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I think you're missing a key difference here, though: Apple is not selling that data to their advertisers. The key difference between Apple's privacy argument a

I think you're missing a key difference here, though: Apple is not selling that data to their advertisers. The key difference between Apple's privacy argument and others is that your data in the latter case is being sold to those advertisers along with the targeting. Apple, on the other hand, is using your data to personalize what you see but none of that information is sent to Apple and none of it is sold to third parties. All the personalization is being done on your devices and you can turn it off if you choose to so that you just see generic advertisements that everyone else sees. All together, I don't see how that makes Apple's trustworthiness weak in this space. In the current state of the internet, advertisement runs everything so they're still delivering on ads to their customers without selling your data or even giving those third parties a way to track you as an individual. That, to me, still equals privacy, at least as far as what Apple is saying.

FireBeyond 4y ago
If this is true I'd be genuinely surprised. Are you saying Apple's model is "Advertise through us. You'll get absolutely no feedback on the users who respond to your advertising. We will just send you a bill, 'x clicks * y cents/click'." Without arguing about whether it should or shouldn't be and the other deeper considerations, I can't see that as a compelling use of marketing dollars.
- NineStarPoint 4y ago
  There’s probably something to be said for targeting simply the group of people who are on apple devices, given they as a group tend to have higher disposable income. Marketers did their work without direct metrics for a long time, it’s not impossible. Apple would undoubtably not be able to charge as much as they could if they had those sorts of metrics to give, but there is a value proposition there.
- dkonofalski 4y ago
  No, I'm saying that Apple is promising advertisers aggregated data about their ad performance and people reached without ever handing over individualized data. Apple, like they do with all of their third-party services, is acting as the gatekeeper between users and advertisers/third parties. They're leveraging user trust in their brand/company to say "we'll provide you with data" to advertisers while being able to tell users "we don't share your individual data with third parties". It's the same reason they insist on Apple Pay being the only method of payment for apps within the app store. They don't want to lose user trust by allowing apps to collect payment information from users. Some people think they're doing it to take advantage of their position as the device manufacturer (not a stretch, in my opinion) but I think their consistency across all devices and platforms makes the argument that they are actually doing what they're claiming for the reasons they're stating.
  - LegitShady 4y ago
    facebook operates tbe same way you say apple does.
    - dkonofalski 4y ago
      They do now but only because they leaked a bunch of individual user data models in the past. Apple has always operated this way so there's nothing for someone to tie together. Facebook's position is basically useless when someone can recreate user data models for anyone that was on FB before the policy change.
      - super_flanker 4y ago
        and what about Google, never heard of any leaks from Google/Alphabet.
        dkonofalski 4y ago
        Google is currently in a lawsuit brought by several states in the US for tracking users without their consent because they continued to track users after people explicitly denied/disabled that tracking. While I did say "leak" in my original response related to Facebook, I think arguing that is a little pedantic since my point was that Google/Meta have a history that Apple does not. Google's history wasn't necessarily with leaking data but moreso collecting and selling data that they told users they weren't collecting/selling.
        jvolkman 4y ago
        What data did they sell?
  - tyfon 4y ago
    How is this different from what google and facebook does?
    - 4y ago
nicolashahn 4y ago
Meta is also not selling data to advertisers. Advertisers buy ads and Meta decides who sees them. Advertisers only find out who sees their ads once they click on them. https://www.facebook.com/privacy/policy/ https://www.facebook.com/privacy/policy/
- dkonofalski 4y ago
  Now. This is a policy change that was a direct result of the Cambridge Analytica leak. Cambridge explicitly used the cross-site and cross-app tracking to build the models that they sold to people/companies/governments.
  - p_j_w 4y ago
    >Now. Now is where we all live. The fact that it wasn't like that before doesn't matter THAT much.
    - nicolashahn 4y ago
      Meta has swung hard in the other direction. Now privacy reviews are so comprehensive that development speed is significantly hampered. Some teams say they're half as productive as they were before the privacy-first changes. Meta seriously does not want to make the same mistake again. Source: I'm an engineer at Meta.
      - dkonofalski 4y ago
        That's good to hear but it doesn't undo the reputational damage from the past. Even if Meta says they're privacy-conscious, I already don't trust them because they were willing to exploit it for gain and recently at that.
    - dkonofalski 4y ago
      This is not true at all. It matters from both a principle standpoint and also a data availability standpoint. If I tell you that I won't sell your location info to people starting today but I was selling it in the past, how difficult do you think it would be for someone to use that past information along with current information to figure out what your favorite restaurant is or where you work? It matters very much that a company only stops selling or tracking your info because they got caught or had a data breach. Look at Google right now. They're being sued by several states for tracking location info for people and then selling it to advertisers without those users' consent. It matters very much to me if Google is suddenly claiming that they're privacy conscious because their actions explicitly speak to the fact that they're not.
summerlight 4y ago
There has been some weird misunderstanding on the business models of ads network. They have zero incentive to sell user data to advertisers or whoever else. That data and model is the only meaningful difference between ad networks, advertisers and their potential competitors, beside of established infrastructures. You don't sell your strategic weapons to your enemy right? They may provides some targeting and contextual information for bidding, but given that many ad networks are moving to automated bidding systems I think this also will be gone eventually.
gigel82 4y ago
Microsoft has also never sold your data to advertisers. And yet I despise them for collecting my data and not giving me the option to turn that off. Apple is now doing exactly the same thing. So I despise both Apple and Microsoft equally. But hey, at least I can game on my Windows PCs, so...

FireBeyond 4y ago

If this is true I'd be genuinely surprised. Are you saying Apple's model is "Advertise through us. You'll get absolutely no feedback on the users who respond to your advertising. We will just send you a bill, 'x clicks * y cents/click'." Without arguing about whether it should or shouldn't be and the other deeper considerations, I can't see that as a compelling use of marketing dollars.

NineStarPoint 4y ago
There’s probably something to be said for targeting simply the group of people who are on apple devices, given they as a group tend to have higher disposable income. Marketers did their work without direct metrics for a long time, it’s not impossible. Apple would undoubtably not be able to charge as much as they could if they had those sorts of metrics to give, but there is a value proposition there.
dkonofalski 4y ago
No, I'm saying that Apple is promising advertisers aggregated data about their ad performance and people reached without ever handing over individualized data. Apple, like they do with all of their third-party services, is acting as the gatekeeper between users and advertisers/third parties. They're leveraging user trust in their brand/company to say "we'll provide you with data" to advertisers while being able to tell users "we don't share your individual data with third parties". It's the same reason they insist on Apple Pay being the only method of payment for apps within the app store. They don't want to lose user trust by allowing apps to collect payment information from users. Some people think they're doing it to take advantage of their position as the device manufacturer (not a stretch, in my opinion) but I think their consistency across all devices and platforms makes the argument that they are actually doing what they're claiming for the reasons they're stating.
- LegitShady 4y ago
  facebook operates tbe same way you say apple does.
  - dkonofalski 4y ago
    They do now but only because they leaked a bunch of individual user data models in the past. Apple has always operated this way so there's nothing for someone to tie together. Facebook's position is basically useless when someone can recreate user data models for anyone that was on FB before the policy change.
    - super_flanker 4y ago
      and what about Google, never heard of any leaks from Google/Alphabet.
      - dkonofalski 4y ago
        Google is currently in a lawsuit brought by several states in the US for tracking users without their consent because they continued to track users after people explicitly denied/disabled that tracking. While I did say "leak" in my original response related to Facebook, I think arguing that is a little pedantic since my point was that Google/Meta have a history that Apple does not. Google's history wasn't necessarily with leaking data but moreso collecting and selling data that they told users they weren't collecting/selling.
        jvolkman 4y ago
        What data did they sell?
- tyfon 4y ago
  How is this different from what google and facebook does?
  - 4y ago

nicolashahn 4y ago

Meta is also not selling data to advertisers. Advertisers buy ads and Meta decides who sees them. Advertisers only find out who sees their ads once they click on them. https://www.facebook.com/privacy/policy/ https://www.facebook.com/privacy/policy/

dkonofalski 4y ago
Now. This is a policy change that was a direct result of the Cambridge Analytica leak. Cambridge explicitly used the cross-site and cross-app tracking to build the models that they sold to people/companies/governments.
- p_j_w 4y ago
  >Now. Now is where we all live. The fact that it wasn't like that before doesn't matter THAT much.
  - nicolashahn 4y ago
    Meta has swung hard in the other direction. Now privacy reviews are so comprehensive that development speed is significantly hampered. Some teams say they're half as productive as they were before the privacy-first changes. Meta seriously does not want to make the same mistake again. Source: I'm an engineer at Meta.
    - dkonofalski 4y ago
      That's good to hear but it doesn't undo the reputational damage from the past. Even if Meta says they're privacy-conscious, I already don't trust them because they were willing to exploit it for gain and recently at that.
  - dkonofalski 4y ago
    This is not true at all. It matters from both a principle standpoint and also a data availability standpoint. If I tell you that I won't sell your location info to people starting today but I was selling it in the past, how difficult do you think it would be for someone to use that past information along with current information to figure out what your favorite restaurant is or where you work? It matters very much that a company only stops selling or tracking your info because they got caught or had a data breach. Look at Google right now. They're being sued by several states for tracking location info for people and then selling it to advertisers without those users' consent. It matters very much to me if Google is suddenly claiming that they're privacy conscious because their actions explicitly speak to the fact that they're not.

summerlight 4y ago

There has been some weird misunderstanding on the business models of ads network. They have zero incentive to sell user data to advertisers or whoever else. That data and model is the only meaningful difference between ad networks, advertisers and their potential competitors, beside of established infrastructures. You don't sell your strategic weapons to your enemy right? They may provides some targeting and contextual information for bidding, but given that many ad networks are moving to automated bidding systems I think this also will be gone eventually.

gigel82 4y ago

Microsoft has also never sold your data to advertisers. And yet I despise them for collecting my data and not giving me the option to turn that off. Apple is now doing exactly the same thing. So I despise both Apple and Microsoft equally. But hey, at least I can game on my Windows PCs, so...