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What the difference between Meta's tracking pixel and Apple's IDFA?

95014_refugee 3y ago
Meta wants to know everything it can about you because other people will pay them for the information. Apple doesn’t. It’s really that simple.
- Timber-6539 3y ago
  To my knowledge, Apple has not invented a new form of advertising that works without tracking users.
  - kaba0 3y ago
    I’m fairly sure there are many forms of advertisement that works without tracking.. like a billboard. Displaying an ad next to search results based on the search query for example is similarly benign.
    - Timber-6539 3y ago
      Sure. But Apple didn't invent billboards and you can be rest assured it (billboard advertising) is never coming up in an iOS update in the future! Enough with carrying water for a megacorp that makes money from selling advertising services.
      - kaba0 3y ago
        I am no bootlicker for any corp, but I do value and appreciate Apple’s focus on privacy, and I think that many criticisms of it is just nitpicky and doesn’t help anyone (e.g. calling that buy icloud service label an ad..). On the other hand, I very much await sideloading to be forced out of Apple by the EU.
        FireBeyond 3y ago
        > I am no bootlicker for any corp, but I do value and appreciate Apple’s focus on privacy, and I think that many criticisms of it is just nitpicky and doesn’t help anyone (e.g. calling that buy icloud service label an ad..). Many of the same people who see no issue with this mock and insult Microsoft for promoting Edge etc., in Windows. And will pretzel themselves into explaining how "that's different".
        lern_too_spel 3y ago
        > I think that many criticisms of it is just nitpicky and doesn’t help anyone This is true, but many criticisms are valid. Apple News is user-tracking adware that cannot be uninstalled on MacOS. You cannot install an app on any of the iDevices without telling Apple. You cannot get your GPS location on an iDevice without telling Apple. Apple is spending considerable resources growing their ad business, so expect this to grow worse over time; and combined with Apple's inclination to deny user control, there is no way to opt out without opting out entirely of iDevices.
        zie 3y ago
        Meanwhile, the only competitor(Google's Android) tracks everything you do everywhere. So Apple's privacy perspective is way better than Android's. Could it be better? Of course, and I'm fine with trying to pressure them to do more for protecting our privacy, but between the 2, it's not even close, Apple is WAY more private with your data than Google will ever be.
        lern_too_spel 3y ago
        > Meanwhile, the only competitor(Google's Android) tracks everything you do everywhere. The difference is you can avoid the tracking easily. This is a direct result of prioritizing user control. You can install apps without telling anybody, you can get your GPS location without telling anybody, and so on. Apple, by denying user control, makes privacy worse for users who care, and it will only get worse as Apple ramps up its services business.
    - charcircuit 3y ago
      >that works without tracking.. like a billboard. Billboards still require tracking. If you had the option of putting a billboard up in 1 of 2 neighborhoods and it would get 10k impressions in either location which one would you choose? The optimal strategy is not to pick randomly. The optimal strategy is to predict the conversion rate of both locations. In order to do that you need to investigate who is likely to see your billboard and learn about their interests to see if they would be likely to be interested.
      - cromd 3y ago
        Couldn't one say the same of any brick and mortar store? If a shoe store is going to open in my neighborhood, for example, how much data do they need for it to be optimally located? I guess they could seek out the online browsing history of all the friends of all the people living within 1 mile from the shoe store and analyze it. I don't doubt that billboards are placed with some careful thought, but tracking is certainly not "required" - some aggregate stats about an area should work, especially as there isn't much feedback on who saw the billboard and bought a product etc.
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        > Billboards still require tracking. What billboard is tracking individuals?
        Xorakios 3y ago
        Smart billboards available through Gannett (largest billboard company in US) and track license plate numbers. I used them in Florida until they were banned in 2020. Billboards that identify car types are still legal AFAIK. https://www.bmediagroup.com/news/vehicle-recognition-billboards/ https://www.bmediagroup.com/news/vehicle-recognition-billboa...
      - kaba0 3y ago
        tracking: the act or process of following something or someone I haven't seen a billboard that would follow me around before. Placing them at popular location depends on existing data (or often just plain-ass thinking, like obviously a hub in the middle of the town will have more people see it compared to the middle of nowhere), and only very very indirectly generates any sort of new data (e.g. if you only place a single ad in a specific place and can correlate that placement with an increase in product sales.. but that is thoroughly unrealistic and I only write it to be nitpicky with myself).
  - hedora 3y ago
    They are called “display ads”. Apple did not invent them. If your site produces above average content, then display ads are likely more profitable then keyword ads, since they target high quality ad real estate instead of high value eyeballs.
hedora 3y ago
From the top hit for IDFA (the wikipedia article): > Starting in iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5, and tvOS 14.5, users are prompted to decide whether to opt-in or out of IDFA sharing before apps can query it. This choice can be altered in Settings.[2][3] In May, 2021, Verizon-owned advertisement analytics company Flurry Analytics reported that 96% of US users opted out of IDFA sharing.[4]
- Timber-6539 3y ago
  It's by default opt-out and am pretty sure the prompt doesn't apply for Apple's own apps. And since you brought out the opt-out option, one can also block Facebook's trackers through uBlock and/or DNS filters. The defaults are what matters. From the same Wikipedia article, > Users can opt-out of IDFA via the "Limit Ad Tracking" (LAT) setting (and an estimated 20% do). 80% users never change the defaults.
  - isodev 3y ago
    On iOS tracking and access to personal information is always opt-in. It’s literally a modal alert asking if you want to give permission when an app requests to access the IDFA for the first time. Apple’s own apps don’t need to display the prompt because as per their privacy policy they don’t collect or use information for tracking purposes (which is also visible in the privacy labels of their apps in the App Store).
    - Timber-6539 3y ago
      > Apple’s own apps don’t need to display the prompt because as per their privacy policy they don’t collect or use information for tracking purposes (which is also visible in the privacy labels of their apps in the App Store). This is the privacy policy [0] of an example of their app, Apple News. I quote: "Advertising In order to deliver great content to you from leading publishers, Apple News is ad supported. If the Personalized Ads setting is on, Apple’s advertising platform may use information about your account, the topics and categories of stories you read, and publications you follow, subscribe to, or turn on notifications for to serve ads that are more relevant to you. We may also use information about your subscriptions to personalize your ads on the App Store." [0] https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-news/ https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-news/
isodev 3y ago
The IDFA on iOS is a random device identifier and not tied to your identity. It would allow an advertiser to correlate that it’s the same device that has installed several apps, nothing more. It also resets in certain situations. Facebook on the other hand, creates a grand central repository of everything there is to know about you and sells it to whoever wants to pay. Just like Google.
- halostatue 3y ago
  The IDFA is also unique per developer, if not per app.
- cscurmudgeon 3y ago
  Neither Google or Facebook sell your data. If you get technical, be thorough.

Meta wants to know everything it can about you because other people will pay them for the information. Apple doesn’t. It’s really that simple.

Timber-6539 3y ago
To my knowledge, Apple has not invented a new form of advertising that works without tracking users.
- kaba0 3y ago
  I’m fairly sure there are many forms of advertisement that works without tracking.. like a billboard. Displaying an ad next to search results based on the search query for example is similarly benign.
  - Timber-6539 3y ago
    Sure. But Apple didn't invent billboards and you can be rest assured it (billboard advertising) is never coming up in an iOS update in the future! Enough with carrying water for a megacorp that makes money from selling advertising services.
    - kaba0 3y ago
      I am no bootlicker for any corp, but I do value and appreciate Apple’s focus on privacy, and I think that many criticisms of it is just nitpicky and doesn’t help anyone (e.g. calling that buy icloud service label an ad..). On the other hand, I very much await sideloading to be forced out of Apple by the EU.
      - FireBeyond 3y ago
        > I am no bootlicker for any corp, but I do value and appreciate Apple’s focus on privacy, and I think that many criticisms of it is just nitpicky and doesn’t help anyone (e.g. calling that buy icloud service label an ad..). Many of the same people who see no issue with this mock and insult Microsoft for promoting Edge etc., in Windows. And will pretzel themselves into explaining how "that's different".
      - lern_too_spel 3y ago
        > I think that many criticisms of it is just nitpicky and doesn’t help anyone This is true, but many criticisms are valid. Apple News is user-tracking adware that cannot be uninstalled on MacOS. You cannot install an app on any of the iDevices without telling Apple. You cannot get your GPS location on an iDevice without telling Apple. Apple is spending considerable resources growing their ad business, so expect this to grow worse over time; and combined with Apple's inclination to deny user control, there is no way to opt out without opting out entirely of iDevices.
        zie 3y ago
        Meanwhile, the only competitor(Google's Android) tracks everything you do everywhere. So Apple's privacy perspective is way better than Android's. Could it be better? Of course, and I'm fine with trying to pressure them to do more for protecting our privacy, but between the 2, it's not even close, Apple is WAY more private with your data than Google will ever be.
        lern_too_spel 3y ago
        > Meanwhile, the only competitor(Google's Android) tracks everything you do everywhere. The difference is you can avoid the tracking easily. This is a direct result of prioritizing user control. You can install apps without telling anybody, you can get your GPS location without telling anybody, and so on. Apple, by denying user control, makes privacy worse for users who care, and it will only get worse as Apple ramps up its services business.
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    >that works without tracking.. like a billboard. Billboards still require tracking. If you had the option of putting a billboard up in 1 of 2 neighborhoods and it would get 10k impressions in either location which one would you choose? The optimal strategy is not to pick randomly. The optimal strategy is to predict the conversion rate of both locations. In order to do that you need to investigate who is likely to see your billboard and learn about their interests to see if they would be likely to be interested.
    - cromd 3y ago
      Couldn't one say the same of any brick and mortar store? If a shoe store is going to open in my neighborhood, for example, how much data do they need for it to be optimally located? I guess they could seek out the online browsing history of all the friends of all the people living within 1 mile from the shoe store and analyze it. I don't doubt that billboards are placed with some careful thought, but tracking is certainly not "required" - some aggregate stats about an area should work, especially as there isn't much feedback on who saw the billboard and bought a product etc.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      > Billboards still require tracking. What billboard is tracking individuals?
      - Xorakios 3y ago
        Smart billboards available through Gannett (largest billboard company in US) and track license plate numbers. I used them in Florida until they were banned in 2020. Billboards that identify car types are still legal AFAIK. https://www.bmediagroup.com/news/vehicle-recognition-billboards/ https://www.bmediagroup.com/news/vehicle-recognition-billboa...
    - kaba0 3y ago
      tracking: the act or process of following something or someone I haven't seen a billboard that would follow me around before. Placing them at popular location depends on existing data (or often just plain-ass thinking, like obviously a hub in the middle of the town will have more people see it compared to the middle of nowhere), and only very very indirectly generates any sort of new data (e.g. if you only place a single ad in a specific place and can correlate that placement with an increase in product sales.. but that is thoroughly unrealistic and I only write it to be nitpicky with myself).
- hedora 3y ago
  They are called “display ads”. Apple did not invent them. If your site produces above average content, then display ads are likely more profitable then keyword ads, since they target high quality ad real estate instead of high value eyeballs.

hedora 3y ago

From the top hit for IDFA (the wikipedia article): > Starting in iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5, and tvOS 14.5, users are prompted to decide whether to opt-in or out of IDFA sharing before apps can query it. This choice can be altered in Settings.[2][3] In May, 2021, Verizon-owned advertisement analytics company Flurry Analytics reported that 96% of US users opted out of IDFA sharing.[4]

Timber-6539 3y ago
It's by default opt-out and am pretty sure the prompt doesn't apply for Apple's own apps. And since you brought out the opt-out option, one can also block Facebook's trackers through uBlock and/or DNS filters. The defaults are what matters. From the same Wikipedia article, > Users can opt-out of IDFA via the "Limit Ad Tracking" (LAT) setting (and an estimated 20% do). 80% users never change the defaults.
- isodev 3y ago
  On iOS tracking and access to personal information is always opt-in. It’s literally a modal alert asking if you want to give permission when an app requests to access the IDFA for the first time. Apple’s own apps don’t need to display the prompt because as per their privacy policy they don’t collect or use information for tracking purposes (which is also visible in the privacy labels of their apps in the App Store).
  - Timber-6539 3y ago
    > Apple’s own apps don’t need to display the prompt because as per their privacy policy they don’t collect or use information for tracking purposes (which is also visible in the privacy labels of their apps in the App Store). This is the privacy policy [0] of an example of their app, Apple News. I quote: "Advertising In order to deliver great content to you from leading publishers, Apple News is ad supported. If the Personalized Ads setting is on, Apple’s advertising platform may use information about your account, the topics and categories of stories you read, and publications you follow, subscribe to, or turn on notifications for to serve ads that are more relevant to you. We may also use information about your subscriptions to personalize your ads on the App Store." [0] https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-news/ https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-news/

isodev 3y ago

The IDFA on iOS is a random device identifier and not tied to your identity. It would allow an advertiser to correlate that it’s the same device that has installed several apps, nothing more. It also resets in certain situations. Facebook on the other hand, creates a grand central repository of everything there is to know about you and sells it to whoever wants to pay. Just like Google.

halostatue 3y ago
The IDFA is also unique per developer, if not per app.
cscurmudgeon 3y ago
Neither Google or Facebook sell your data. If you get technical, be thorough.