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Comment by cycomanic | Hacker News Reader

The problem with that narrative is that apple does not apply the same rules to themselves. I actually agree with apple tracking should be optional, however why should apple get a free pass?

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They do though, they've asked me on the iPhone if I want to have personalised ads, and I said no. Now I don't get personalised ads.

This implies collecting data for ad personalization is the only means through each Apple tracks you, which clearly isn't the case [1]. Some interesting keypoints posted here before: [2]

As it currently stands, there is no way to "opt out" of being tracked by Apple.

[1] https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf

[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

>The problem with that narrative is that apple does not apply the same rules to themselves

What do you mean? Apple tracking is optional, they straight up ask when you setup your phone.

That's for apps to track you, not for apple.

Apple does not track your activity across unrelated apps, websites, or the real world. They can offer personalized ads based on your interactions with Apple, which is not tracking, and they allow you to turn off that personalization. What rule are they exempting themselves from?

oh but they do. All of the apps you purchase, stocks you own, news stories you read, location of your phone/mac based on precise geolocation, your name, address, age, gender, oh and this too:

> We may also use local, on-device processing to select which ad to display, using > information stored on your device, such as the apps you frequently open.

But who's counting?

https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-advertisin...

Your reference or comment doesn’t disprove my point, but with the way you wrote it, it seems like you think it does? When they say unrelated, they mean offered by different providers, not of different purposes.

That’s a pretty loose standard for the word “related”

If you play around with definitions enough, nobody is collecting unrelated data I suppose.

It’s not a pretty loose or arbitrary standard. For example, it’s a key basis on which data sharing is regulated. The claim that it’s a weak enough definition that it doesn’t matter is inconsistent with criticism that it’s a definition which has materially impacted Facebook’s revenue.

I just don’t agree that financial data and health data are “related” simply because they were both generated on a single platform. It’s pretty easy to link any type of data at that point. All you need is for Apple to develop two apps and literally any type of data can be “related”. At that point the word “related” loses all meaning.

I think you made a poor choice of words. You probably meant 3rd party apps not related.

Regardless - I also don’t think it’s meaningfully better that Apple links financial and health data to sell Ads vs. Google or Facebook linking the same data from two external sources.

Revenue and regulations are not relevant factors in this argument.

Tbh if you are charging $1000+ for handsets.. why are you trying to scrape my data as-well or show me ads ?

Forget personalized vs. non-personalized. I paid a premium, I want an ad-free experience.

> They can offer personalized ads based on your interactions with Apple,

Except apple has repeatedly claimed that everything on your iPhone including 3p apps is owned by apple.

Not sure what you’re referring to, and I doubt they’ve said they consider 3rd party app data as fair game for their own advertising targeting without invoking targeting.

1. Apple has claimed (from the epic trial) that since they owned the App Store, apps were theirs to sell.

2. Apple has claimed that any use of the iOS APIs is “apple’s data” (eg the Apple Pay system for in-app purchases)

3. Apples privacy policy claims that as long as apple’s data isn’t combined with 3P data, they aren’t “tracking” you.

4. Apple also lets you opt-out of personalized ads not data collection.

Ergo, apple will collect data about you from wherever and use it to target ads.

[1] apples privacy policy

Apple’s advertising platform does not track you, meaning that it does not link user or device data collected from our apps with user or device data collected from third parties for targeted advertising or advertising measurement purposes

they do apply the same rules to themselves; that's why they've been successful

Which rules? Because they very famously do not treat themselves the same way.

Between built in apps, changing defaults, different tracking rules, payment processing, access of hardware features, UI/UX guidelines, there’s a long list of ways apple priorities themselves.

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