Apple kills many small businesses/apps unrelated to privacy but often wearing that shield as a defense. Why celebrate taking down another multinational when the reasons are self serving and creates bigger privacy issues?
the point is they aren't, they say we are against ads, and the whisper "except ours".
if this will be they true purpose you may say what can they do?, don't sell ads.
Tim Cook came out to say they are not against Ads precisely because everyone thought they were against ads. Including the Ad industry. That piece, along with dozen of other interviews, during late 2021 or early 2022 were all about damage control. The Ad industry were absolutely pissed.
Why didn't Tim Cook said anything in 2019 when they started their war against Ads? The PR against Ads, from Mainstream to Social Media. How their Business Model were not to Sell Ads? How recording customer interaction at your own shop is still Apple's definition of tracking? And Apple somehow doesn't do any of that.
Yes, you may be right. Apple didn't said any of that by the strictest definition. But the market received it as such. And that is the beauty of their PR and marketing.
Edit: Just read this thread alone, suddenly people are coming out with First party data collection being different than third party data collection. Did we even had that discussion in 2019? May be that is the wrong question to ask, were we even allowed to have that discussion in 2019?
Are you asking if Apple has ads in the app store that are personalized using data that apple collects from third party applications? I'm pretty sure the answer to that is no.
If you are asking if Apple has personalized ads using data from within Apple, then yes; but Facebook has that too and isn't banned from doing that.
I think it's very strange people keep equating the level of Apple's and Facebook's data collection. Facebook tried very hard to track you across the entire internet. Apple said you need consent to do that. Then people say "Apple tracks you too". Yes so does every other app out there that installs an analytics library. But you know what I can do? Just not use apple products. However with Facebook, you'd find that the Facebook SDK is installed on every app that didn't even have a social integration and Facebook would build shadow profiles on you, with no reasonable way to opt out.
Apple sells app install ads and charges advertisers for conversions on those ads. Apple blocks Facebook from doing the exact same thing (recording conversions on app install ads). Apple has defined “third party data” so it doesn’t include transactions on an advertiser’s app through the App Store, so they can say they don’t use “third party data”. But also, Apple won’t let anyone else run an App Store. So they are forcing transactions to go through their store, defining their own use of the transaction data as privacy-compliant, and then banning other means of collecting the same data. A pretty genius way to use their power as platform owner to cut out the competition and somehow get good PR while doing it.
Apple has defined themselves as party one or two in any interaction with the device, so the data they touch is not “third-party” data. That’s a masterful work of lawyering and whoever came up with that strategy is a genius, but we shouldn’t accept the definition and repeat it.
Let’s be clear about what is actually happening: Apple sees that other companies are making money on iPhones (in part, through data), and they are using their platform ownership to collect all that money/data for themselves.
Not only do they ask for consent before personalizing, they use random/anonymized device identifiers to correlate only first-party data (aka data they already have when you use their apps). This correlation isn't even associated with your name. It's also super easy to reset this identifier whenever you want.
They don't build extremely targeted data profiles with every piece of personal information possible and they don't track you across 3rd party apps and websites across the internet generally.
Apple's view is consistent with their actions. They do the bare minimum level of data correlation to deliver a useful feature - personalization. They also ask you before they do it. And they make it extremely easy to opt-out.
Again, they're not against personalization. They're against data practices that are dishonest/sneaky, don't ask for consent, or collect/store way more data than is necessary.
Apple never cared about privacy to begin with. as soon as they are in a position to use their monopoly power to force their way into the ad eco system they will do so in force. I look forward to seeing how apple will market or more likely choose to hide this approach from their users.
That 2/3 of users opted out of being tracked suggests Facebook has no similar reasoning for their business model.