[doobeeus]

Follow the money - Apple's "privacy" initiative is just about Apple ensuring that every dollar spent in an iOS device sends 30 cents to Apple. That isn't the case with ads not served by Apple. So Apple is making themselves the only viable way to serve ads on iOS (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223) and encouraging in-app purchases for everything else - problem solved.

Also, isn't it convenient that Apple is only concerned about their customer's privacy for business conducted outside of China and Russia?

[vmception]

As it should and I don’t care. Advertisers and data brokers get no sympathy from me. An Apple ad venue allows for some more uniform controls as well, such as tracking revokable consent of a user’s data, even if you found a way to pay the user for their data at some point.

[doobeeus]

I agree Apple has the right to run the lawful aspects of their business as they see fit but I'm a little concerned about those that think Apple has their back with this privacy scam.

[nojito]

Why would you be concerned?

Going against Facebook/Google and other ad giants is in their DNA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39iKLwlUqBo

[doobeeus]

My concern is for people who take Apple's marketing (what's really in Apple's DNA) at face value, not Google or especially Facebook.

[nojito]

It's not marketing. Apple has cared about privacy since the 80s/90s.

Jobs even went so far and envisioned a private mesh network to avoid cell/internet networks from snooping on iPhone users.

[hu3]

I remember when Google was the "good guy".

We should not forget that these companies are nothing but shareholder driven business and their incentives can and do change.

[bryan_w]

Also didn't they just hire one of FB's former ad execs to head up their ads effort?

[adrr]

This change will really hurt them. The biggest effect is on paid app installs since you no longer have access to the advertiser ID which makes it extremely difficult to measure performance and tracking app usage on the device. I’ll take a bet that some of this gets rolled back when it hurts Apple’s App Store revenue.