Hacker News Reader

Comment by anaisbetts | Hacker News Reader

If this tweet is accurate, Apple's choices here are pretty hard to explain as anything but "leverage / abuse mobile phone monopoly to kneecap competitors", especially because nowhere in this document does it actually describe how this makes users' lives better in any concrete, specific way

https://mobile.twitter.com/Carnage4Life/status/1161779661644...

View on HN

> Google Analytics

Website analytics should not rely on cross-site tracking. Breaking any cross-site tracking ability of GA is unambiguously good for users.

> Google Ads conversion tracking

Apple already proposed a mechanism of privacy-protecting click attribution. If Google doesn't want to use that, it's because they don't respect your privacy. Again, unambiguously good for users.

> Using same login across different sites like Gmail & YouTube

The only way this is "broken" that I can see is the user has to log in separately to each site. Which seems fine to me. In fact, this is a good thing; just because I log into Gmail with one account doesn't mean that's what I want to use for YouTube.

I don't disagree with your note on cross-site analytics (though there are some in my mind valid use cases, such as tracking conversions when the payment process occurs on a separate domain), but the tracking policy is fairly vague as to the impact on single-site.

Our goal is not to break single-site analytics, and if it gets affected as an unintended consequence, we will try to come up with alternate solutions.

Noted--thanks for the reply, both here and to my other comment.

Also I thought that the way Google solves the shared login problem is that completing the login process on accounts.google.com redirects you to YouTube briefly (as a top-level navigation), which sets a first-party cookie for itself and sends you back to Google.

From the policy:

Interactions with other parties are considered third-party, even if the user is transiently informed in context (for example, in the form of a redirect). Merely hovering over, muting, pausing, or closing a given piece of content does not constitute an intention to interact.

and

Navigational tracking is tracking through information controlled by the source of a top-level navigation or a subresource load, transferred to the destination.

It sure sounds to me like Apple intends to block YouTube’s trick. Transiently redirecting to a domain to install a first-party cookie seems like an unambiguous attempt to circumvent third-party cookie restrictions.

That click tracking spec is useless for advertising at scale. It only supports up to 64 campaigns is what I remember as the worst offender, somewhere in my comment history is a bit more when I first read the spec.

It offers 6 bits of campaign ID with the intention that campaigns need to be bucketed. Maybe it could be a bit more, but if it was, like, 32 bits, it could be used as a user ID.

I find it easy to explain that Apple is not using a mobile phone monopoly to X, for any X, by virtue of the fact that Apple does not have a mobile phone monopoly, not even close.

If I want Google ad tracking on my phone, I have a bewilderingly large selection of Android phones to choose from, all of which run on the same mobile networks as my iPhone, work with the same Internet, and all of the apps I consider part of my mobile workflow, like my PagerDuty and my banking app, are available on Android as well as iOS.

I’d say it’s hard to use the words “monopoly” and “Apple” in the same sentence. They don’t have a monopoly in phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, wearables, streaming music, data storage, messaging, calendars, productivity apps, or anything else that I can think of.

I find it very easy to use "Apple" and "monopoly" in the same sentence.

Apple has been consistently making it harder to make money off iOS users without sharing that revenue with apple. Furthermore, they don't allow side loading of apps, their own apps have special api's that their competitors can't use, etc.

I could go on and on.

Luckily for this discussion, the word 'monopoly' has an accepted definition, which is:

> The exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service

Since Apple has, at most, below 50% market share in developed countries (and a much lower market share in developing countries), they do not possess a monopoly on the smartphone market.

By your given definition, Google isn't a monopoly either as there are clear alternatives to them in every sector that they are in.

Although the definition the other user posted was too strong, it was mitigated by the observation that Apple is barely 50%.

If we compare Google's marketshare in end user email, video hosting and search, we can see Google is a lot stronger in many markets, than apple is in their best market.

(I wish I could use an iPhone, but having to use Mac OS for development is a real turn off, considering how sucky Mac OS, in my view, has ever been.)

>(I wish I could use an iPhone, but having to use Mac OS for development is a real turn off, considering how sucky Mac OS, in my view, has ever been.)

Buying a mobile for your personal use means you have to develop for it?

Yes, Apple is not a "monopoly" in a strict sense, but it has a very large captive audience and is definitely using that audience to serve its own needs. Getting Apple's tentacles out of your life can have significant side effects to your social life, as evidenced by the green bubble thread from the other day.

Monopolies abuse their power. Apple abuses its power. This doesn't make Apple a monopoly but it isn't any less of a problem.

That tweet is misinterpreting the “Unintended Consequences” section. Those are things we want to keep working, and if we break them, we will create alternate solutions (like Storage Access API for social embeds, and Private Click Measurement for as attribution).

Preventing Google ad tracking? Nothing of value is lost. Besides, Apple has had a built in content blocking framework since iOS 8 that allows third party ad blockers. I’ve been blocking Google’s ads for years.

Unfortunately, under the current interpretation of US anti-trust law (thanks Robert Bork!), leveraging monopoly to knee-cap competitors is a-OK if it doesn't directly hurt consumers.

The chances of anti-trust law returning to an interpretation that protects competition under the current judiciary are nil.

How is Apple blocking an ad network “anticompetitive” when Apple’s only ad platform is within the App Store?

Well, how does a competitor make money on iOS without giving Apple a 30% cut of app installs and in-app purchases and/or using their ad network?

Simple, the same way that Spotify, Netflix, Amazon (Kindle), DirecTVNow, Sling, and a bunch of other companies do - force people to pay on their own websites to use the app....

Apple doesn’t have an “ad network”.

Only catch here is that Apple also takes a cut of such subscription revenue if it goes through an app [0].

Individually, I support Apple's decisions around enforcing privacy on the web. However, Apple's decisions when taken as a whole is making it incredibly difficult for a company to generate revenue from iOS users without sharing some of that revenue with Apple. Whether this makes Apple a monolopy I do not know, but it's certainly less clear of a good thing than their privacy efforts.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/13/spotify-c...

No, they only take a cut if the subscription is originated on the app.

why can't they do it on their app?

Can I pay the manufacturer of a good directly and walk into a retail store to pick it up?

But let’s not be overly idealistic, the vast majority of revenue in either App Store is from games and most of that is from in app purchases of coins, gyms, loot boxes etc.

Can I install another store in Mobile eco system. Yes I can.

But what you say is correct having another store would dent apple revenue would be loss of investors.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com