[marketingtech]

In response to: how did Apple do this?

Mobile app advertising on iOS has long relied on Apple's IDFA - Identifier for Advertisers - a random, device-unique, resettable identifier that was available to all apps.

An app like Candy Crush would tell ad networks like FB that "IDFA 123456 just installed the app" or "IDFA 654321 just made a $5 in-app purchase." FB could then recognize that IDFA as a user who installed the FB app, and they could use that data to target, optimize via ML, and measure the audience and results of Candy Crush's marketing campaign.

Apple's recent iOS update made IDFA an app-level opt-in, so in order for this existing advertising mechanism to work, you needed to opt-in to tracking on FB (so they could associate your IDFA to a FB user) AND to opt-in to tracking on the other apps (so they could send ad networks data with your IDFA). This double opt-in obviously has a super low rate.

FB wasn't impacted nearly as much as other advertising businesses because they already have identifiers for their users (email, phone number, etc), have a ton of first-party interest/behavioral data, and they mostly run ads on their own properties. Apps who used third-party ad networks to sell and place ads in their apps had their business completely destroyed.

I think this is all fair in terms of user choice and to give Apple control of their own platform, but it opens Apple up for a lot of regulatory scrutiny given that they were able to flip a switch that annihilated a $50b mobile advertising industry, while making their own equivalent data collection opt-out (vs their competitors' opt-in). Even then, Apple frames their data collection option as "Personalize your experience" while forcing other apps to use the phrase "Allow this app to track you." Apple's own ads product has tripled its market share since this launched. [0]

[0] https://www.ft.com/content/074b881f-a931-4986-888e-2ac53e286...

[JimDabell]

> it opens Apple up for a lot of regulatory scrutiny given that they were able to flip a switch that annihilated a $50b mobile advertising industry, while making their own equivalent data collection opt-out (vs their competitors' opt-in). Even then, Apple frames their data collection option as "Personalize your experience" while forcing other apps to use the phrase "Allow this app to track you."

No, the phrase is “Allow AppName to track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites?”

Apple’s text says: “The Apple advertising platform does not track you. It is designed to protect your privacy and does not follow you across apps and websites owned by other companies.”

These are not equivalent, they are the opposite of one another; one is about tracking you across third-party apps and websites, whilst the other is about not tracking you across third-party apps and websites. Of course they need different descriptions.

[EForEndeavour]

For anyone else curious about what exactly Apple means by "track" in the phrase "The Apple advertising platform does not track you": https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-advertisin...

> 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, and does not share user or device data with data brokers.

What Apple's advertising platform does do is personalize ads based on your keyboard language settings, device type, OS version, mobile carrier, connection type, device location if you've enabled Location Services and you've given permission to the App Store or Apple News apps, App Store search queries, and the type of news story you read.

In addition, Apple uses information "such as" the following specific features to assign you to an audience segment at least 5000 people in size:

- name, address, age, gender if you've disclosed it, and devices registered to your Apple ID account. If you didn't disclose your gender, "information such as your first name in your Apple ID registration page or salutation in your Apple ID account may be used to derive your gender."

- Music, movies, books, TV shows, and apps you download, as well as any in-app purchases and subscriptions. They don't allow targeting based on downloads of a specific app or purchases within a specific app (including subscriptions) from the App Store, unless the targeting is done by that app's developer, so that's nice, I guess.

- publications you follow, subscribe to, or enable notifications from

- How you actually interact with Apple ads (unclear if "interact" here is limited to view and click, or if they attribute downstream actions to their ads)

Notably, "No Apple Pay transactions or Health app data is accessible to Apple's advertising platform, or is used for advertising purposes."

---

Granted, Apple doesn't use third-party data for "targeted advertising or advertising measurement purposes," and they do not share your user or device data with "data brokers." I imagine not all users would agree that their ad personalization activity doesn't count as "tracking" in the practical sense.

[Spivak]

So is there actually a distinction here? I think most people would be surprised if Google said they didn't track you but that "ads were personalized based on your searches" but I'm open to a good-faith interpretation where tracking is actually a more specific behavior.

[mistersquid]

> So is there actually a distinction here?

Yes.

Quoting GP (emphases added):

> 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, and does not share user or device data with data brokers.

[jkubicek]

I think about it this way: Apple collects data about me in the Apple Stocks app so that it can serve relevant ads in the Apple News app.

This is fine and expected, I’m using an Apple app, I expect it to use my behavior to influence other Apple apps.

Candy Crush is blabbing all about my behavior to Facebook, which then uses that data to inform my ads on different and wholly unrelated applications.

This is creepy and intrusive.

Another way to put it, if I don’t want Apple to know anything about me it’s clear what I need to do: don’t use Apple devices, services or websites.

If I don’t want Facebook to know anything about me, it’s not at all clear what products or services I need to avoid. I need to setup a pihole or something similar, and even then I’m not confident I’m blocking enough stuff, or not otherwise leaking my identity.

[quitit]

The real world example is: when you’re in a retail store, that store can see which products you’re looking at and approach you accordingly. That’s not “tracking”, nor is presenting ads that are based on contextual information: such as how DuckDuckGo presents ads based on the search terms.

Tracking is so much more than people seem realise. From a simple facebook like/share button existing on a website or Google analytics script operating invisibly in the background, the user is followed around the web to identify their interests - that data is also combined with offline sources. Facebook/Google apps and services each also provide a wealth of complementary data. Advertisers then can bid directly on very specific groups of people, with that ad campaign being able to be metricised through to the individual sale.

Furthermore the privacy policies for Facebook and Google were both rewritten under the guise of simplicity - stating a laundry list services and metrics. This disguises which apps are gathering which metrics. The new privacy labelling requirements under the apple’s app store provide some surprising insights. (Like how gmail gathers your purchase history and collects this as part of your profile.)

You’ll see apologists on here downplay the seriousness of this, or try to build a false equivalence to regular marketing activities.

However take a moment to recognise that companies like Google privately hold more information on you than you’d be comfortable with even your elected officials having access to - all without a hint of regulation to your personal privacy.

[GekkePrutser]

Yeah this is definitely "tracking me" in my book ..

[mr_toad]

> they were able to flip a switch that annihilated a $50b mobile advertising industry

Fuck them. Seriously. Bunch of parasites.

[kaesar14]

If they're the parasites, what was Facebook and co?

[scottLobster]

There's an argument that if enough people aren't willing to pay for a product to keep it in existence, it never deserved to exist in the first place. Ads are often a surreptitious way of monetizing users' personal info under the guise of giving them something for "free".

I've seen a few honest apps that have an ad-supported free version and have a ads-removed paid-for version. Facebook and co would never offer that as their entire business model is based on exploiting uninformed users.

[kaesar14]

Right because the money they could get from people who'd actually pay for Facebook is a small fraction, a rounding error of a fraction, of the money they get from stealing all your data and selling your psychological profile to advertisers. Parasites.

[mensetmanusman]

I wonder if this is true in the context where by international law, every social network is required to be paid for, so that there is no other option but to pay.

Do people opt out? Or, do they pay a few dollars (about the value of a facebook user)?

[MomoXenosaga]

This is what newspapers learned. They thought the internet was a paradigm shift at first.

Turns out there is a group of affluent folks willing to pay for quality journalism- as it has been the case for 400 years.

[gowld]

Please name 3 advertising-free newspapers.

[throwaway946513]

Any newspaper available in my city are reliant upon advertising. Let's not forget I pay for the newspaper subscription too, it's not free to sign up.

Unfortunately some newspapers also are heavily biased in favor of those who pay their bills. See The Washington Post on any Amazon/Bezos related news after he became the owner of Democracy's death in Darkness.

[GekkePrutser]

True but newspaper advertising has always been untracked for obvious reasons. At most it was adjusted to the target audience of a particular paper and perhaps the type of content in the section.

It's only when the internet came along that advertisers started considering non-targeted advertising as unviable.

[mgraczyk]

You mean like museums, PBS, NPR, the military, CO2 scrubbers in power plants? There are plenty of examples of obviously-good products and services that require alternative funding mechanisms for a variety of reasons, including network effects (increasing returns to scale), inability to collect small payments, and inability to track usage. Social media has elements of all of these.

It's a well studied problem that applies to a long list of markets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem

[LeifCarrotson]

Facebook & co are the parasites, Apple was the exterminator.

[fartcannon]

Apple and its locked down appstore with fees are parasites, too.

[wil421]

If app devs charge a 30% surcharge for stuff bought on Apple stores vs other platforms I will happily pay. I already pay a premium for Apple products and I’ll happily keep doing that if Apple keeps fighting tracking by ad tech and governments.

[fartcannon]

Apple could provide all that and still have an open platform.

[raxxorrax]

Before mobile OS we had a far healthier approach to adware. It was just not accepted on a platform like PCs. This shit did only work because of low-information users that were locked into mobile environments in the first place. In turn, it also slowly infected PCs because expectations were eroded.

[colinmhayes]

Sure, but app devs can't do that because Apple won't let them.

[ensignavenger]

> while making their own equivalent data collection opt-out (vs their competitors' opt-in). Even then, Apple frames their data collection option as "Personalize your experience" while forcing other apps to use the phrase "Allow this app to track you." Apple's own ads product has tripled its market share since this launched.

If that is true, Apple is an exterminator, who wants to exterminate the current residents so they can take up residence themselves.

[mensetmanusman]

Apple exterminated everything except their own bugs, ha.

[drcongo]

I think the parent was referring to Facebook and co, though it is admittedly ambiguous.

[kaesar14]

Ah, I misread.

[fatnoah]

Let's not forget that it also gives Apple's own App Store advertising a significant advantage, since they still have the ability to correlate ads with app installs.

For Apple it's a win-win. Public gets more privacy and Apple nets a few billion dollars more in revenue in addition to anything additional generated by goodwill.

[viktorcode]

There's an explicit opt-in request presented to the user to allow App Store collect data for targeted ads.

Facebook business was damaged when Apple introduced explicit opt-in request for third-party advertisement data collection.

[fatnoah]

>There's an explicit opt-in request presented to the user to allow App Store collect data for targeted ads.

AFAIK, targeted advertising is different than tracking ad to install information, and since it's all Apple there's no third-party sharing required.

[wintermutestwin]

> Apple's own ads product has tripled its market share since this launched.

Serious question: what exactly is "Apple's own ads product?" Where would I (as an Apple ecosystem user) encounter it?

[username190]

Apple's ad program being referenced is present in its App Store, News, and Stocks apps, as far as I know. That said, Apple also uses their platform to push advertisements for their services/credit card, via push notifications [0], as well as in the settings app[1].

[0] https://9to5mac.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2019/11/IMG_0...

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/poegzl/i_was_just_...

[micromacrofoot]

It's the app store paid placement, they specifically tout their lack of cross-site tracking.

[leplen]

Primarily the app store, which has a number of placements with sponsored content.

[cloudwalking]

App Store paid search placement

[Workaccount2]

Its not like that switch was a surprise that advertisers, apps, and investors weren't aware of. Privacy and tracking has been a focal issue for a long time now

[dylan604]

And Apple delayed the roll out of the feature much longer than any other feature announced at the same time.

I create something that allows 3rd parties to build up an entire business model around it. One day, I decide to no longer offer/maintain/make viable that something. I'm supposed not be able to do that because a $50bn market built up around my work? No, I can do whatever I want because it's mine.

[mensetmanusman]

It’s an interesting example because with this argument Apple could just clone every app that is valuable and kick the original off their platform.

They do this to some extent already, but it would be interesting to know if it is always legal.

[dylan604]

To play devil's advocate to your devil, I don't really see Apple wanting to be in the market of making Candy Crush and all of its clones or any other of the various apps in the ecosystem. Much easier for them to just keep taking their cut.

However, seeing someone abusing something you thought might be a good idea that can only be stopped by lifting off and nuking it from orbit is a viable thing.

[8eye]

you can do that but there are consequences to your actions. good and bad.

[dylan604]

but not to me, and that's all that matters. (just expanding the idea) those consequences are not my problem as I did not build up a business model whose core depends on a 3rd party existing.

This is my key point. Someone created a business that in order for it to be relevant requires a 3rd party to do something in their favor. There's never a guarantee that will remain in effect. Not building a contigency plan because you've never done a proper what-if session is just absolutely bonkers. I get the forest through the trees aspect of the people building the thing, but this is exactly the type of thing the C suite and board members are supposed to be thinking about. All eggs in one basket has been a corporate no-no for a long long time (at least for the smart ones). Don't put your entire C suite on the same flight type of stuff.

[gfodor]

Every time a company does something controversial, the canard “well they said they were going to do this” gets used to take a position to justify it. It is bizarre, given how much of a non-argument it usually is to say something’s permissibility is highly dependent upon if you were given a warning it was going to happen. (And this is coming from someone who supports what Apple did here.) The argument only works if the warning will lead to mitigating the harm so thoroughly that those negatively affected by the change have themselves to blame for failure to react to it. This is almost never the case when it comes to the kinds of changes in these debates.

[soneil]

I feel like I repeat this every time it comes up, but I think it's important to note that Apple didn't "flip a switch that annihilated a $50b mobile advertising industry". They gave us the switch and we flipped it.

If 90%+ of users opt-out, perhaps the ad industry needs some introspection beyond our ability to opt-out.

[otterley]

> but it opens Apple up for a lot of regulatory scrutiny given that they were able to flip a switch that annihilated a $50b mobile advertising industry

There is an implicit but unsupported assumption in this statement that the advertising industry has a right to this data, and that taking it away from them is somehow wrong.

[zpeti]

You mean apple isn't doing this out of the goodness of their hearts and belief in privacy. Wow!

[raxxorrax]

> it opens Apple up for a lot of regulatory scrutiny given that they were able to flip a switch that annihilated a $50b mobile advertising industry

Cry me a river. This industry should maybe ask itself how it pays back an additional 50b to the users it spied on, which was allowed by Apple in the first place. Apple just corrected a mistake that shouldn't have happened in the first place. This is like being sued by your tumor for nutrient deficiency.

I understand that people dislike Apple basically abusing their market position to run their own data collection. Still not okay.

[Retric]

> a switch that annihilated a $50b mobile advertising industry

I think your significantly overestimating their impact as Android is obviously not impacted. At most they reduced but not eliminate the revenue from iOS advertising.

[drcongo]

As a massive generalisation, Android users don't spend money though - there's a massive portion of them that use Android _because_ they don't spend money and you can pick up an Android phone for nothing. They're a rounding error in the advertising world.

[Retric]

It’s not that gig a difference.

These numbers are slightly outdated, but in terms of app review iOS is 155B vs 80B for android which clearly favors iOS but Android is still very relevant. Assuming that ratio stays the same and thus dropping iOS advertising revenue in half it’s roughly a drop from 50b to 36b. Which is significant sure but hardly destroyed the industry.