>I can’t see Google and Facebook being thrilled about implementing support for this, but given the recent scandal involving Cambridge Analytica, Apple should have extra leverage to push them in this direction.
If Apple makes it an App Store policy, what choice do they have?
It's also App Store policy to not lock built-in iOS features behind in-app purchases or subscriptions, yet Google gets away with it on the YouTube.app by only allowing background audio if you subscribe to YouTube Red.
I think Apple would care about the trials and tribulations of the ad-tech industry about as much they did when they added Intelligent Tracking Prevention to Safari (or blocked third-party cookies by default).
I think the poster 'IBM' was implying that in the current climate, Google and Facebook have to be a lot more careful in the "weapons of war" they use than Apple does. Not that Apple would be this evil, but in the current climate, Apple might even invite opportunity to provoke a response by Google or Facebook.
This new SDK doesn't help advertisers or users. Being able to assess the quality of users coming from different ad networks is crucial for any advertiser to assess the quality of their spend. Some ad networks might generate high quality legitimate users, while others are fraught with click fraud, or low quality users. Since an advertiser isn't able to tell which users came from an ad, no advertiser will adopt it.
If Apple really wanted to protect user privacy, they would provide something similar to the iAd Framework they provide for their own Apple App Store Ads, where the app can ping the iAd Framework to tell if the user installed the app from an Apple App Store ad and monitor the users long term engagement, while Apple handles all the attribution on their end. If Apple took the same approach they use for their own App Store Ads it would be a big step forward in helping protect user privacy and eliminate the need for all the fingerprinting, etc that some ad networks do.
The fact they didn't, I feel this is nothing more than a fluff PR move by Apple and does not seem genuine.
I see why advertisers wouldn't like it, but how the heck isn't it good for users? You don't even have an explicit argument for that point, just the implicit "it might not be adopted." You're a bit disingenuous with your claim.
As for your proposed system, it could work, but the advertiser might be able to deduce a bit as they track them through engagement. A black box seems like the best system for users, and if Apple can force that on to developers more power to them.
>The new APIs are part of the StoreKit framework and include a new class called SKAdNetwork.
>With the new set of APIs, Apple will become the intermediary between the app and advertising network for conversion tracking, eliminating the need for apps to install third-party ad SDKs which potentially expose sensitive user data.
Am I missing something or is this not really any different than the 3rd party ad SDK problem the author portends? Whether the app uses a 3rd party sdk from Google/FB or built-in lib functionality via the class SKAdNetwork - it doesn't seem any different.
You can’t track users from advertising click through opening the app after downloading the app from the App Store. So networks have to do all kinds of tricks like try to fingerprint the user to associate the advertising click and the app open.
Its proponents will tell you this doesn't have any tracking in it. Fully anonymous. Only the advert's ID gets passed along to track conversion.
Who knows who could have clicked this advert, with the ID "Advert-presented-to-ugh123"? Could have been anyone. We've successfully masked out any tracking, hooray for Apple.
Also I don't know enough about in-app and app-to-app advertising, but I'm surprised if the mechanisms described are sufficient to keep everybody honest.
The way I understand this: doing this in your application requires you to have network access, which means you have to convince your user to give it to you.
This gives you a way to count installs (and almost nothing else; you probably can assume arrival times correlate with time of installation and learn something about your global user base from that, but that’s all I can think of) without getting any permission from the user.
Applications can still use the old approach, but that’s more work and won’t produce accurate install counts. Apple thinks the end result will be that fewer apps will do it, making the dialog asking for network access rarer, and users more wary of giving the permission.
the difference is: with facebook sdk, facebook has all the user data. with google sdk, google has all the user data. with apple new sdk, apple has all the data.
besides that, with the 2 previous sdk, advertisers know if the install was from a good user vs a abandoned user/bot that installed it once and vanished. the new apple sdk conveniently will not let advertisers make that distinction.
They allow apps like gas buddy to wholesale sell your real time location to governments by using vague language in their privacy policies (which I cannot even find a link to on their homepage).
You have control over your data: you can choose whether GasBuddy has access to your location always, never, or only during use.
This is one case where iOS widgets can impact your privacy: setting it to 'only during use' also qualifies the widget to refresh your location when it displays. It's not obvious to me whether any access of the widget screen is sufficient or whether you have to scroll past/to the GasBuddy widget to explicitly trigger that.
Anyway, Apple has been a loud advocate for privacy, and its CEO has strong personal reasons for valuing it.
> They allow apps like gas buddy to wholesale sell your real time location…
You control this. I don't recall whether this app supports "Never" as a Privacy > Location Services choice, but you can choose "While Using" instead of "Always".
The developer doesn't get to choose not to support 'Never' and with iOS 11 doesn't get to choose not to support 'While using' either. It maybe though that the app can't work without knowing your location, which sounds likely for an app that is supposed to tell you something related to your location.
Do you want less or more user control? Or should Apple control everything? I'm certainly not a fan of Apple but I respect their ability to mostly just stick the to basics of you give me $100 and I give you this product of equal (sic) value.
>I can’t see Google and Facebook being thrilled about implementing support for this, but given the recent scandal involving Cambridge Analytica, Apple should have extra leverage to push them in this direction.
If Apple makes it an App Store policy, what choice do they have?
It's also App Store policy to not lock built-in iOS features behind in-app purchases or subscriptions, yet Google gets away with it on the YouTube.app by only allowing background audio if you subscribe to YouTube Red.
Youtube in background is a built in ios feature?
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PR wars I imagine. "We can't do requested feature X because Apple blocks Y".
I think Apple would care about the trials and tribulations of the ad-tech industry about as much they did when they added Intelligent Tracking Prevention to Safari (or blocked third-party cookies by default).
To which Apple would basically go "...yeah, because we respect users privacy" and shrug.
Google would look pretty bad if it continued to complain at that point.
Google and Facebook both interact with Apple in a lot of ways. If Apple makes it an App Store policy they will have options in how to attack back.
I think the poster 'IBM' was implying that in the current climate, Google and Facebook have to be a lot more careful in the "weapons of war" they use than Apple does. Not that Apple would be this evil, but in the current climate, Apple might even invite opportunity to provoke a response by Google or Facebook.
This new SDK doesn't help advertisers or users. Being able to assess the quality of users coming from different ad networks is crucial for any advertiser to assess the quality of their spend. Some ad networks might generate high quality legitimate users, while others are fraught with click fraud, or low quality users. Since an advertiser isn't able to tell which users came from an ad, no advertiser will adopt it.
If Apple really wanted to protect user privacy, they would provide something similar to the iAd Framework they provide for their own Apple App Store Ads, where the app can ping the iAd Framework to tell if the user installed the app from an Apple App Store ad and monitor the users long term engagement, while Apple handles all the attribution on their end. If Apple took the same approach they use for their own App Store Ads it would be a big step forward in helping protect user privacy and eliminate the need for all the fingerprinting, etc that some ad networks do.
The fact they didn't, I feel this is nothing more than a fluff PR move by Apple and does not seem genuine.
I see why advertisers wouldn't like it, but how the heck isn't it good for users? You don't even have an explicit argument for that point, just the implicit "it might not be adopted." You're a bit disingenuous with your claim.
As for your proposed system, it could work, but the advertiser might be able to deduce a bit as they track them through engagement. A black box seems like the best system for users, and if Apple can force that on to developers more power to them.
Look at the OP's profile. Manager at Pinterest. Theres no doubt the attack is disgenuous because said individual have skin in the game.
I usually don't mind if they disclose it upfront. But to hide it and present an argument as neutral is dishonest.
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From a pure app startup performance and binary size standpoint, it would nice to stop using Tune.
uh huh, and you’re not biased at all...
>The new APIs are part of the StoreKit framework and include a new class called SKAdNetwork.
>With the new set of APIs, Apple will become the intermediary between the app and advertising network for conversion tracking, eliminating the need for apps to install third-party ad SDKs which potentially expose sensitive user data.
Am I missing something or is this not really any different than the 3rd party ad SDK problem the author portends? Whether the app uses a 3rd party sdk from Google/FB or built-in lib functionality via the class SKAdNetwork - it doesn't seem any different.
You can’t track users from advertising click through opening the app after downloading the app from the App Store. So networks have to do all kinds of tricks like try to fingerprint the user to associate the advertising click and the app open.
This should make it much cleaner.
Plus after this has been around for a while Apple can add a policy banning other ad networks from using other means to track users.
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Its proponents will tell you this doesn't have any tracking in it. Fully anonymous. Only the advert's ID gets passed along to track conversion.
Who knows who could have clicked this advert, with the ID "Advert-presented-to-ugh123"? Could have been anyone. We've successfully masked out any tracking, hooray for Apple.
Also I don't know enough about in-app and app-to-app advertising, but I'm surprised if the mechanisms described are sufficient to keep everybody honest.
My thoughts exactly! So, I programmatically name my campaigns per person, and I’ve still got perfect tracking.
The way I understand this: doing this in your application requires you to have network access, which means you have to convince your user to give it to you.
This gives you a way to count installs (and almost nothing else; you probably can assume arrival times correlate with time of installation and learn something about your global user base from that, but that’s all I can think of) without getting any permission from the user.
Applications can still use the old approach, but that’s more work and won’t produce accurate install counts. Apple thinks the end result will be that fewer apps will do it, making the dialog asking for network access rarer, and users more wary of giving the permission.
Apps on iOS don’t need to ask for network access.
the difference is: with facebook sdk, facebook has all the user data. with google sdk, google has all the user data. with apple new sdk, apple has all the data.
besides that, with the 2 previous sdk, advertisers know if the install was from a good user vs a abandoned user/bot that installed it once and vanished. the new apple sdk conveniently will not let advertisers make that distinction.
Apples fake privacy concerns.
They allow apps like gas buddy to wholesale sell your real time location to governments by using vague language in their privacy policies (which I cannot even find a link to on their homepage).
You have control over your data: you can choose whether GasBuddy has access to your location always, never, or only during use.
This is one case where iOS widgets can impact your privacy: setting it to 'only during use' also qualifies the widget to refresh your location when it displays. It's not obvious to me whether any access of the widget screen is sufficient or whether you have to scroll past/to the GasBuddy widget to explicitly trigger that.
Anyway, Apple has been a loud advocate for privacy, and its CEO has strong personal reasons for valuing it.
>its CEO has strong personal reasons for valuing [privacy]
I don't know what this is referring to, could you please share?
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> They allow apps like gas buddy to wholesale sell your real time location…
You control this. I don't recall whether this app supports "Never" as a Privacy > Location Services choice, but you can choose "While Using" instead of "Always".
The developer doesn't get to choose not to support 'Never' and with iOS 11 doesn't get to choose not to support 'While using' either. It maybe though that the app can't work without knowing your location, which sounds likely for an app that is supposed to tell you something related to your location.
You _really_ control this. If you don't like Gas Buddy's privacy policy just don't install it.
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"Never" is always an option from my experience. I have never seen an app that doesn't allow to completely deny location access.
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> Apples fake privacy concerns.
Apple has been a loud, proven advocate and supporter of Privacy. This comment is all snark and nothing factual.
They have been loud, but it remains to be proven. The truth is that we don't really know what they do with our data.
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Do you want less or more user control? Or should Apple control everything? I'm certainly not a fan of Apple but I respect their ability to mostly just stick the to basics of you give me $100 and I give you this product of equal (sic) value.