Comment by jwegan

7 years ago

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.

9 comments

jwegan

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marricks  7 years ago

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.

  • esturk  7 years ago

    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.

    • jack9  7 years ago

      What attack? The Adtech Ecosystem is incestuous, corrupt and penultimately complicated. jwegan is technically correct and savvy enough to understand one of many problems with this kind of fluff announcement. The least of these problems is a strawman reaction that anyone who dismissed it, is a bad actor. New SDKs are born every day. Apple CANNOT PRESENT a new technology that isn't a variant of what already survives in the ecosystem (i.e. insufficient other than to add another paid product that doesn't work any better). If Apple wants to go outside the IAB standards, it's another attempt to "take over" or can only be used as an Apple "internal" tool.

      Here's a disclaimer: I worked at multiple Adtech companies in senior engineering positions.

      2 replies →

    • jwegan  7 years ago

      I'm not trying to hide it. Like you said it is right in my HN profile.

      I don't work on Pinterest's ads business and I'm not very familiar with that side of the company. I'm speaking as someone who runs ads on other sites to try and drive traffic to Pinterest.

      Also, like the other poster said, an ad-hominem attack is a classic logic fallacy. You are criticizing who is saying it and did not bring up a single critique of my actual argument.

    • ghayes  7 years ago

      Please be less ad hominem and speak to the merits of the conversation. Does it matter if the OP has skin in the game if the merits of the argument have real value?

woolvalley  7 years ago

From a pure app startup performance and binary size standpoint, it would nice to stop using Tune.