Originally published at: Apple is going to war with Facebook in this funny commercial about apps that want to track you | Boing Boing
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Apple is on to something here.
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How deeply ironic was the backing track …“Why don’t you mind your own business?”
It IS their business. Literally.
Let’s hope they get to lose control of it.
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this apple privacy ad will be well loved in China
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The popping effect was most enjoyable. That made me chuckle out loud.
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Of course Apple is betting on a profit, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t also the right thing to do.
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It’s not about what the profit it, it’s where the profit is and who is paying for it. Under the Facebook/Google model, the advertisers are paying for your data, which is collected via Facebook and Google’s “services”. Under the Apple model, I pay for the service, but I get to choose what information that device knows about me (even, with the Apple signin option, excluding my email if I want).
No, it’s not a perfect system, but I’d rather be the customer, not the product.
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Can I use a third party manufactured iOS device that keeps my information out of Apple’s hands also?
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“ASK app not to track”??? How about an option to DO NOT ALLOW app to track?
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That is what it does. I don’t know why they word the dialog that way, but saying no to that locks the app out of the APIs needed to get your IDFA (tracking number). I’m a mobile developer that has written the related code in a number of apps.
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This is purely a guess, but it may have to do with Apple trying to foster a relationship of trust:
“This app, downloaded from the Apple Store, does as I ask because it is inherently good; I know it is good because I heard through the grapevine from people I trust (Veronica) that it is so.”
The alternative is,
“These apps have a mind out their own and are rotten to the core; they must be restricted by force in order to behave properly!”
Persons of the former mindset are going to be more likely to buy products than the latter.
I hate Apple.
But that’s a good ad…
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It’s going to be a very interesting future. The market has been well trained to expect very expensive services for free. I’m glad Apple has made this move, but I wouldn’t be surprised if many people’s reactions don’t end up as “I like my privacy and all, but it’s not worth the ~$1,000 bucks these guys now expect me to pay”.
Also, advertising supported apps are actually somewhat progressive. If you’re in the right demographic (making $100K+, etc.) your advertising profile is worth many times that of someone poorer. Yet you get “paid” the exact same services that someone who is worth only a tenth of what you are worth to advertisers. Very egalitarian (and why so few services offer like Facebook offer ad-free subscriptions - mostly the most valuable targets would take it.).
And the sad part, is that from everything I’ve heard, advertisers are willing to pay big bucks for targeted advertising, but there’s not a lot of proof it actually works much better. All that effort and privacy loss, and it might all be for nothing.
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magic
I don’t know why they word it that way either, because using the word ‘ask’ contains the implicit possibility that the app can say ‘no’ to such a ‘request’.
If there is no ‘no’ option, as you rightly say, Apple is doing a disservice to its users by entirely unnecessarily sowing this seed of doubt.
This is probably the work of lawyers, in case (or when) the apps figure out workarounds to track users. If they promise the apps can’t track you they’ll open themselves to a class action lawsuit. If the user indicates to the application that they don’t want to be tracked by removing access to tracking functionality, that moves the liability.
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I forgot which interview it was with, maybe with Craig Federighi, but the reason is that Apple can’t guarantee the app can’t track you. This just blocks one method. Advertisers usually circumvent a specific tracking vector or come up with another. FLoC is a new approach already being floated. Like @p96 guessed, it’s because of lawyers.
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