I'm not sure how the anti-trust / anti-monopoly laws work, but isn't it conflict of interest, if you limit others in how they can use your platform, but allow yourself to do the same things you're limiting others in? Or am I wrong?
Apple hasn't stopped anybody from advertising, they've only stopped them from doing overly-intrusive cross-app personal tracking. They don't seem to intend to do over-intrusive cross-app personal tracking themselves, so it seems to be a level playing field. So far, at least.
It's important to remember, they aren't stopping them from doing the overly-intrusive cross-app tracking, they just make you actively consent to an app allowing that tracking.
Apple is doing the classic "we don't share with third parties, we just collect a shit ton of data from everywhere and then make people buy our data indirectly via our ad sale services" like google and facebook do today. So it's not shared with third parties, but because of their scale it might as well be in effect size .
It's called App Tracking Transparency and there is a scary prompt when Facebook/others do it. It's called Personalization and a friendly prompt when Apple does it.
It doesn't say that in the article and that's patently false. Apple does not have access to Amazon's data about your activity in the Kindle app. Can they potentially track you in the Apple Books app? Perhaps, but if you trust what they're saying, you're presented first with an opt-out dialog about ad personalization.
They've required consent for cross-organizational tracking. For a single organization, they have only required disclosure in apps (via the privacy nutrition labels).
For instance, Google can still push you to sign into a Google account so they can add all your interactions across services/devices to your profile. They also can still share information between Google native apps for unauthenticated users. This would include if they start to move over apps from other acquired companies under the Google umbrella.
The difference is that I can make an opt-in choice (if possibly a difficult one) on whether I want to interact with Facebook services directly, but I couldn't make a such a choice before on what information Facebook was gathering about me without my consent or knowledge via tracking.
Apple have all of this data (in fact, it's automatically collected and much better quality) because they own the platform on which the data is collected. Therefore, Apple can supply the same services as FB (on iOS only, obvs).
Microsoft did not prevent other browsers from being installed; it just shipped IE by default and made it annoying af to uninstall.
... and entered partnerships with ISPs to have pre-installed listings in IE if the ISP didn't mention a competing browser (p29)
... and entered into arrangements with companies to switch browsers being used (p17)
... and attempted to get Netscape to agree to not compete with Microsoft for Windows browsers (Netscape would be Unix and Mac only if that was done) (p14)
https://www.justice.gov/atr/complaint-us-v-microsoft-corp
There's quite a bit more to DOJ vs Microsoft than just "shipping IE by default".
That a single corporate entity is capable of collecting data does not necessarily mean that said entity is collecting and using that data. Maybe they do! But so far I've seen no evidence of it anywhere from anyone ever.
What I don’t expect is that when I shop on Amazon I get ads showing me what I searched for and bought on Amazon to show up on Facebook (which of course does happen).
What would be the consumer friendly thing for the government to do? Allow more cross app data sharing? Refuse to let any company use the history of what a consumer does at that company for targeting?
Or a company like Facebook can once again encourage users to install a VPN that allows them to track all of the traffic to and from your phone.
https://mashable.com/article/facebook-used-onavo-vpn-data-to...
It turns out that people (or at least Android users) aren't as dumb as Apple users think they are. (Or maybe it says something about Apple users that Apple and other Apple users think that Apple users are too dumb to be able to make this decision for themselves?)
And yes there has been security vulnerabilities caused by bypassing the Google Play Store by a little company I am sure you have heard of.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/fo...
But Google or Android is not exactly a model of protecting users privacy.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18204064/apple-google-mon...
Every Chinese phone company...
But Google or Android is not exactly a model of protecting users privacy.
And neither is Apple.
it is.
Amazon also created its own line of devices and its own fork of Android and replaces Google Play Services APIs with its own. But how many applications are successful distributing only on Amazon’s Android store? How many western developers are going to bypass Google Play Store?
- Company F was doing ads using X mechanism on Company A's devices.
- Company A banned X mechanism under the false claim of "privacy."
- Now Company A is going to use X mechanism to launch their own competitor to Company F's platform (because X is what makes the ad platform a worthwhile expense for advertisers; Company A already uses X mechanism to market its own products and services to its customers, and they simply banned Company F and third parties so they could eliminate existing and potential competition.)
Or in other words, almost as textbook an example of anticompetitive behavior as you can get.
It’s the sane thing in this case with Apple.
Besides, Apple isn’t banning third parties from sharing information. They just have to ask permission. What’s the government suppose to do? Say Apple isn’t allowed to ask consumers whether they want to be tracked across parties?
This situation would not be a conflict of interest because Apple has no duty to third party advertisers
Also cable companies can’t limit others from carrying channels.
Do you think advertisers on Facebook, Google or Amazon get access to all of the data that the platform vendor has?
Do you also want everyone to get access to Google’s search algorithm?
If I had a dollar every time someone on HN yelled “anti trust” about anything no matter how little legal sense it made, I could be my own VC.
Anyone confirm or deny?
They track everything about the device - and the user has almost no control over it.
Sure, they aren't tracking what you're doing INSIDE the FB app. But they track every time you use it, where you use it, the context that led to that usage, etc.
So does Facebook (as much as they're able and allowed to), being fair.
Apple can and does.
And, to be fair, while I don't want Apple tracking that data (however useful/useless it may be), I wouldn't want Facebook tracking it either.
Apple doesn't limit anyone from advertising; they just limit third-party tracking, no?
Gee, I wonder why...
If I use an application then I am clearly using their product and I have a relationship with the application developers.
If that application embeds third-party tracking, I am not clearly doing anything with the third party and I don’t have a relationship with that third party. Therefore Apple requires that the application developers ask for my consent first.
Only one of these needs the user’s consent, and it’s clear why. Apple can act fairly and still hold third-party tracking to a different standard.
Non Apple ads: Opt In for scary third party tracking
Apple Ads: Opt Out for a "less personalized" experience
Which I'm fine with.
Is there any evidence that Apple themselves are tracking across 3rd party application advertisements (this is me assuming that they do track across 1st party apps, which is not fair).
They don’t limit third-party tracking either. They limit third-party tracking without the user’s consent. The only thing advertisers need to do is ask the user for permission to track them.
You can compare the pop-up language Apple shows for an app like FB and the one they show for their own personalized ads to see what I'm talking about. They've also run misleading ads and have made comments that confuse people about what's actually going on.
I'm no apologist for ads, but Ben Thompson is right to point out that this hurts small companies that rely on these targeted ads in order to exist a lot more than it hurts large players like FB.
For example - a grocery store doesn't want to manage 'first party' user data to track what you purchase (and you probably don't want them to), they're bad at that and more likely to do it poorly. They'd rather rely on an ad company they can use instead. This applies to most small businesses that rely on targeted advertising to get their business in front of users that would want it. In Apple's model Amazon doesn't need to say they track you because all purchase data happens on Amazon, but FB does because others use FB to target third party ads. The data doesn't leave FB though so a reasonable person could argue why is this worse?
My personal opinion is that we'd be better off in an equilibrium where these ad driven models are not viable because the models that would replace them would be better on net with incentives more aligned between user and product.
There is a problem here with how user data is handled in some cases, but Apple is also being at best misleading about the issue in a way that benefits themselves and reasonable people could think they're doing the wrong thing.
Because the user has a relationship with the grocery store application and as far as they are aware, only interacting with the grocery store application. They aren’t given the knowledge or opportunity to decide whether to send their data to Facebook or not. All Apple are requiring is that the user be given that knowledge and opportunity.
Apple limits third party tracking without user's consent by both calling it as third party tracking and having it opt in, while Apple's tracking is "personalization" that is opt out.
It's absolutely a dark pattern meant to destroy non apple advertising while making the owners of the OS the only real way to advertise on it. It should be clamped down hard.
For about a year this is no longer true.
You just seem to be skipping over the fact that Apple is not a third-party here. The user has a direct relationship with them.
> the only real way to advertise on it.
The advertising industry has existed for over a hundred years without pervasive third-party tracking. Pervasive third-party tracking is not “the only real way to advertise on it”.
Using your dominance in one industry like that could fall afoul of anti monopoly laws.
People make a lot of to-do about it, but, that's not really an unusual thing in the market anymore. Sony has exclusive control of their store, does not permit sideloading, and no, the hardware isn't subsidized.
https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/325504-sony-finally-turns...
Regardless of whether you feel that's also bad, it goes to establish that this is not unusual or particularly noteworthy behavior.