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Comment by monkin | Hacker News Reader

They put everywhere “we do not track or share data with third-parties” maybe that’s the key difference with other ad networks? It’s not like they follow you around over the web which FB or Google does.

I actually don’t even see those ads, as they are only in few apps and App Store.

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They're in the "kill competition" mode right now, so are obviously doing different than what others are doing. But what are the guarantee that they won't start selling user's data to advertisers when they're big enough?

Didn't Steve Jobs say that the 30% cut was just to keep the AppStore running?

OP is also just wrong. Apple is sharing data from all their properties like apple news. This is pretty similar to google and Facebook tracking you across the web. I just don’t see how it’s better for my privacy if apple sees everything I read on their app and targets advertising to me based off that, rather than google seeing I visited a news site

The difference between Apple News and Facebook or other third-party tracking is that Apple News only tracks what you do within their app while FB/etc track what you do everywhere on the internet.

I wouldn't actually have any problems with Facebook tracking what you do on the Facebook app (or Google doing so in their own apps), the problem is when they litter the rest of the internet with spyware (Facebook "pixel", Google Analytics, etc) and then spy on what people do on other domains without clear disclosure or opt-out.

Apple will only let you install apps through their App Store, and they correlate your actions in the App Store with the ads you click in the News app. How is that any different?

If you don't use the App Store or an iPhone they don't track you, do you think I have a Facebook account? Well, I'm still getting tracked by them

The problem with that is that Apple's strategy is to draw in a user into completely relying on their ecosystem. I'm guilty of falling victim to this myself. So even while they only track across Apple's apps, the tracking of the phone, news, music, app store, watch, fitness, laptops, etc. will add up to a monopolistic advantage.

Except that ecosystem is entirely opt in. If you are okay with a walled garden that you can't control, that's on you. Apple tracking what you do in all of their various properties and apps that they've built to try and be your one stop digital life isn't perfect but it is IMO categorically better than going to a random website and having my data get scooped up into my google account or my facebook shadow profile.

If I leave the apple ecosystem, they no longer track me or sell ads to be displayed to me. That is not the case with facebook or google.

The average user is not aware that the walled garden is still tracking them, especially with Apple's charm offensive about how it is more privacy-respecting (probably since their refusal to submit to FBI mandate to unlock the iPhone of the 2015 San Bernardino shooter). Click-through EULA is click-through EULA, no matter what company generates it. That Apple tracking is better than that of other, more egregious offenders, is damnation by faint praise.

If apple doesn't track you outside of the ecosystem, then that is genuinely a better outcome IMO than the google and facebook status quo. That you DO have an option to stop it entirely, by giving up apple services and products, is also a genuinely better option.

Some people aren't against advertising, analytics, etc in the more limited case like apple has. I don't think it's false advertising for apple to say "we respect your privacy" when they have demonstrated that they respect it better than the other companies in the advertising industry.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of better. It is damnation by faint praise, but that's because the bar is literally on the floor here.

I'm not saying it's not a better outcome, I'm saying that it should be merely a start and not something to be celebrated.

I don't understand this argument. Are you really worried about being tracked or what the outcome of that tracking is?

When a company tracks you anywhere - let's say Google on Website X or Apple on Apple product Y, they will both use that data to sell you advertisements. Neither will actually "sell" your data to an advertiser, but will use their technology to let an advertiser target you.

What's the difference? It's the same outcome, you are being sold things.

You mention "opt-in" as one potential difference - that one can opt out-of the Apple ecosystem but apparently not out of other places...I don't understand, you can opt out of any website that serves Google Ads. In the same way you can opt out of Apple products, you can opt out of Google products.

They are both corporations, equally committed to earning money for their shareholders.

You don’t see a difference between Apple using your article reading activity in their own News app and Facebook creating a shadow profile of you even if you’ve never signed up for their service which collects your entire browsing history?

Please, publishers have been fighting to get more data from Apple News and they won’t give it. I know for a fact several Big Name outlets aren’t on Apple News precisely for that reason.

> Apple is sharing data from all their properties like apple news. This is pretty similar to google and Facebook tracking you across the web.

Google and Facebook track you across the web, as you said. The comparison to Apple's tracking, which is opt-in, would be Google and Facebook tracking you across their own services only.

> It’s not like they follow you around over the web which FB or Google does.

No, they just follow you all over your phone, which you use to go all over the web.

I think this assertion from them is misleading (in the same way that it is when Facebook et al make it). If Apple is allowing micro targeting then they are implicitly sharing data. E.g. let's say they let me buy targeted ads for "dog lovers aged 34-39", and then you show up on my website as a lead via that campaign, then Apple has just implicitly sold me demographic/interest information about you, even if it wasn't done as explicitly as if they sent it over in a spreadsheet. I fundamentally think that microtargeting and privacy are incompatible.

(I'm open to bring shown, however, that Apple's new ad marketplace explicitly eschews microtargeting, but I haven't seen that so far)

All tracking is opt in.

Nope, ATT is opt in, Apples stuff is opt out.

Isn’t it opt in when you set up your device ?

They literally ask you when you set up the device.

See here:

Privacy Preserving Ad Click Attribution For the Web

https://webkit.org/blog/8943/privacy-preserving-ad-click-att...

The best and most effective ads are the ones you don't see or notice as ads. They are more subtle and woven into content. Adblockers can't block them, and people walk away thinking they consumed some useful information.

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