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Comment by ranger_danger | Hacker News Reader

> Safari also brings a version of Web AdAttributionKit to Private Browsing

This is like a bad dream.

Yeah that part stuck out to me too. Sigh. What if my browser just did nothing at all to help advertisers, because it's my browser running on my hardware? Even if it is totally privacy-preserving and completely transparent, why would my browser spend my processor cycles, network bandwidth, and electricity for the benefit of someone else's for-profit business?

Really, just ... what if the software on my computer tried its best to do exactly what I asked it to do, and was not concerned with anyone else's problems?

Anyway, here are the AdAtributionKit docs:

- Technical / API: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/adattributionkit

- High-level: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/ad-attribution/

> why would my browser spend my processor cycles, network bandwidth, and electricity for the benefit of someone else's for-profit business?

I think a reasonable answer is that you are using their website for your own purposes; that running a website has costs; and that many businesses choose to fund those costs by advertising. If you don't want to be advertised to, I would suggest paying a fee to use ad-free services.

The time when you could reasonably expect paid services not to track you ended well over a decade ago.

Apple specifically gets mentions as a website data sharing partner in the privacy policies of my health insurance, my dental insurance, and my mortgage provider. I can assure you that none of those companies are lacking for funds to run basic websites and equally that none of them have ways to pay to "opt out".

I wonder if it'd be possible to poison. If I have to send clicks I need to also send enough clicks to make it not worthwhile.

They present this like a smart solution for some sort of fundamental problem. It's really not a fundamental problem. Advertisement has worked and still works perfectly fine without attribution in TV, in magazines, on billboards.

Adtech gaslights everyone into accepting that just because it is technically possible to perfectly track and personalize ads in digital media, that they have some sort of moral right to do it.

And this is like an executives wet dream.

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