Apple: Rotate tracking IDs on iPhone each month
foundation.mozilla.org
foundation.mozilla.org
Ugh, if you're an advocate for privacy, please don't perpetuate the delusion that users actually want "relevant" ads, or that these ids are solely used for that purpose.
Everyone always wants to believe they're above this. You're not, ads work.
Then instagram started showing me ads for small live music events featuring artists I regularly listen to.
I thought I was somehow above it all, but they just hadn't targeted me well enough yet.
And then you by accident open web in browser without necessary ad-blockers and want to run away from the horrible pathetic mess a lot of internet became.
Its easy - have you ever bought anything via ad? If yes, you support this industry and current state of affairs.
You are definitely influenced by ads.
Is it that ads are working -- against you?
What exactly do you think all these companies want with all this tracking data if not to sell you products with ads?
Sayings it's not rational is not an argument against whether it works.
edit: should have just read a few of the replies
Makes you wonder what all the people around here who dreamed of and/or do work for Google/Facebook are doing with their lives. Saving the world, I guess.
Fashion magazines are basically vehicles for ads. Even if you exclude sponsored content, a major draw of such magazines are the full page ads.
Secondly, Mozilla are not blind to the idea that tracking won't go away completely.
The unwanted side effect of that is probably the little greedy voice inside people that causes them to buy even more things they don’t need because all of the dressing up made it sound appealing.
However, ads when I'm not looking for them can just fuck right off.
The same went for the gaming magazines (White Dwarf particularly). Even the ads that were just price lists were fascinating, just to see what was available to go and check out on the next trip to a games store.
It was probably about 95% ads and just a few articles. Before comparison price sites it was a good way to find cheap prices for computer parts
Trust me, there's a market for people who want ads.
Because that's what 'relevant ads' usually means in contexts talking about ad blockers.
It's kinda shocking, but if you talk to non techncial people, they just accept adverts as a fact of life and actually quite like it when they show them things they like.
Hell, those "You looked at this item on our website last week, do you still want it?" adverts are incredibly successful. My company does them and they have (for adverts) a fantastic conversion rate.
I'm just leaving enough data to support my assertion because I'm tired of this meme that "nobody looks at ads" or "all ads are bad".
I also deliberately do not use any ad blocking even though I know they exist and would save me bandwidth because I do get value from personalized ads.
> a dog carrier backpack ... from a Facebook ad that I got while browsing a dog owner Facebook group
That’s not a personalised ad. That’s just an ad. (I.e. it doesn’t need tracking)
But the rest of your (masochistic ;P ) point stands.
They actively decrease the experience of everything one does (block the view around the road, forces loud delays into movies, takes space and are absolute nuisance almost anywhere on the web).
I don't hate them, just actively ignore them even if there would be a genuine new porsche being offered for $1. If you want to reach me anyhow, ads are the worst possible way. And I am not alone.
For example, this was a pretty damning research paper on the topic,
- https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=0180870830661140...
[1] http://www.davidreiley.com/papers/DoesRetailAdvertisingWork....
[1]: https://marketing.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/...
I think you’re confused. I’m not disputing whether ads create positive lift in intermediate metrics like visits, clicks or sales.
I’m saying the research pretty conclusively shows that despite that created positive lift in intermediate metrics, it does not translate to positive ROI, or a weaker version is that it may create positive ROI but on average marketing campaigns even from the country’s biggest marketers would need to be 10x-1000x larger than they are to even be able to distinguish such wildly incompatible outcomes as +100% ROI vs -50% ROI, to the point that for most companies buying digital ads, they literally have no idea if they are making money or losing money by doing so.
How is this not positive ROI?
Vessi shoes. Fully waterproof shoe (I've literally walked into a pool with them) but breathable with a nano-fabric that has holes too small for water molecules but big enough for air/steam. (Supposedly, though H2O sounds like a pretty small molecule so I'm not sure if there's more to it than just size, perhaps viscousness.)
* One huge video ad for a home decoration magazine (I could not care less)
* One animating ad for car loans (no interesting in that)
* One animating flash ad for payday loans (actively hate these)
* One static banner ad for a gas grill (no interest, just got a new one last summer)
These do not seem to be particularly tailored to me, and definitely are not tailored to the content I've chosen to view. They're on the main page of the site. This is why I use ad blockers. Browsing the web without one is agonizing. Also the reason I don't really watch TV anymore, the ads put me off. Maybe I'm in the minority, but it sure seems to me like this minority is growing.
Wouldn't a good compromise be to deliver ads that are relevant to the content I'm viewing, instead of ads tailored to my profile? Search ads, for example, are quite fine in my book, as long as they match my immediate search history instead of a personal profile secretly built over a long time.
You can find out:
has a tool that shows you what data BlueKai/Oracle have on you (or any of their third-party branded and unbranded data suppliers).
> I'd like to keep it that way. I feel that keeping a permanent profile on my interests without my consent is wrong, and I take measures against anyone easily building such a profile on me.
That's why we have (and should have) the GDPR.
These cookie countermeasures are annoying for application developers...
> Wouldn't a good compromise be to deliver ads that are relevant to the content I'm viewing
Yes. These are context-sensitive ads and they're by-far the most common.
Re: payday loans, I'd guess no one who uses those expected to use them until they did. Not that you ever will. But the point is, your reaction doesn't mean their targeting formula is wrong.
Much of advertising is about building subtle positive associations in people's minds and/or leaving a seed for them to remember when the time comes. Other advertising is like the dog carrier mentioned above -- a specific product and not a brand.
It gets confusing when all advertising is lumped in together in discussions about whether it's "relevant" or not.
Finally a lot of advertising is about keeping brand loyalty for current customers -- make them feel good about their choice so they keep making it.
I make the assumption that advertisers are both smarter than me and understand the human mind better than me.
Same with youtube's recommendations. At this point over half the recommendations are almost entirely irrelevant to what I'm watching, and usually only have a vague connection to something I once watched, except for the ones I'd actually already watched.
That said, if you believe in the wisdom of the crowds, it's at least highly suggestive that the per-impression price of personalized ads tends to be a fair bit lower than that of non-personalized ads. That would seem to imply that the market has come to believe that personalization is less effective than other forms of targeting. Or perhaps that it's most effective for campaigns that, for whatever reason, are expected to be low-payoff.
[1]: http://www.davidreiley.com/papers/DoesRetailAdvertisingWork....
The real issue is choice. I personally choose privacy over personalisation. I also understand that businesses need revenue - so I pay for e.g. email rather than using an ad-supported service.
My issue is that I can't choose privacy. I've taken reasonable steps to make it difficult for Google, Facebook at al (ad blockers, pihole, etc.). But I'm realistic to know it's an up hill struggle. I've never had a Facebook account (nor instagram/whatsapp) but I know I'll exist as a shadow profile.
Whether ads are good or bad; whether they're personalised or not, and if so how, isn't the fundamental issue. I've no issue with those that do want personalisation (assuming they understand the consequences obviously). The issue is that I can't choose. And everything G/FB/etc are doing is focused on building ever more walled gardens, so it becomes ever more difficult to exist outside them.
2) Apps are reviewed, there are no workarounds and there is no need to when there is a sanctioned API that does exactly what is necessary.
> easily convince the accounts they're more efficient than indiscriminate advertising via TV and other channels where you can't profile the customer
Does anyone know of any studies here? That is: is there demonstrably better return on "personalised" ads vs. contextualised?
I don't expect Google/Facebook would publish anything other than support for the former. I'd love to think there was some evidence to suggest they're selling snake oil. That may be wishful thinking, but worth asking anyway.
Exactly. I had to disable YouTube Watch History and YouTube Search History [1] for it to stop "recommending" utterly irrelevant videos to the one I'm watching. It still manages to put "related" videos into the middle of search results that have nothing to do with the actual search.
I have to prune out a shitty clickbait video from them every couple of weeks, but it almost always gives me videos I'm either interested in or are close enough to what I'm interested in that it's not irritating.
"Do I really need that dog backpack? How many times will I ever use it? Would I actually have needed it if I didn't know it existed in first place?"
This seems really short sighted. Why wouldn't folks prefer relevant ads? I certainly do.
More relevant ads = more money = better free services for you.
Would you rather you be forced to watch C.O.P.D medication pre roll ads and ads for meselthelioma ?
There is no gain or advantage in irrelevance.
All ads are irrelevant. If they weren't, they would be part of the content itself. Or the entire content is an ad, and it can be ignored.
>> All ads are irrelevant. If they weren't, they would be part of the content itself.
Relevancy has multiple factors, including contextually relevant to the content you are viewing.
At this point, I trust Apple more than I trust the Mozilla Foundation or the Mozilla Project (the bar is quite low for Apple). The Free Software / "Open Source" community has a critical problem with project supporting organizations pushing for things that undermine privacy, security and freedom to make a little bit of cash. If we don't address these issues now, it might not be possible to fix them in the near future.
[1] Mozilla Information Trust Initiative : http://archive.is/jcJWg
[2] For those who say : "you can turn these things off", this is not an excuse! Telling a new user that they have to fiddle with `about:config` settings out of the box is not acceptable.
The telemetry is opt-in, the setting pops up once on first run. Ads are not tracking, you may disagree with their very existence, but they're not a privacy concern. Calling studies "malware" is just disingenuous. I don't see what MITI has anything to do with the rest. DRM does suck, but _not_ having it would be literal popular suicide, and in the current browser landscape, would literally mean letting Chromium take over even more than it already does.
now what eventually will have be settled is that many sites have adopted the policy of blocking items in turn prohibits use of the site at all. this is the battle I am curious how it will pan out. currently most can be avoided by turning javascript off but someone will find other means to test
It is not "opt-in". The popup tells you to change those settings and if you don't do anything, it is on. Just by unchecking the box in settings does not turn off all telemetry.
> Calling studies "malware" is just disingenuous.
I guess you don't remember the "Mr.Robot" incident[1] that we were not suppose to know about and many did not consent? Pushing an update with "Studies" enabled by default and then pushing this malicious software is not consent!
> I don't see what MITI has anything to do with the rest.
Mozilla* is not in a position to be calling out other companies when they themselves are guilty of doing the exact same things.
[1] https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/16/firefox-mr-robot-extensi...
That was not malware. I will explain this a thousand times if I have to. If you didn't manually configure its secret setting, it did literally nothing.
> Malicious computer software that interferes with normal computer functions or sends personal data about the user to unauthorized parties over the Internet.
Taking up a couple KBs of space to do nothing is not even comparable. From a moral standpoint, was it okay from them to install that extension on people's computers? No. Was it malware? No.
[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=define+malware&t=h_&ia=definition
Uh huh.
> MITI[1] (Ministry of Truth)
"Coral is a Mozilla project that builds open-source tools to make digital journalism more inclusive and more engaging."
"Mozilla will develop a web literacy curriculum that addresses misinformation, and will continue investing in existing projects like the Mission: Information teaching kit."
"Later this year, Mozilla will be releasing original research on how misinformation impacts users’ experiences online."
"Imagine: an augmented reality web app that uses data visualization to investigate misinformation’s impact on Internet health. Or, a virtual reality experience that takes users through the history of misinformation online."
Terrifying, really. They want to make an ~educational pamphlet~.
> DRM (EME)
Very reluctantly joining other browsers is 'pushing'?
Cherrypick much?
> Mozilla’s Open Innovation team will work with like-minded technologists and artists to develop technology that combats misinformation.
Goes hand in hand with:
> ...cognitive bias, belief echos, and algorithmic filter bubbles.
> Mozilla will partner with global media organizations to do this, and also double down on our existing product work in the space, like Pocket...
I would have less of an issue with this if traditional media organizations where less bias and publicly retracted stories or incorrect information. It seems that, in modern times, the bar for what counts as real journalism is quite low and breaks down when journalists and media organizations won't admit when they are wrong. Mozilla is also a bias organization since Brendan Eich was forced to resign[1] just because he donated his own money to an unfavorable organization. As a gay man, I don't want to live in a world where people are not allowed to express how or why they feel a certain way about a given topic. Mozilla* is not the right organization/company/project to combat the problem of "fake news" or assert that they are.
With the long laundry list of issues with Mozilla, they are not* in any position to take the moral high ground when it comes to the issue at hand (tracking/telemetry) or in the case of being the gatekeeper of the truth.
.. > Very reluctantly joining other browsers is 'pushing'?
They were in a position to say no but they always seem to take the "everyone else should stop doing this thing except for us" route. The choice they made sure did not help their market share in any way (since that is what many argue).
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mozilla-ceo-resignation/m...
And I wasn't happy with the EME decision but how the web goes there is almost entirely chrome's fault at this point.
> telemetry
is not tracking. please think about this rather than outrightly dismissing it.
> ADs
Ads are a legitimate way of making money on the Internet. I don't like them, but many services we use online are available because of them. Google is what it is because of Ad revenue. Firefox needs ads, there is no other way of surviving. It is laudable however that they are leading the movement in making ads transparent and building a framework of not having intrusive ads.
> malware
This is laughably innacurate. Mr. Robot was a terrible mistake, but it was not malware. Neither does Moz peddle actual malware.
> MITI
what does that have to with any of the above? Also the EU and many other orgs are thinking about the same thing. The Internet is new and we need to think about controlling the spread of misinformation. I'm going to make the best assumptions about you, so I'm hoping you can see why experiments in that realm can be advantageous.
> DRM
Again, a necessity. You cannot watch most news online without DRM. Supporting DRM is not the same as campaigning for DRM, which brings me to the biggest surprise I found in your comment of all the others...
> I trust Apple more than I trust the Mozilla Foundation or the Mozilla Project
...seriously? Apple? Apple is your privacy company? And you were just complaining about telemetry and pushing updates and DRM. Ugh.
When low information people use subjective words like NEW and NEED it's clear that they are spreading misinformation. So, your comment IS misinformation as the internet doesn't "NEED" to be controlled. If it does, I propose we start by censoring you.
My Original comment:
> At this point, I trust Apple more than I trust the Mozilla Foundation or the Mozilla Project (the bar is quite low for Apple).
Way to take things out of context ;)
> what does that have to with any of the above? Also the EU and many other orgs are thinking about the same thing. The Internet is new and we need to think about controlling the spread of misinformation. I'm going to make the best assumptions about you, so I'm hoping you can see why experiments in that realm can be advantageous.
I guess maybe you should look into the black mirror before you think about censoring others (I guess you are in favor of speech for me and not for thee). You already spread misinformation with the redaction of my original comment.
> DRM >> Again, a necessity. You cannot watch most news online without DRM. Supporting DRM is not the same as campaigning for DRM, which brings me to the biggest surprise I found in your comment of all the others...
More false information being spewed. I have never been prompted to install the DRM plugin on any (mainstream) news site that I've visited. Point me to just one.
I don't trust Apple, either — they seek to pull everyone into their walled garden and don't respect their users' freedom.
Instead of rotating they should just do away with it; it's not like this functionality is to their users benefit.
Screen recording sounds suspicous and even illegal in some jurisdictions. For example, if an app records my screen while I get an incoming iMessage, I can easily argue that being a GDPR violation.
"In an email, an Apple spokesperson said: “Protecting user privacy is paramount in the Apple ecosystem. Our App Store Review Guidelines require that apps request explicit user consent and provide a clear visual indication when recording, logging, or otherwise making a record of user activity.”
“We have notified the developers that are in violation of these strict privacy terms and guidelines, and will take immediate action if necessary,” the spokesperson added.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/07/apple-glassbox-apps/
In my opinion, unauthorized processing of email addresses or credit cards or other personal information is also a clear violation of the GDPR in the EU. Of course there might be shady companies who willingly tries to break the law, but that is business as usual for law enforcement.
Same for websites. It makes sense for development, however, it remains turned on in most apps. And at least under iOS, there is no actual ad / tracking blocking available for, well, against apps.
Which makes Apple's Ad-ID redundant in addition to useless.
They're in a position to say 'you must use our Ad-ID, and if you don't and we detect you tracking users by other means, then your app will be rejected'.
And as it happens, that's what they do, when they introduced IDFA they started rejecting apps that use other tracking heuristics, including the old UDID system.
Remember that Apple does in fact wield a level of coercive control here. They can ban any app or entire developer they wish at any time. But they do want a solid amount of development going on overall, despite individual exceptions. So just like a real world legal system, there's a dynamic set of cost/tradeoff equations, and practicality/reasonableness really matters. If Apple provides nothing and insists on nothing, the economic incentive to either cheat or simply leave entirely may move to near-requirement for too many developers. If Apple left it as "do whatever" and then slowly added requirements, it's still much harder to police and drive solutions that compromise best.
Offering something official that is less effective then the previous ones but still of enough use to be valuable and also has the advantage of official support and sanction, then blacklisting anything else raising the economic risk, is a fairly tried and true strategy that can be reasonably effective overall. Cheating is disincentivized for those who are legitimate and the search space is reduced, making it turn easier to further enforce. Apple's exact compromise could use more tweaks from the sound of it and evolve better, but the basic concept of "better to have someone troublesome inside the tent pissing out then outside the tent pissing in" seems to apply here too doesn't it?
Furthermore if many users are also more alright with it that too by itself can be a positive, preventing an arms war. Sometimes situations like these can fall into a vicious spiral left on their own: there could be many devs or even advertisers who would prefer to go with less obnoxious and creepy practices, in turn provoking absolute counter attacks, but can't disengage unilaterally when their competitors don't think as long term. Having a higher entity step in and force uniformity won't even make them all unhappy.
They also provide the ability to turn it off (set the ID to all 0s) for people like me who spend a little bit of effort to avoid ads.
If you are in one group stop pretending the other doesn’t exist. (Also more generally applicable life advice)
I'd argue your friend would be better off not being tracked and just Googling bass guitars whenever he feels the need.
Let's not pretend ads provide any benefit to humans, they manipulate us psychologically with the intent to part us from our hard earned money. In addition, they often drain our batteries at extreme rates and can contain malware and or lead to outright scams.
Your counterpoint to this is you know a guy who likes to see new bass guitars?
If you're served an ad for something you genuinely like and will use it benefits you. If you're able to bring a user to your service/product that will engage/purchase it benefits you.
I don't trust any of their ideas on protecting your privacy just as I don't trust a fox to guard a hen house.
Some people argue for tougher regulation and laws-- sometimes regulations have resulted in solidifying hegemony of established players (telecom industry, for instance), and laws have worsened the situation when government has its skin in the game (key disclosure laws, for instance).
Can't leave it up to the free markets either, but, they seem to get things right. Privacy oriented alternatives to existing tech today are facing a hard battle given the growth opportunities they leave on the table. I guess, we are poised for a tech breakthrough that'd settle it in favour of the users [1]: I hope when WASM goes non-web and cross platform, all kinds of apps are compiled to WASM and something like uBlockOrigin would simply shut all the trackers down on all platforms at the application layer. Of course, there are problems at other layers, for instance baseband on mobile phones that are known to track location, and ISPs that keep tabs on traffic flowing through their pipes...
[0] https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-shirky-prin/
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullrun_(decryption_program)
It’s not a perfect fix but adding a once a month calendar todo seems like a good short term fix for the privacy conscious.
You’ll end up getting a lot of ads for apps and services you potentially already own, which is the “downside”.
FWIW: Worked in mobile ad tech for five years so I know this space.
Thanks for the clarification.
I don't mind that. I usually get product recs from things like Wirecutter. I much prefer the model where a site I trust recommends a product, then get a referral bonus when I buy it on Amazon than tracking my web history to "nudge" me.
Since iOS can't let me use extensions, many of the tools I use to protect my privacy (adblocker, JS whitelisting, etc) aren't doable on iOS. So even small hacks like this are interesting to me.
I used one app that banned me arbitrarily by iPhone ID. I’d want to reset it
If we're going as far as to advocate cycling tracking IDs each month, that means that at each switch, we've lost our "relevant" ads until we rebuild them up. So why not go full on no tracking IDs?
With Apple pushing privacy as being the factor that separates them from their peers, I don't see why they wouldn't have privacy on by default in this area. Apple Ads are gone now, right? So no skin in the game?