Over 96% of Apple Users Have Blocked Facebook from Tracking Them | Hacker News Reader

Over 96% of Apple Users Have Blocked Facebook from Tracking Them

techdator.net

277 pointsgsidhu7713133 comments

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27075180

Zuckerberg could make his personal tracking publicly available 24/7 to FB users, it would demonstrate what’s being collected and show his users he is willing to give up his privacy and data for the great benefit that is FB. But if he won’t do it, then why would anyone else give up their data and privacy?

Well, perhaps he is not a "good" product :) Seriously though I'm wondering which ads would target him...

None probably reach him, since he likely runs blockers.

All his ads are Halloween costumes of Data from Star Trek.

If I remember right during the Congress hearing one politician asked Zuckerberg where he went yesterday or something similar and Zuckerberg declined to answer.

So privacy is only for the rich...

Didn't Zuck buy up the homes around his own for extra privacy?

Privacy for me, none for thee.

To be fair that's something I'd do as well if I could afford it, even if nobody knew who I was.

Musk done the opposite. Even when you own heaps of land people still know you’re somewhere there. So it’s better to free up those houses and use hotels, etc to jump from place to place.

I would say "privacy is only for those who value it". Nobody rich or poor is forced to use Facebook (and plenty of wealthy people do use it).

I think Zuckerberg is more sensitized to privacy issues because he knows how the sausage is made.

> Nobody rich or poor is forced to use Facebook (and plenty of wealthy people do use it).

That's technically not true though. Whenever website developers add the FB Like button. Those scripts are collecting data about you where you have a FB account or not by placing a cookie on your browser. If the next website you visit also has the Like button, they are tracking you. In this case, we are all "forced" to be tracked.

FB's real tracking ability isn't on their platform, but thousands of app and website developers that incorporate their Login and Like buttons.

Facebook has violated their own privacy policy many times, faced legal penalties and settled with the FCC for their violations, then violated their settlement agreements with additional data breaches.

He isn’t more sensitized to privacy issues, so much as he can afford to spend the time and money required to protect himself...most people, like the majority of his users responsible for him having that kind of wealth, don’t have the luxury.

This would actually be a good move if they were willing to accept that their reputation has taken a huge hit and they need to take measures to restore trust.

I doubt they would do that and try for the trusted plan of legal warfare and whataboutism.

Why only Zuck and not every FB employee?

They all benefit from what FB does, just because he makes the most from it doesn't mean the rest of them aren't partially responsible.

I wonder, do you think FB expects all employees to use FB?

yeah, in the interview they ask you to build clones of a service and are shocked if you haven’t used it.

Ironically they do, internally everything is around a Facebook profile (granted this was true when I was last there years ago). I imagine it’s still the same.

Is it public profile or professional profile. My company gave me an Id which is used for anything, but I consider it as company property and not my personal id.

Not all of them, but it would be very strange not to use the product you work on, even in some rudimentary form.

Sadly, I have first hand exeperience working on software where the devs clearly 1) did not use the software they created, 2) did not fully understand the purpose of the software

Isn't that most software?

I think "most" is way too broad. I don't think I have one program on my system that is like that. I find this is typically found when a company with no internal dev uses a lowest bidder to offshore software.

Do you think that devs from FAANG, MS, Adobe, open-source projects, etc really have no idea what they are programming? Unless software dev is like an iceberg where there is much much more unseen than seen???

I don't know. I suspect most software is actually internal or proprietary. I don't think that developpers working on some custom widgets factory optimization software actually use it to optimize their mini-factory at home. Or that many developers run their own telecom on the side and need all kinds of software to route calls. Same is probably true of FAANG developpers too: how many adwords engineers actually run their own advertising campaign? Or have a personal need to store massive amounts of data in their own bigtable?

This is not always possible.

At my first job I built a system to track charitable donations by local bank branches for the banks lawyers. I couldn't even understand most of the status drop downs I built as they were just line numbers in IRS forms (eg 1040 13b). The PM on the project was barely doing any better.

But when we were done the lawyers all agreed that it was 1000 times better than the Excel spreadsheet that the lawyers themselves had built and were passing around between offices.

Would it have turned out better if I'd been a tax attorney before taking on the gig, I'm sure. But you can still get results without the deep domain knowledge residing in the programmer's head.

At my first job we built a .Net application for a client. There where some pretty detailed specification regarding how the thing was suppose to work, but not what it was actually used for.

We had an extremely happy client, who used this thing extensively in his own consulting business. None of the developers could tell you how the software was to be used, beyond: “It stores data in a tree like structure with three node types”.

I bet that out of the remaining 4%, a non-negligible fraction are mis-clicks, users accidentally opting in to tracking.

Who in their right mind, when given this choice, allows themselves to be tracked?

4% seems extremely low probably a miscount.

If the majority of these users are looking for privacy they probably wouldn't trust facebook with their data in the first place.

The reason seems to be the stats are not being properly counted by this company. Apple will need to confirm the numbers.

Most people probably assume facebook’s tracking stops at “of course they track the information/photos I choose to post”.

I think people accept tracking because they feel like they don’t have a choice. But when the choice is as easy as a button, they happily opt out.

Exactly. This is the same reason Facebook won't let users moderate content.

I don't even believe it's because they feel they don't have a choice -- I think it's more they don't realize the data Facebook et al collect (or that it's even collecting data). So when Apple asks if they want to be tracked, they say no because they don't want to be tracked but didn't realize it before.

A lot of people don't realize they track you across websites etc, even if it might seem obvious to us.

Agreed, it’s a default choice with vague implications to the average person.

The number sounds about right to me. Why would I click a button that says "allow Mark Zuckerberg to gather my private data"? How is that not just a pure negative for me?

I use the Facebook website from time to time, which I accept is kind of duplicitous, knowing the data they gather from those sessions will be abused. But my browser is configured to disable everything Facebook on sites other than Facebook (comments, "social plugins" etc) so at least it's confined and done explicitly by me, with my knowledge.

> "allow Mark Zuckerberg to gather my private data"

Because that's exactly what it says...

Consider "Would you like to improve FB experience by sharing how you use the app?"

You are a tech dude and read it the same, but it's not the same.

Apple clearly writes the acceptance policy but Facebook has a begging screen that pops up in front. Apple asks you if you want to allow Facebook to track you across other websites and apps. This is not telemetry, but ad-profiling. Facebook can still log everything you do within Facebook, it’s the stuff outside of Facebook that they’re been blocked from seeing.

>If the majority of these users are looking for privacy they probably wouldn't trust facebook with their data in the first place.

This assumes they know and care that they're being tracked. Once faced with a clear choice without any dark patterns, it's fairly obvious that most users will select no tracking, unless the (supposed or real) benefits of being tracked are also explained to them. With the default Facebook behavior, they simply aren't being reminded of it. Out of sight, out of mind.

It's been known forever that opt-in data collection is almost useless, because the overwhelming majority of users won't allow it if they have the choice, regardless of the expertise. In fact, it's the reason for the current state of things - the telemetry and tracking of all sorts are being forced by default in most of the software and services with no option to disable it.

For me the setting to even allow them to ask for tracking was off by default. I would have had to have found some buried setting and changed it to even get the pop up. I would have had to be pretty keen on being tracked to do that.

>Who in their right mind, when given this choice, allows themselves to be tracked?

Credulous people who believe that Facebook might start charging them to see photos of their grandchildren.

people who have nothing to hide? I always click on Allow optional tracking to better serve software, its a way of giving back.

> people who have nothing to hide

There are no such people. Rather, there are only people who don't realize they have things to hide.

I have ideas that were considered mainstream ten years ago, but are now verboten and only shared in private.

Mooom! Grandpa is doing it again!

;)

I don't believe ads are evil necessarily but the "nothing to hide" reasoning is simply wrong.

I think most people opting out of tracking is because they feel manipulated. Isn't it the ultimate reason of marketing after all?

>its a way of giving back

These companies aren't charities.

You may have something to hide (though I doubt it. You wouldn't want to have tour sex life or medical history to be public, would you?).

But people around you may. Nad their information can be as easily gleaned from yours.

Wouldn't be too bad.

I work with a senior front end dev and noticed he wasn’t using any kind of adblocker on his work computer and it surprised me as he was privacy concerned.

He said he wants to see the web like the average user and doesn’t want anything to change the default look.

I’m sure there are people who have similar reasons for allowing tracking.

We also assume it’s all real users and not bots managing to opt in.

True, if you’re running a clickfarm a higher CPC means more revenue, and that means no adblocking and opting in to all tracking... although maybe that makes it easier to identify you as a clickfarm?

I do that on work computers for the same reason. However in this instance if 96% of people have it enabled then that is the baseline experience.

But if 94% a of users disable tracking the average user experience would be with tracking disabled.

You're on your own if you change or disable something. Windows (used to) (unintentionally) degrade experience if you reduce telemetry settings.

That doesn't sound like an useful mindset. If you want to do something which works well for your users, but then run with some unusual configuration and tell the users that "they are on their one" when they use the most common config, well, then that just makes no sense.

What "experience"?

That’s very interesting! Taking this to the extreme, he should only browse the web on a small phone sized screen too, as most users are mobile.

I don’t think I’ll ever take this to heart, but I do turn on CPU and network throttling from time to time.

Hi might not, but the QAs should. Our QAs test everything on a bunch of old devices they got from secondhand stores- typically from iPhone 5 up, and whatever ratty 5-6 year old androids they can find, as well as latest stuff of course.

I don't use adblockers because I don't like the idea of something tracking me. I don't trust adblockers to not be backdoors for hacking. That said I also dont' typically visit websites that use a lot of ads or when I do I don't stay on them very often... Also I did once find that personalized ads were a great way of coloring my web browsing experience... If I liked the pictures on one ad just click and then if you see another that you like click... eventually you start to have more pleasant browsing experiencing...

I'm sorry, but I don't understand your comment at all. You say that you don't like being tracked, which is why you don't use an adblocker. But you end your comment by saying that you actually do like being tracked by ads, because it gives a "more pleasant browsing experience".

So you don't use adblockers (which block tracking) because you fear they might track you while you know that without one you are being tracked? I'm not sure you thought this through.

If you fear being "hacked" by an extension then there are lots of other options, like pihole, routers blocking ads, hosts files, etc.

I hope you are aware that billions are used on how to psychologically affect people with ads. Even if you don't click them (and especially if you do click those that make you feel good) you will still be bombarded by things made to affect you subconsciously.

His point might be that no adblocker gives a true sense of insecurity while the adblocker might give a false sense of security, therefore the 1st choice would force the user to be more cautious. If that's the point I can understand it, however it should imply foul play by adblockers, which I believe would hardly happen since the most popular are fully open source and thoroughly audited (for example Ublock Origin, Umatrix and Privacy Badger all are FOSS).

I don’t know why you’re being downvoted. This is a unique way of looking at things, if a bit paranoid. As others said, there are ways to block ads without using an adblocker.

That being said, I used to go to Facebook /just for the ads/ because they were always interesting. Now they kinda suck, dunno what happened in the last few years.

Perhaps because it's a bit non-sensical? Clicking on an ad because the picture looks nice in anticipation/hopes of being served more ads with a similar look? That has to be one of the strangest things I've heard regarding ads. This has to be a trolling post, doesn't it?

I think as a front end dev it is important to have blockers installed and toggle them during development/testing to make sure you don’t break something unintentionally either way.

Yeah a surprising number of sites tie their checkout navigation to callbacks on trackers, making critical things like the “Complete Checkout” button just straight up not work when the trackers are blocked...or just down for whatever reason.

Sounds like a pretty efficient way to get you to turn off your adblocker

or to not get a purchase, if I don't remember to turn off my adblocker I'll assume they have a bug and move on

> Yeah a surprising number of sites

A surprising number of sites have basic functionality, like showing content, not work if you have cookies turned off.

There are some shopping sites that don't even let you view items with cookies disabled: I understand needing them for purchases, but even Amazon allows for browsing without cookies.

Don't get em started on turning off JavaScript.

Thankfully some paywalls also don't work.

That sounds more like a professional reason not to use an adblocker.

How does he work on a 1440x900 resolution?

I too don’t use any ad blockers on my work computer. On my personal computer I have 4 different ad blockers and a VPN and stuff, always use private browsing windows in safari for non dev (debugging) stuff.

I only use my work computer for work and some very light and sparse HN browsing (via safari). I am signed in to chrome with my gsuite account from the company.

I feel that it doesn’t really matter if googling dev stuff or a random article is tracked, it might even be to my benefit in so far as I will be viewed as a dedicated and diligent employee thus raising my social credit score

I don't use ad blockers and I occasionally "interact" with the advertised link as some kind of low level tip jar for wherever the ad was shown. The networks go crazy trying to sell that ad-click again. A click that will never earn the advertiser any money, no matter how often repeated.

What I've learned so far: don't click on ads you'd feel uncomfortable with seeing everywhere. The tracking industry must be such a waste of advertiser's money! If you like pretty pictures of horses in nature you can, with just a few clicks, get them to decorate almost the entire web with equestrianist landscape shots for you, without you ever spending a dime on, I don't know, saddle maintenance gadgets or whatever. I guess there are some advertisers for whom this isn't utterly broken, but they must be a rare reception. If you sell some supercar it's an essential part of the product that millions of small boys and poor men dream of driving one and it kind of makes sense to concave "the web" to show pictures to the dreamers, but that's a rather small market compared to the size of the tracking industry.

If you watch a lot of YouTube (i try not to these days), might I just shill for the "Sponsor Block" extension [1]? It blocks those sponsored segments in youtube videos. You can also submit segments to save others time so they can consoom more content.

I have saved 2.5 hrs and saved others nearly an hour through my submissions.

[1] https://sponsor.ajay.app/

Also, slightly related:

If you want to watch less YouTube, you can use uBlock element picker to remove everything but the search bar. My YouTube web interface is just that now, no recommendations, no nothing. Bliss.

Could you tell me how exactly to do this? I'd love to this but I'm not sure how to do it.

Sure:

1: Download UBlock origin: https://ublockorigin.com/

2: Open Youtube

3: Right click on any element in the page and click "block element". Do this for anything you don't want to see. If you make a mistake you can unblock it by deleting the line in the "filters" part of Ublock settings.

It can take some trial and error to get it working properly but once you do its so nice. I don't even have a sign in button anymore because I don't have a google account.

Edit: For maximum procrastination prevention you can even block those end card recommendations once a video finishes.

Youtube is also massively better with "enhancer for youtube" [1]. It's not FOSS I don't think but it is too good to not use.

[1] https://www.mrfdev.com/enhancer-for-youtube

Thank you!

I actually did the exact same thing, for the same reason, a long time ago. I wanted to see just how bad things were getting, what sites were doing what kind of terrible ads, and how badly it was tanking both cpu and network usage.

Ultimately I quit doing that and installed an ad blocker because I felt there wasn't really any point to knowing this. It's the same story on every commercial site, and there's nothing I could do about it anyway.

It is suspiciously close tot he "Lizardman Constant" of 4% https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and....

If Facebook would ask me, I'd opt in to tracking, as I prefer targeted ads over untargeted ads. But I'm too lazy to manually enable that setting, so I'm in 96%.

This is where I’m at as well. I prefer targeted ads and have discovered a lot of things I wouldn’t have otherwise. For me it’s not that I’m lazy, but when you’re specifically asked if you want to be tracked there’s an innate sense of danger that arises and your brain tells you to say “no”

The thing with targeted ads is that you don't discover the thing, the thing discovers you.

I'd argue theres good reason your brain is raising red flags when you are asked if you want to allow these manipulative processes to continue.

Some focus only on the upside, more relevant ads, some only on the downside, lost privacy. How do you balance the two?

I don't see more relevant ads as an upside. I'd rather see totally irrelevant ads since they're much less likely to have an impact on me. They can waste their effort trying to manipulate me to spend unnecessarily on things I'll never buy.

I never had any significant issues taking over my privacy to corporations, so that does not really bother me. I know that this kind of data in corporations is guarded good enough so leaks are unlikely. I know that those corporations won't cooperate with my government, so that's a non-issue for me as well (might be an issue for US citizens, I guess). So the whole privacy debate looks to me strange, that's not the things that bother me in my life. But that's just my PoV.

> I know that this kind of data in corporations is guarded good enough so leaks are unlikely.

With due respect, and you are completely entitled to your preferences, leaks are very common and a big problem, often reported on HN.

I'm talking about big corporations. I don't remember any leaks from Google or Apple. I do remember one recent leak from Facebook which is very unfortunate, but that was not about collected privacy data, AFAIK, just some accounts.

I've seen very similar ratios on YouTube for likes to dislikes, you'll see it on videos where the subject should be innocuous - typically anything animal related. While it's impossible to know what proportion of the dislikes were from misclicks I would bet on it being relatively high.

Chances are that Facebook will never tell us the difference in earnings from a tracked vs. non tracked user. I don’t think it makes as big a difference as Facebook would have us believe.

On the contrary, I assumed $billions were on the line, else why would they go to the mat in the way that they did? Either that or they have some domino theory a la the soda tax.

If it turns out FB's secret sauce was placebo it would be bad for business.

That’s what makes it weird, because you’re right that Facebook makes it sound like they’ll lose everything.

My guess is that they’ve sold customers on the idea that all this data make a remarkable difference. Now they risk being exposed, which could cause lawsuites and make it easier for competitors to enter the market.

Or does fb not actually need the tracking id to track us at this point? Do they need make a big deal to distract us from how accurate their passive tracking is?

Given that Facebook as a UX has become user hostile, they are absolutely banking on clueless masses assuming “big data” is being used to produce magic.

Larry Page was one of the keys to selling that story years ago.

Find me a web app with a truly novel utility, UX, and real problem those things solve. You can’t cause they’re all the solve and designed by factory thinkers. It’s all about agency management.

It’s emotional flock building just like with the churches. Believe, buy-in, die before you realize it was an empire building scheme for a rando with no other life skills, and a rich family to support him.

But here’s the twist; are the rubes the users or the advertisers? Double twist: it’s both!

People will need stuff and find it with or without Facebook.

This. Because nobody can inspect FB's data, advertisers always had to believe that their segmentation and cohorts were as good as they were saying, creating better leads for them. But now they can't tell that story any more.

Yes it's lose-lose for Facebook. Either the individualized advertising works, and the value per impression is going to go way down on iOS, or it doesn't work, and they're going to have a lot to answer for. It's an experiment they don't want to run.

This headline isn't accurate - the referenced report from Flurry shows an average opt-in rate for apps they track, which notably _excludes_ Facebook.

The referenced report doesn't even mention Facebook. https://www.flurry.com/blog/ios-14-5-opt-in-rate-att-restric...

That said, if the Flurry SDK is on a large and representative sample of mobile apps, then this measurement is relevant to Facebook too because Facebook's SDK would be operating in the same app ecosystem.

"...can potentially degrade the small businesses which rely on targeted ads"

Just thinking there were small businesses before this type of tracking and there will be small businesses after. Such a crap argument.

How was this tracked if you turned off the “allow apps to track” setting?

This is Apple tracking which options you choose per app, not Facebook ;).

Simple, your app receives one of four values to reflect the state of ATT: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apptrackingtranspa...

This allows gathering aggregate data on how many users have opted in and out of ATT. What it doesn’t allow is the use of a tracking identifier that spys on your every digital move like an obsessive ghost.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see a controlled leak from Apple, but would be surprised if they chose that publication. It reads a little like a draft.

Eg “iPhone Users Dump Block Facebook Tracking”

I wonder how many of those “small business” owners that Facebook loves to talk about are apart of the 96%?

I know I am. Facebook Ads are super effective for me— but I care more about privacy.

What stops Facebook (and others) from integrating some feature that legitimately needs additional data, and using that data also for tracking users? Is there something in Apple's new security implementation that prevents it?

For example, Facebook could integrate a 'find x nearby' feature, and then ask for location data. The feature wouldn't need to be popular or even well implemented. It seems like an obvious step.

The problem is that the usage of the device / advertising ID is visible to Apple and requires this permission.

Using other data doesn't require asking this tracking permission.

I don't even use Facebook.

As I use Samsung, Facebook comes pre-installed and cannot be uninstalled. I clear the data and cache, uninstall updates, and then disable the app.

I have gotten rid of Whatsapp from my primary phone and kept it in a small and old android phone where I do nothing and touch once a month.

I use Instagram and FB once in a blue moon inside Firefox's FB container, or, Brave browser.

No Facebook, no Facebook tracking.

Using adb you can uninstall the app for the primary user as well.

In some phones, if you enable 'show system apps', you can see the following fb apps:

Facebook App Installer

Facebook App Manager

Facebook Services

All 3 can be disabled.

Also they usually have Instagram and fb messenger pre-installed.

Also many apps come with fb SDK. On android, the app 'ClassyShark3xodus' can be used to check it. Available on Fdroid.

> As I use Samsung, Facebook comes pre-installed and cannot be uninstalled. I clear the data and cache, uninstall updates, and then disable the app.

You can use adb to remove samsungs factory installed software.

https://github.com/khlam/debloat-samsung-android

I wonder how much this will affect Facebook.

They can easily use machine learning to tell where photos are coming from and assume that you live in that area and go to certain types of stores or bars and what not.

That should be close enough in terms of advertising relevance versus where we were in the past with basically everyone being shown ED pills nonstop.

They can see what posts you like, what you comment on and which groups you're active in. From that they can extract a profile.

Since I've blocked Facebook from tracking me around the web, I think their ads have become more relevant for me. They now actually fit in with the activities I follow on Facebook. In my opinion it works better although they might not generate as much revenue for Facebook.

I guess these numbers would translate roughly to other apps. It'll be interesting to see how the earnings of apps with ad-only monetization develop. Assuming the earnings will actually drop, I can think of plenty of ways developer could try to work around the newly introduced restriction.

I don't see why you couldn't just go back to more loose-grained targeting based on demographics. For instance, the adds I hear during the podcasts I listen to are largely relevant to me, because they're targeted towards the type of person who would enjoy that content. Nobody minds this, because they don't have to collect personal information to target this way.

I think it's better for everyone if businesses were incentivized to create spaces to delight and engage high-value demographics, rather than just manipulating users into spending time on their site long enough for an ML algorithm to find the right add you're willing to click on.

You know Facebook's business model sucks when it considers user consent almost an existential threat.

What does it mean over 96% of the users blocked FB from tracking them? What's the default option?

Default is off. You have to opt in.

The title is a bit misleading then.

Can't Facebook just stop their app from working when tracking is disabled? It should be detectable I guess

They’ll be banned from the app store

That's what's supposed to happen, but I very much doubt it would actually happen if they did it.

I'm not so sure. Apple took a hard line with Epic, and losing Fortnite on the app store almost certainly hurt them with a certain demographic. A rather important one as well - kids and teenagers are forming a lot of their ideas about the world, and it's a big risk in the impression created when you are the one responsible for taking their favorite toy - a toy which doubles as a social space where they interact with friends - away from them on your platform. They must have felt it was really worth it.

They could decide to really push their mobile website over the app. But that still wouldn't get them access to the Advertising ID which this thing is all about.

How does this company know?

Flurry is a mobile analytics product. App developers include the Flurry SDK in their apps to get insight about their audiences. The SDK also gathers information about devices, including the status of the ATT setting on iOS devices. Flurry gets all this data from users of apps that have the Flurry SDK in them.

https://www.flurry.com/analytics/

facebook will not be here in the near future

Did you just rip this comment?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27076932

Well FB should've then heavily invested in Apple and Google stocks. This could've been anticipated. World has been talking about privacy for years.

As someone who's made a career out of managing Facebook ads, I can understand the fear surrounding them.

I've only ever use targeting/tracking to serve users content that is super relevant to them. And this is reflected by there clearly being far higher engagement on FB event-targeted ads vs general ads.

Facebook has been extremely strict on the types of ad copy and creative we can share with users via ads. I am a very ethically consicuous person and not once have felt that I've invaded anyone's privacy with the ads. The targeting parameters aren't as powerful as to allow targeting more granularly than several hundred users at once.

Granularity of several hundred is actually fine grained enough for it to be worth spending while targeting an individual. Remember the case where the guy tried to pin point a CEO of a company to catch his attention.

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