which of course does happen). What would be the consumer friendly thing for the government to do? Allow more cross app data sharing? Refuse to let any company use the history of what a consumer does at that company for targeting?
      • aierou 4y ago
        Regulators could kill several birds with one stone and allow alternative app markets on iOS devices.
        • scarface74 4y ago
          I can see the marketing aspect now “if you install this third party App Store, the apps you can install can ignore the privacy guards and advertise and track you better!” Or a company like Facebook can once again encourage users to install a VPN that allows them to track all of the traffic to and from your phone. https://mashable.com/article/facebook-used-onavo-vpn-data-to-watch-snapchat-and-whatsapp https://mashable.com/article/facebook-used-onavo-vpn-data-to...
          • gamblor956 4y ago
            This has been possible for many years now on Android and that has yet to been an issue, even though it's been brought up for years as a potential concern. It turns out that people (or at least Android users) aren't as dumb as Apple users think they are. (Or maybe it says something about Apple users that Apple and other Apple users think that Apple users are too dumb to be able to make this decision for themselves?)
  • bolt7469 4y ago
    My understanding of a "conflict of interest" is that they happen when a personal interest interferes with a duty. Ex: a company executive receiving a gift from a potential supplier. This situation would not be a conflict of interest because Apple has no duty to third party advertisers
  • amelius 4y ago
    If you really wanted to rule out conflicts of interest, you would have to break up the company in several hardware and several software companies.
• api 4y ago
  I really hope Apple doesn't turn its products to shit chasing ad revenue like almost everything else. Advertising is cancer.
  • jesuscript 4y ago
    This is a company that sells 2000 dollar monitor stands. They are into a whole different game.
    • api 4y ago
      I will happily buy into an ecosystem with stupidly priced accessories if it has no ads and solid protection for privacy. As soon as I see ads (in anything) it's shit. If it's loaded with spyware and constantly invades privacy it's shit. These are things I associate with low-end trash.
    • ProAm 4y ago
      This is also a company that stopped including chargers and cables so they could make additional revenue from people already buying $1000 phones. [1] [1] https://hypebeast.com/2022/3/apple-made-6-5-billion-usd-by-removing-accessories-with-new-iphone-purchases https://hypebeast.com/2022/3/apple-made-6-5-billion-usd-by-r...
    • gjsman-1000 4y ago
      It was $1000, and actually a brilliant move because actual Pro users don't use fixed stands (and so aren't offended), while wannabe-Pro rich people will buy it in droves. Thus increasing the luxury branding without actually offending actual Pro users. For those people, the $1000 stand price is a conversation starter and a reason to buy in itself.
      • goosedragons 4y ago
        I mean the VESA mount itself is still $200... I get that work is probably paying for most people's but it's not really usable out of the box without a pricey add-on. You can literally buy an entire monitor (with stand and VESA mount) for $200.
• seydor 4y ago
  So how much will you have to pay to view Apple Ads?
  • reaperducer 4y ago
    OK, that was actually funny.
• Reason077 4y ago
  > ”Apple is also reportedly taking steps to build its own demand-side platform (DSP) … If true, it would mean that Apple is jumping on the ad tech bandwagon, something that it has so far resisted doing.” Not entirely true: Apple’s iAd platform ran for a few years in the 2010s before being canned in 2016.
  • lelandfe 4y ago
    Yeah, I found that to be a very narrow definition of "ad tech." Apple already has campaign management for ads today: https://searchads.apple.com/advanced https://searchads.apple.com/advanced
  • FrenchTouch42 4y ago
    > Not entirely true: Apple’s iAd platform ran for a few years in the 2010s before being canned in 2016 It still exists, was just renamed to Ad Platforms (worked there).
  • lupire 4y ago
    iAd lasted shorter than a Google chat app. It was DOA. When people say "ad tech" now, they mean DSP -- selling their party ads unrelated to the boat company. Apple Store ads are Apple ripping off iOS devs for product placement in its own store, not generic interest-based ads. https://ksmmedia.com/intel/the-apple-dsp/ https://ksmmedia.com/intel/the-apple-dsp/
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• CharlesW 4y ago
  Keep in mind the source, and that AdGuard is effectively competing with Apple to make your online life more private.
  • reaperducer 4y ago
    This is also about the ninth rehash on HN of the same newspaper article that was written three months ago. Every blogger with an axe to grind has been re-spinning this same point with more and more hyperbole since because "Apple bad" = click click click click. Nothing new to see here.
  • amelius 4y ago
    I have a better idea: let's just stay with the facts.
• jackconsidine 4y ago
  Marketing campaigns often convince people to think things, however subconsciously, i.e. Lincoln is associated with Luxury or X cereal is a wholesome breakfast. What I hadn't seen until this was a marketing campaign that actually proselytized so many into proclaiming the message for free. On HackerNews, Reddit and in public places you're likely to find someone vouching for Apple's privacy practices sometimes with the same verbiage that's on the billboards! Maybe that's a testament to Steve Jobs's lasting marketing impact. I personally see the incentive structure which makes Apple more privacy-friendly than say Google. But I'm deeply suspicious of such a convenient message that the largest corporation in the world puts its resources behind. Also, being more privacy-friendly than Google and being privacy friendly are two different things.
  • factorialboy 4y ago
    Few months ago when launching apps on Mac Os became sluggish because their telemetry service had high latency -- that was the moment I lost faith in all of Apple's privacy claims. PS: Still use a MBP, iPhone and an Apple Watch. :(
    • e40 4y ago
      That "telemetry" (which is misleading in the current context) was about checking for malware. I'm talking the specific case of launching apps on macOS.
      • sitzkrieg 4y ago
        that is still very much the same thing
      • Zagill 4y ago
        Part of the issue IIRC is that application names were exposed in the request, not encrypted in any way. So there are legitimate privacy/security concerns in publicly announcing every application that you open on your computer.
    • user3939382 4y ago
• gjsman-1000 4y ago
  I propose a law, that states that advertising is only permitted in certain locations, in certain industries (phonebooks, highway ads, TV stations), and that anywhere else, it is completely illegal to advertise, full stop. Do not even think about advertising there if it's not on the short list. If you want to advertise on a product, no money must exchange hands, or Congress must pass an amendment. EDIT: Forgot when writing this down (been thinking about this for a while), but this would only apply to Publicly traded companies.
  • seydor 4y ago
    good. let's run some ads to pass that law
  • elicash 4y ago
    So you start a t-shirt business online, and you can only advertise in those places instead of Instagram? Seems bad for the business. Would be very profitable for tv stations, though! And we'd see a ton more billboards covering everything.
    • gjsman-1000 4y ago
      Well, in that case, I would just say that my law only applies to Publicly traded companies. That would cover all the Apples, Samsungs, Rokus, and so forth of the world which is what we care about most, I think.
      • candiddevmike 4y ago
        Since you're already making carve outs, here's $100,000 for your reelection campaign if you exclude Apple, too. Ethical marketing is a hard problem to solve, I don't think the best solution is focusing on where it happens, instead it should be focused on how it's happening (targeting) and what the content is.
  • colejohnson66 4y ago
    That'll never stand up to a First Amendment lawsuit
• stephc_int13 4y ago
  This is bad news for Apple. I think that relying on adtech is poisonous in the long run.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• whywhywhydude 4y ago
  I know everone hates ads, but isn’t targeted ads better than wholesale bombardment? Did Apple’s blocking of facebook’s targeted ads improve the consumer experience? Or did that just make advertising more inefficient which then led to just more irrelevant ads. A good example would be American tv. Everyone has to suffer to through those stupid viagra and antidepressants ads because there is no targeting.
  • tomp 4y ago
    The more targeted an ad, the more it manipulates your mind.
  • buzzy_hacker 4y ago
    No. Because targeting means you’ve built a profile on me by collecting data about my habits and interests without permission and will sell/leak that to god knows who. Websites can tailor their ads to the audience likely to visit them.
    • makestuff 4y ago
      I would be fine with paying for youtube premium, etc. if they did not track and build profiles on paying customers. I get mining my data in exchange for using it for free, but I do not think it is fair to mine data on paying customers without giving them some discount/opt out.
    • andsoitis 4y ago
      You can turn off personalized ads on iOS https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/control-how-apple-delivers-advertising-to-you-iphf60a6a256/ios https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/control-how-apple-del... Turn personalized ads on or off Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Apple Advertising, then turn Personalized Ads on or off. Note: Turning off personalized ads limits Apple’s ability to deliver relevant ads to you. It may not reduce the number of ads you receive.
    • hurril 4y ago
      Plus: they're often even worse than the wholesale because what they think they know about me is basically always pure nonsense. (Other than offering me an ad to buy the book I just fckn bought.)
• bfrog 4y ago
  I mean the main differentiator of Apple was the lack of Ads and tracking compared to google for me. If Apple starts hammering ads and providing tracking data and selling spots like google does with admob/android then is it really worth the premium anymore?
  • smoldesu 4y ago
    If the main difference between Apple and Google is selling your data, are they really all that different in the first place? Apple already collects plenty of telemetry from your devices whether you opt-in or not. OCSP sends data back to Apple's servers every time you tap an app, that's non-negotiable. They go out of their way to limit your traffic filtering capabilities solely so they can phone-home. The rabbit hole is pretty deep, and doesn't favor any of these FAANG faces.
    • Tijdreiziger 4y ago
      The volume of data transmitted by iOS is one order of magnitude less than Android, though (at least when logged out and idle). Reference: Leith, D. J. (2021). Mobile Handset Privacy: Measuring The Data iOS and Android Send to Apple And Google. URL: https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf
    • shostack 4y ago
      Ad companies don't sell your data. It's one of their most valuable assets. They sell access to impressions that are targeted based on modeling of that data. It is a nuanced, yet extremely important distinction.
  • chillfox 4y ago
    Nope, Lack of ads IS the killer feature for me. What I use an iPhone for could just as easily be done by Android. If Apple is enthusiastically running towards the ads hellscape then it might be time to get one of those Linux phones and start developing some apps for it. I need less than 10 apps for it to be a viable replacement, or if it get's really bad then I could make do with even less.
• _23sd 4y ago
  After reading the article, I still don't understand the exception Apple purportedly gets from its tracking rules. As I understand it, Amazon is allowed to use activity in the Kindle app to show personalized ads in the Amazon Shopping app without using the ATT prompt. Isn't that the same thing as Apple using News app activity to personalize ads in the App Store? The part that is unfair is that no one but Apple gets to have an App Store or process IAPs, which has always been the problem with iOS. Trying to make it about ATT just seems like a red herring.
  • jchonphoenix 4y ago
    Apple has access to all data it blocks from other ad networks by virtue of you owning an iPhone. It uses this data in its DSP. One effect of Apple locking down privacy was to create a unique monopoly on data for itself and its an advantage it intends to capitalize on.
    • jshier 4y ago
      It could have access, but so far all of these articles calling Apple out haven't cited a single shred of evidence that Apple has replaced the previous invasive fingerprinting by third parties with their own. If nothing else, the quality of the ads you see from Apple would indicate they gather less, not more, than most advertisers. I mean, I see ads for Apple products I already own, or services I already subscribe to.
      • htrp 4y ago
        That just says apple hasn't hired the ad guys from facebook/google .... yet
        • s3p 4y ago
          > Apple also uploads a lot of logs, etc from their devices to their servers, and opting out of apple level tracking at some basic level is often just not an option. Ex, they upload battery behavior info and use it to improve the battery perf of their devices, or upload people's locations and other location adjacent data like wifi networks with location services and so on. This nothing to do with advertising.
• SpectralTheory 4y ago
  Where are these ads being delivered? Just the App Store, or are they expanding into somewhere else?
  • hankchinaski 4y ago
    App Store, News app, Stocks app, Maps app, Books app, Podcast app it mentions in the article
    • Nextgrid 4y ago
      The only app of value here is maybe Maps. The rest is garbage already so won't be a major difference.
• Calvin02 4y ago
  • moolcool 4y ago
    As a consumer, I do not want ad relevance. In fact, I hate targeted ads. I do not feel served when mega-corporations unscrupulously track literally everything about me so they can try to sell me crap I don't need. I play the worlds smallest violin for the businesses who have to "bear the brunt" of not knowing how many steps I've taken today, or what times I went the bathroom.
    • Calvin02 4y ago
      I think another way to look at it is: value exchange. What do I get in exchange for what I share. To me, learning about new products and services from companies that I don't already have an existing relationship with is far more valuable than the data shared. I want the inventor of a better mouse trap to reach out to me and let me know of their product.
      • moolcool 4y ago
        We're looking at asymmetrical warfare between incredibly advanced targeting algorithms, and our monkey-brains. It's all fun and games when you're selling moustraps, but what about when the algorithm finds out you have a predisposition towards addiction and realizes it can profit from that by showing you ads for alcohol and pharmaceuticals? What happens when it learns that you have a gambling problem? What happens when it learns that you're a hypochondriac? What happens when it learns that you have a retail addiction? What happens when your ad profile identifies you as somebody who has had an abortion in one of the states where it's illegal? Can the ad company be subpoenaed? What happens when an insurance company goes to a data-broker and finds out that you've been googling cancer symptoms? Would their access to this information change your premiums or eligibility?
        • htrp 4y ago
          > What happens when an insurance company goes to a data-broker and finds out that you've been googling cancer symptoms? Would their access to this information change your premiums or eligibility? Gattaca happens
• rebeccaskinner 4y ago
  I've seen this coming for a while, and I'm honestly not sure what the next move to make is for those of us who have done as much as we can to escape the hoards of advertisers. I have no particular love for iOS, but I switched to an iPhone years ago to escape the google ecosystem. There isn't really a plausible third option at this point. Even if Linux phones had usable hardware, more of the world is moving toward relying on apps that only run on DRMed systems with signed software from the data collecting duopoly. I can't deposit a check or order a taxi with a rooted phone, and the trend is getting worse over time- not better. I suppose the one up-side to the situation is that there's not much point in even trying to spend the time figuring out how to root a device, or dealing with egregiously under-performing open smart phone hardware, and it might be possible to save some money going back to a dumb phone.
  • pkulak 4y ago
    You can't deposit a check or order a cab with a dumb phone either. Might as well put Calyx on something and at least have Firefox and OpenStreetMap.
    • rebeccaskinner 4y ago
      I've thought about going down that path, and I still might, but at the moment I'm very frustrated by the state of hardware and general support for a lot of the user and privacy respecting options to the point where it's hard to believe it'll actually be worth my time to try to get something like that set up.
    • Tijdreiziger 4y ago
      I want to be able to (among other things) order cabs and deposit checks using my smartphone, though. (Well, maybe not that last one, seeing as checks don’t exist here in the Netherlands anymore.) Going back a decade in terms of functionality is hardly an answer.
      • pessimizer 4y ago
        It definitely is an answer, since there haven't been any major advances in cellphones over the last 10 years, but it really depends on how much you actually hate advertising.
• innagadadavida 4y ago
  We saw what happened to Apple’s Siri search initiative that was started around 2014. If that is any indicator, don’t have much hopes for this one either. Apple is being very hypocritical here. Privacy matters until they tell you it’s ok, don’t worry about it. With Budd Trible moving on, I guess this is the state of affairs. Sad.
• jscipione 4y ago
  Better Apple make money off data than it being collected by Facebook and sent to the FBI. https://nypost.com/2022/09/14/facebook-spied-on-private-messages-of-americans-who-questioned-2020-election/ https://nypost.com/2022/09/14/facebook-spied-on-private-mess... At least Apple has a record of keeping their users safe from government. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/apple-refuses-barr-request-to-unlock-pensacola-shooters-iphones.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/apple-refuses-barr-request-t...
  • moolcool 4y ago
    Having the data exist on somebody's servers in an unencrypted state at all is enough to make me uneasy.
  • r00fus 4y ago
    What makes you think Apple isn't doing the same? They were involved in PRISM as well. Honestly, I really doubt Apple could continue to do business without being at least somewhat porous to law enforcement and government snooping (maybe better than others but definitely not stiff-arming them).
• olliej 4y ago
  Sigh, I don’t believe Apple’s ad network tracks people to the same extent as Google, Facebook, etc. But the mere existence of it undercuts the privacy claims and creates a giant moral hazard (if AppStore search is lousy then people have to buy ads/sponsored keywords, and the clear desire for ad businesses to start invading privacy). I really wish it didn’t exist :-/
• secondcoming 4y ago
  I, for one, did not see this coming at all. I genuinely believed that Apple's privacy strictness was for the greater good. /s
• gumby 4y ago
  Is there any way to block Apple's own ads today? I wonder if Apple will also try to prevent that or will just figure it's a small enough number that allowing it will help them with the nerds. Informally, when I see something on someone else's device, ad blocking doesn't appear to be popular. I can't imagine using the web without it.
• alex_young 4y ago
  Apple has astutely observed that they don't need a bunch of tracking cookies to track you across sites and services if they already have your account on your phone and access to everything directly. Google has something like this moat within their search engine dominance, likewise Facebook does for social, but both of them are rather limited slices in comparison with the OS itself. So, we arrive at this junction - Apple lobbies, for the consumer of course, to prevent tracking across the web, and conveniently limits their number of competitors to one, that being Microsoft which seems rather inept at this advertising thing anyway. It's hard to root for Google or Facebook here, but it's also pretty obvious that our friends in Cupertino don't have our best interests in mind.
  • joshgachnang 4y ago
    I'd say Google should be in a pretty good spot with Android + search engine.
    • alex_young 4y ago
      That’s a good observation, but Google really doesn’t control things the same way Apple does since they aren’t directly distributing Android for the most part. It would be hard to pull off that kind of synchronization with the handset ecosystem.
      • paulmd 4y ago
        Google has very direct control over Google Play internal services which are effectively system-level services on android, and collects at least as much data on those users as Apple does on theirs. The 1% of users running some custom Android build aren't really relevant here, Google scrapes up plenty.
        • shagie 4y ago
          > ... [Google] collects at least as much data on those users as Apple does on theirs. https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf > That is, almost two order of magnitude is uploaded by Android (3.6MB) than by iOS at startup, while Android downloads around a third (952MB) of the data of iOS (2.6GB). The paper goes on into a lot more detail of tracking what identifiers are sent when and how often. In particular, look at figure 4 on page 6.
• verisimi 4y ago
  Apple = a big sandbox Google, Meta = also big sandbox Government surveillance = Apple + google + meta = the biggest sandbox Which sandbox do you like to play in? Does it even matter?
• WoodenChair 4y ago
  One of the reasons I pay a premium to use Apple's products is to not be part of an advertising ecosystem. I am disappointed that this seems to be changing. Ads in the App Store are one thing—ads in Maps, Books, and Podcasts as the article suggests may be coming in the future—will drive me to use premium (even if they're paid) alternatives. At a minimum, people who pay for an Apple monthly iCloud subscription should be able to opt-out (not just of tracking, which already exists, but seeing ads all together).
  • htrp 4y ago
    > At a minimum, people who pay for an Apple monthly iCloud subscription should be able to opt-out (not just of tracking, which already exists, but seeing ads all together). The premium is just an opt-out of the ads (on the specific app) .... the tracking is where the value will be in the future
  • bredren 4y ago
    I feel the same way. I thought the price premiums we pay on hardware and services is supposed to support profit margins that allow Apple to not show advertisements to me. If the prior profits were not enough, how much higher do the prices need to be to not do this? In general I trust the company to make choices about computing experiences, much more so than any other products company. So, I am going to try and hold judgement and see how this pans out. That said, I'd like the company to get out ahead of these decisions and explain reasoning for these changes.
    • leaflets2 4y ago
      Regardless of how much the hardware and services already cost, the company can always make more by showing ads too? Meaning, no profits or prices are high enough. (Unless they show far too many so people start leaving ... That threshold might be high though; Linux is too cumbersome for almost everyone?)
    • etherealG 4y ago
      I think being the richest company in the world makes it pretty cleat that there’s no need to increase prices to support no ads. It’s pure greed and you can’t reason with it.
• twsted 4y ago
  I am really worried about this. I would have hoped Apple stayed away from this business. This is greed, imho.
• oneplane 4y ago
  While a bit weird, I can understand that you can do ads without tracking (perhaps without profiling as well) and this doesn't always mean that Apple becoming one with the capitalistic singularity of advertising business requires them to also be tracking people. The same goes for plenty of forms of telemetry; it doesn't equal individual tracking or tracking at all (before someone comes in with a cohort theory). Some things like predictive text entry (Microsoft did/does that? And grammarly and Gboard) have an easy implementation where you ignore privacy and simply dump all user entry onto a server and do the heavy lifting there. Apple's version of that might be Siri recordings when recognition fails to improve that, but I haven't seen it with ads or text entry (yet?). At some point no company should be doing any of this without homomorphic encryption or a good level of sanitisation. All of Apple's telemetry that you can inspect (either locally or simply by adding a proxy) is well-anonymised. It doesn't hide what specific binaries are causing errors as that would defeat the point of measuring reliability, and when you connect to someone, they will know what IP connected to them, but other than that, it's not as bad as people tend to make it out to be.
• apienx 4y ago
  "Privacy means people know what they’re signing up for, in plain language, and repeatedly." - Steve "Newspeak" Jobs Apple doesn't care about what cyberlibertarians think about their business practices. Baking in ads won't affect sales (might even prop it up if used to subsidize devices).
• gerash 4y ago
  In terms of data protection I have friends who work at Google and at Apple. The one working at Apple was able to check their spouse's spending trend on App store (granted they were working in a relevant department) while at Google reading your own data is not even granted without justification let alone an external user.
  • cromka 4y ago
    Sounds like something worth whistleblowing to relevant authorities. Depending on where are they located, they could even be rewarded for it.
  • justapassenger 4y ago
    Talking from experience - having a real privacy program at a big company is really hard. Like thousands for people and billions of dollars hard. And speculating - wouldn't surprise me too much that Apple is actually weak there. Apple's approach to privacy seems to be mainly "we just don't get your data on our servers", which could be resulting them in ignoring how to build an actual robust privacy program on their side for other things.
  • null_object 4y ago
    > The one working at Apple was able to check their spouse's spending trend on App store You obviously could back this hearsay up with actual evidence I assume?
    • Quarrel 4y ago
      "Sure, here's the screenshots I took of my wife violating her NDA, while handing them to me to post to HN." Like, sure it is hearsay, but what do you want from the guy? Most of us are sharing anecdotes that we hope we be helpful to other HNers, most of the time. If anything, I think a lot of people look to the experience of other users here as the advantage.
      • CharlesW 4y ago
        "Sure it's complete hearsay, but it plays well with HN readers so…"
• gloryjulio 4y ago
  Apple pretends iOS is not Android, and turns it into Android eventually. The irony
  • progbits 4y ago
    Except without 3rd party browsers and system-wide adblockers.
    • kristofferR 4y ago
      As the article mentioned system-wide adblockers are banned from Android from the 1st November.
• franczesko 4y ago
  What is worrying is that there is no true alternative. Full-privacy might be a very lucrative business opportunity.
• DrBenCarson 4y ago
  To play devil's advocate...if you believe Apple really stands by their privacy values, why wouldn't they start an ads business? If they feel they can deliver ads and protect customer data, they should start an ad business. They owe it to shareholders and to their customers. If they don't do it, someone else will, and they ultimately don't trust third parties with their customers' data (also being a massive corporation, they don't like other companies generating revenue off the backs of their customers). If you believe Apple is genuine about their commitment to privacy, this should be encouraging news. If you don't believe that, then this does appear to be questionable at best (boxing out third parties so they can profit off the data themselves)
  • xvector 4y ago
    Anticompetitive to deny others the ability to run ads on your platform. Apple's gonna be hit big time with antitrust.
    • CharlesW 4y ago
      > Anticompetitive to deny others the ability to run ads on your platform. Yeah, if that were true it'd be pretty bad. (It's not true.)
      • deleted 4y ago
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    • DrBenCarson 4y ago
      Yeah, that's not true. Apple doesn't stop anyone from running ads. They stop companies from collecting and aggregating data across multiple apps without explicit user consent.
      • m00x 4y ago
        Yet they do it themselves :) It's a smart business decision. Basically "If you want to have deep tracking on users using iPhones, you need to go through us".
• mywacaday 4y ago
  I recently signed up for the duckduckgo anti tracking protection beta. I guess I always suspected on some level the amount of tracking but seeing the the blocking in real time of apps I haven't used in weeks really brings it home.
• tomcam 4y ago
  I for one am shocked. Simply shocked.
  • gigel82 4y ago
    /s?
    • tomcam 4y ago
      Yes definitely /s
• mabbo 4y ago
  Apple will just wind up like Amazon: cannibalizing the customer trust now that they have market power. Consider: Amazon has the majority of e-commerce sales today in the west. This is largely in part of decisions makes 20 years ago to allow honest reviews by real customers, both good and bad, earning strong customer trust. Now they're making money by selling the top spot on their search results and calling it "advertising". It's not. It's the sale of all that customer trust they spent 20 years building up. And the money they make on selling that trust is massive. Consider: Apple is loved by its customers. They trust them. Apple means quality, security, and all the other good things they want. They're also at 30% of global mobile phone sales- massive market power. Now it's time to start selling off that customer trust for profit. Being Apple, the first move is to attack the entire online ad industry via privacy improvements- I'm not saying it's a bad thing that they did it, but I am suggesting they didn't do it for anything other than profit motive. Next, join the industry with a competitor in the space that takes advantage of all the things Apple knows about their customers. Trade the trust they've built up for a payout in cash. It was either that or try to invent a new product. Since Steve Jobs died that hasn't gone very well.
  • hatuthecat 4y ago
    Apple Watch was probably the largest launch since Jobs died, and now it’s the dominant smart watch. Apple Silicon breathed new life into the mac lineup. AirPods have become the standard bluetooth earbuds. I think apple has been doing great with new products recently (after struggling in the late 2010s, as shown by their extreme emphasis on services instead of products then) and I hope they keep that momentum instead of compromising on ads.
    • deleted 4y ago
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    • moolcool 4y ago
      Speaking of Apple, Apple Watch, and data collection, how long do you think it will be until an insurance company subpoenas Apple for it's health data? "You said you didn't have a preexisting condition on your application, but you knew you had an arithmia, because your watch told you so. Therefore, we have no choice but to deny your claim"
• anizan 4y ago
  Brings back memories of a monty python sketch "You have got nice ... here. It would be a shame if something happened" https://montycasinos.com/montypython/scripts/armyprot.php.html https://montycasinos.com/montypython/scripts/armyprot.php.ht...
• armchairhacker 4y ago
  If Apple starts running invasive ads or other bad practices, it will further the development of the PinePhone / LibrePhone. It will also cause a lot (possibly even the majority) of developers to switch from iOS / macOS to open-source OSs. In this sense, invasive advertising would be a bad idea economically. A lot of developers who value "open-source" still use iOS and macOS. A big reason is because, despite being proprietary, this software is good. The minor flaws (macOS harder to modify, iOS being locked-down, both platforms being not open-source and less compatible with open-source than Linux/BSD) don't outweigh the work of creating a new OS which has the benefits (seamless user experience, fast, good design, efficient for productivity). A big reason PinePhone and LibrePhone are far behind iOS is simply because there isn't enough motivation - the hardware is there, it's the software (e.g. smooth gestures) which are lacking. Apple would not lose much of their userbase, as a minority of "non-developer" people don't care about invasive ads. But a lot of developers do, and having developers move away is still really bad because it affects Apple's ecosystem. Devs don't just use iOS and macOS, they make software for these platforms and even directly contribute to open-source Apple code. If everyone is making software and fixing bugs for Linux and LineageOS instead, they will get better and cause more developers and eventually ordinary users to migrate away.
  • pid_0 4y ago
  • zaptrem 4y ago
    It would be easier for devs to modify MacOS to rip out the hypothetical ads and complain loudly until Apple fixes it than to switch OSes completely.
• travisgriggs 4y ago
  I've been a big Apple fan over the years. They continue to grow more tarnished for me. But my big problem is... where do I go? It's not like Android phones are better--I write native apps on both, I have 9 Android phones sitting to the left of me right now, and 6 iDevices to my right--they're worse to use. They're a night mare to code for compared to iOS. I write Linux, Windows, and Mac code from post Ives 16"MBP. The OS is as good as any Linux I use (it's worse in some ways, but better than others). The hardware is impressive. I have tried the Linux on Windows stuff, Windows is the worst. It's not like it was 20 years ago, when MacOSX was in its infancy, and Linux was awesome, and you could reinstall Sawfish WM on Linux running on the Windows laptop the company gave you. Apple hardware/software has its warts, but overall it's pretty good stuff all things averaged. So I'd love to escape their growingly evil ecosystem of services, but it's not clear what the development rig better and more free/enabling than this would be.
  • lupire 4y ago
    Your 20 year old Linux still works. All you have to do is not be greedy about wanting all the inventions that evil corporations made in the past 20 years.
  • smoldesu 4y ago
    The goal shouldn't be to 'escape', but rather encourage our businesses to do the right thing so people aren't hostages in the first place. If Apple simply played fair, I don't think anyone would feel the need to leave (or fear that they need to). Perhaps this will be the ultimate test of Apple putting their customers before profits... In any case, I think Linux replaces MacOS without much protest. I hated working around Mac-specific idiosyncrasies anyways, and while a number of devs might protest, Apple hardware makes for fine Linux machines these days. You're right to identify that iOS is harder to replace, but it's hard to imagine a long-term solution that doesn't involve Apple allowing sideloading. I really hope they do the right thing here, but that's all we can do.
  • andai 4y ago
    I'm often reminded of Stallman's message that Free Software would be the right thing to use, for reasons of ethics and preserving freedom for ourselves and others, even if it were a worse experience. (He argues that it isn't worse, but that's a different conversation.)
• bornfreddy 4y ago
  > Google’s Manifest V3 — Chrome’s new extension-building platform — severely limits the functionality of ad blockers. Though, ad blockers won't capitulate without a fight — that is as much as we can promise you. In a world’s first, AdGuard has recently published an ad-blocking extension built on Manifest 3. That's... awful? Building an ad blocker on top of Mv3 is exactly what Google is hoping for. If nobody built an ad blocker for it, how much market share do you think Chrome would keep?
  • yladiz 4y ago
    Not as many people care about, or even really know of, ad blockers as you might think.
  • smoldesu 4y ago
    That's funny, I remember people saying the same thing when Safari limited support for browser extensions: https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158 https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158
  • jdmdmdmdmd 4y ago
    >how much market share do you think Chrome would keep? The entire share of users who don't use AdBlock. The other users don't give them revenue anyway.
• pid_0 4y ago
• frankfrank13 4y ago
  I get why people are so suspicious of this, but I personally still feel like Apple is going to handle this much better than Google or Meta. Meta and Google are 1-trick ponies, and those ponies feed off of transforming user data into ads. Apple doesn't need ads, and therefore can do them on their own terms.
• rchaud 4y ago
  The lure of that sweet, sweet ad money finally takes down the FAANG member that many said would be immune to its charms. Apple didn't cut Facebook out of the picture for pro-privacy, 'user-centric' reasons. This is the same playbook they used in 2010 when they kneecapped Flash. It wasn't about battery life or viruses then, it was to clear a path for the App Store to be the focal point for app and game development.
  • deleted 4y ago
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• simonh 4y ago
  To be clear, this is entirely about advertising within Apple's App Store (that's what Apple Search Ads is). It has nothing to do with ads on the internet or in Safari, or even within third party apps.
  • amelius 4y ago
  • pavlov 4y ago
    And Google ads used to be only unobtrusive text inlined with search results until it wasn’t. If there’s growth in a segment of business that’s moving the needle at a multi-trillion market cap corporation like Apple, there are executives and product managers all over the place hoping to get on board.
    • kuratkull 4y ago
      Google search ads used to be in a separate box to the right of the search results.
    • simonh 4y ago
      Maybe, I suppose we'll see, but people have been saying this ever since the Google/Apple bust up over user data in Google Maps back in 2009. If we condemned everyone for things they might do one day we'd all be in jail for life.
    • CobrastanJorji 4y ago
      I agree, I think you mean that they were NOT inline. They were out of the line, in an entirely separate column. With a different background color. With the words "sponsored links" added to their box.
  • jdgoesmarching 4y ago
    I feel like the real outrage here should be for developers who already pay a fee for the privilege of being Apple developers, give up 30% of their revenue for the privilege of being inconsistently judged by app review, and now need to fork over extra money just to have their exact app name appear when searched. It’s insulting to the dev community who drove the success of the app store and arguably iOS in general. No amount of “we love our devs” PR can reconcile this.
• skc 4y ago
  They're gonna print even more money. You literally don't get a much more captive audience than macOS/iOS users.
• ec109685 4y ago
  This part of the article is wrong: "While Apple effectively tracks users on its own platform, the pre-installed apps are exempted from displaying a message asking permission to track users. This is because Apple’s Anti-Tracking Transparency only applies to the apps that use third-party data to track users. Since Apple’s tracking stays within its own ecosystem, the company’s native apps are not subject to the policy. An exception Apple made for itself drew backlash, with some comparing the “nefarious”-sounding prompt third-party developers have to show to a far less ominous “personalized ads” pop-up Apple has to show itself." Apps like Facebook can track the user any which way they please. They can't track users in other apps without consent.
  • deleted 4y ago
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• idk1 4y ago
  This is what the Stocks app on MacOS looks like if you scroll down for the smallest time - https://i.imgur.com/1j7ykDw.png https://i.imgur.com/1j7ykDw.png So Stocks app in MacOS, no stocks when you open it, but the news and ads is what you see. I do hope we don't see ads in the Weather app at some point, that would be a shame. Edit - I was curious, if you select APPL on the side and scroll a little, you get ads too, so they're on all side tabs - https://i.imgur.com/2X3Et0l.png https://i.imgur.com/2X3Et0l.png
  • throwaway742 4y ago
    Are they being loaded from a separate domain?
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • raz32dust 4y ago
    Wow, that's eye-opening as an Android user and helps to put the anti-tracking initiative into strategic perspective. Apple is leveraging user trust to claim that it's ok for them to track users, not not ok for anyone else.
    • warning26 4y ago
      What I find particularly egregious is that when Apple requests to track users, they use the text "Allow Apple to personalize your experience?", while for 3rd parties they use the much scarier "allow this app to track you?" prompt
      • PcChip 4y ago
        That's straight up shady / bad faith
  • magic_hamster 4y ago
    Imagine paying top dollar for a premium Apple product, only to get a soup of ugly ads in the native applications of your device. As far as I know, this is the case for low end models from vendors like Xiaomi. And even there you can turn it off. I never dreamed of Apple doing something so detrimental to its famed User Experience that feels so cheap and disrespectful.
• drawingthesun 4y ago
  As a Mac and iPhone user I am annoyed as this means I'll have to start migrating away from Apple over the next few years, paying for premium product only for the os and native apps to start getting adverts is atrocious and cannot be rewarded with my continued support. Edit: I just checked the stocks app on my MacBook M1 Max and there are unrelated adverts alongside finance news items. I am appalled and regretting my my m1 max (64gb ram, 4tb ssd) purchase for the first time. Up till now its has been one my of best tech purchases in my life. Not anymore. This is a sign of pure greed. The most profitable company wants even more profits and will damage its brand to do so.
  • bloggie 4y ago
    Yes this is exactly why I switched from Samsung to Apple after they added ads to the Wallet app.
  • freeAgent 4y ago
    The problem is that there's now nowhere to go, unless you can deal with using Linux as your daily driver desktop OS. I have tried many times and have never succeeded, but if it gets bad enough I may have to find a way eventually.
    • drawingthesun 4y ago
      I would rather go back to cheaper computers and phones and deal with ads than pay for extremely premium products and get ads. I feel like an idiot buying a $7,000 aud computer to have the native apps contain ads. It's disgusting.
      • grapescheesee 4y ago
        For an addition $1,000 you can purchase a lifetime ad-free option for this laptop. (Apple ID specific and nontransferable). Made in jest, but oddly nearing reality.
        • rchaud 4y ago
• northerdome 4y ago
  I remember Steve Jobs explicitly forgoing ads for iCloud during his last keynote in 2011. So sad to see where Apple is today. https://youtu.be/KTrO2wUxh0Q?t=412 https://youtu.be/KTrO2wUxh0Q?t=412 > We build products that we want for ourselves, too, and we just don't want ads.
• thr0wawayf00 4y ago
  I have very mixed feelings about all of this. Obviously, it's disappointing news to see. But at the same time, it's hard to be surprised. Let's be honest here, the internet runs on ads, full stop. I have no concrete data but if you were take an aggregate of tech workers whose salary is made either fully or partially on ad revenue either directly by their employer OR customers, it would have to be a significant percentage, right? I'm not gonna guess but it's gotta be significant. Hell, FAANG alone is tremendously ad-driven, and those are largely considered the most prestigious jobs in the industry. If you've spent 10 years working in tech, what are the chances that you've never taken a dollar that was earned through an online ad? Maybe I'm overly cynical here and I'm no Apple cheerleader here, but we see this same pattern emerge over and over and over again. Companies have to grow or else. That's always been the game, how did we honestly think it would go any other way than this?
  • CydeWeys 4y ago
    "Everyone does it" isn't a good excuse, particularly because it's not true. I've never worked on an ad-funded product in my entire career. Every product I've ever worked on is funded through customers paying for said product. So, to the extent that doing so makes you feel guilty, rather than excusing it based on others' complacency, simply stop.
    • thr0wawayf00 4y ago
      Perhaps you haven't, but what are your customers doing? Even if you're not directly building ad products, you're likely not far removed from the businesses that are. I'm not trying to make an excuses here, I'm simply pointing out that the entire foundation of the internet economy is built on the premise that what you do on the network can and should be tracked for profit, and to complain about one of the wealthiest companies on the planet finally in the game demonstrates naivety. Business does not care about morals, business cares about making money. That is how businesses are incentivized to behave. There's no legitimate counteracting force (sorry but individuals angrily venting frustration on an internet forum is not a threat to their business) to motivate Apple to behave any differently. They know that they just need to keep providing a better service than the alternatives and as long as the ads are slightly less crappy than Android, people aren't going to leave Apple. Argue right or wrong all you want, but this is the reality.
• deleted 4y ago
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• Sporktacular 4y ago
  I'm ready to criticise Apple for this, but with all the relevant permissions turned off, is Apple actively tracking users? Is it just a bad as FB/Google?
  • Tijdreiziger 4y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33075319 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33075319
    • Sporktacular 4y ago
      It's an interesting link, but it refers to data sent when initialising and interacting with the phone. It's not the same thing as tracking (as in over time) individual users' purchasing habits for advertising.
      • Tijdreiziger 4y ago
        That's true; unfortunately, I'm not aware of any research in that area, so studies like these are the best we have when it comes to privacy. If anyone knows of any studies into tracking of individual users, please point me to it, I would be very interested in reading that.
• happyopossum 4y ago
  > For years, Apple has been running ads for hundreds of third-party apps across social media and other platforms so that users would download apps from its store and not from developers’ websites Errr, what? AFAIK Apple has never run ads for 3rd party apps outside of its own App Store , and what’s this no sets out downloading apps from a developer’s website? They all come from the App Store (note, the article is specifically talking about mobile app advertising at this point).
• deleted 4y ago
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• zmmmmm 4y ago
  So we start to see a glimmer of the real strategy - was it truly about protecting user's privacy or actually about monopolizing that privacy - establishing a moat around it so that only Apple could extract the value? The problem is these strategies are indistinguishable until Apple decides to start the value extraction phase. But now we can start to see it beginning we can guess which one is the real underlying story in play and it doesn't look good.
  • deleted 4y ago
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• stereoradonc 4y ago
  I remember Apple never communicating about its intentions clearly around its advertisement business. It was clear at the outset that its App Store business is lucrative (with all the details of its users). Will it kill the golden goose (aka consumers)? Most users have no real alternatives.
  • xuki 4y ago
    Apple saw Facebook making bank from app installation ads and decided they want a piece of that. Nothing has changed for the consumers.
• deleted 4y ago
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• Paraesthetic 4y ago
  I'm just waiting for the antitrust to start.
• kmlben65 4y ago
  so what? as long as there's no legaslation that "give data or leave" is explicitly prohibited it would happen with any social network service. everyone does that. adguard is not epic games, nothing gonna happen. and even more than that - cdns/antiddos gather more data that usually not directly available to social networks because clicks doesnt originate from tracked pages.