>Facebook couldn’t explain in detail why ATT will harm consumers because, in doing so, it would need to reveal just how it personalizes ads — through observing conversions on third-party websites and apps.
This is one important factor that very few FB users realize. The secret sauce is aggregating data captured outside of FB, which is hard to visualize and grasp for most people.
More than once friends/family have asked me if FB really can hear via your microphone, and my response is usually met with blank stares: no, they aren't listening to your microphone, they know much more about you from the sites you've visited.
A step further, they know about you from the sites that other people similar to you visited.
"I just talked about X product the other day, but never searched for it. But I'm getting ads for it now anyway!"
Well, you may not have searched for it after that conversation, but other people in the demographic they think you belong to did. So they think maybe you're interested in X product as well.
Convincing people that Facebook and Instagram aren't listening to them through their microphones in order to target adverts is fascinatingly difficult. There was a great podcast episode about this a few years ago: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/z3hlwr
It's pretty hard to prove a negative. How do you go about doing it to your own satisfaction? And what would be sufficient proof to you that it happens?
If it was ever found out that Facebook was eavesdropping on a large portion of internet users via their phone microphones to target ads, the consequences to Facebook would be extreme and far reaching. It’s simply not worth the risk to target ads slightly better.
How come no one complains against CC companies about this obvious sell off of our privacy ? How come they are not targeted, neither by NGO nor government agencies ?
That’s a superstition created exactly by the other information-gathering they do—and the information they share.
You might think that Facebook knows about what you’re thinking about buying on Amazon because you’re talking to your spouse out loud about buying that thing. But more likely than not, it’s because you also mentioned it on Facebook Messenger — or Instagram, or WhatsApp. Or, because you already searched for the thing on Amazon, and Amazon sold that data to Facebook. Or because you watched a video about it on YouTube, or read a review article about it (which is what inspired you to be interested in buying it in the first place), and YouTube or that media conglomerate sold your data to Facebook/Amazon/etc.
Likewise, if Amazon knows about your Facebook activity, that’s likely an example of data-sharing in the opposite direction — Facebook selling to Amazon.
Of course, both Amazon and Facebook also partner with tons of other smaller third parties as well, to do ad-tech targeting that those third parties don’t bother to do themselves.
Something people always wonder about is how Tumblr still exists, despite having the worst internal ad-tech ever. Well, they don’t need to make money showing you ads themselves; they can just sell your data to Facebook/Amazon/etc., to improve their ad targeting of you.
Same goes for, say, Wordpress. Just because a blog doesn’t have ads on it, doesn’t mean it isn’t collecting your data and feeding it into one (or multiple) of the big five’s ad-tech backends.
In recent iOS releases, there is an organge dot by the camera that appears when the camera or the microphone is in use. This is an OS-level feature; apps cannot suppress it.
This indicator has not been reported to appear "for no reason" in these apps.
(Mind you, there's no similar feature for Android, so FAANG might be carefully snooping on only Android users. But it's pretty unlikely.)
Also, people snoop the network traffic from these apps all the time. There's no raw audio in there when there shouldn't be. (Or do you imagine the hypothetical speech-to-text modelling is happening on your phone? That'd be nigh-on Pokemon-Go-like in its battery draw. For an example of a similar battery draw: try opening Shazam or another "audio fingerprinting" app, and just continuously re-activating it whenever it deactivates. You'll lose a lot of battery, pretty quickly.)
> (Mind you, there's no similar feature for Android, so FAANG might be carefully snooping on only Android users. But it's pretty unlikely.)
Android has about two billion users - there's an extremely strong incentive for large, ad-driven companies (like Facebook) to segment Android off and take advantage of every API possible to gather data with - and they certainly have the resources.
> Or do you imagine the hypothetical speech-to-text modelling is happening on your phone?
Yes. Speech recognition is a relatively easy problem for the purpose of the advertiser, because they don't need anything approaching perfect accuracy - unlike tools like, say, Siri, which need a very high accuracy rate. It's well-known that you can sacrifice accuracy for performance/power in many algorithms, and voice recognition has been the focus of intense study, with many low-power algorithms being developed. For instance, here's a design (it does contain a custom chip, although one tested at a large process node and containing functionality similar to a GPU) that consumes 8mW of power on a >100k word dictionary: https://groups.csail.mit.edu/sls/publications/2018/Price_IEE...
> For an example of a similar battery draw: try opening Shazam or another "audio fingerprinting" app
Those are completely different tasks. Audio fingerprinting is not remotely comparable to low-accuracy voice transcription - otherwise Siri and Google Assistant would drain your battery constantly at the same rate.
It's pretty clear that your claims of "superstition" are unfounded speculation that is inconsistent with the abilities of modern technology.
I do suspect the networks are listening and it created a fun way to prank friends.
Essentially - Talk to your friends about the most repulsive YouTube ads you’ve seen, loudly, in the presence of their mobile phones.
I ended up doing this after being forced to endure a particularly stomach churning ad related to ear wax removal.
When I discussed it with two friends, I told them about the ad, and wondered if they would start seeing it. Sure enough a day later my friend told me she’s getting the ear wax ad.
Maybe it has to do with android vs iOS, maybe there is some other way the data was linked, maybe it isn’t facebook listening in but some other app.
But it really does look like the microphones are on, and the networks are listening.
This may be true in some cases (I certainly don't have enough information to refute it categorically), but is absolutely not universally so.
For instance, on iOS, they cannot access your microphone without your express permission (though once they have obtained it once, you'd have to go into the Settings app and explicitly revoke it), and they cannot do so while the app is not open.
Similarly, in Safari on macOS, any website needs to ask permission to access the microphone/webcam, and you can revoke the permission if you want. (This isn't quite as obvious, but if you add the Website Preferences button to your toolbar, it becomes much moreso: I strongly recommend doing this for anyone using Safari.)
I know there's a fairly widespread idea that all smartphones act as always-on microphones and cameras for the shady tech overlords (or the government; whichever the person's particular fear is about), but the whole point of Apple's stance on privacy is preventing that sort of invasive, pervasive, surveillance from taking place from iPhones and other Apple devices.
Yet people have been paying for groceries with checks in grocery stores for decades. I did some work for one of the companies that mine data from checks (20 yrs ago), it was amazing how much they could get from scanning the front of a piece of paper. This data was then used by the chain, as well as being sold to all sorts of other companies. No one gave them permission, but you can't stop scanning a check if you want to use it. It's still done today, but of course now we have credit/debit and loyalty cards, and you think that's not used by the grocery chains to track your purchases? Unless you refuse to use a loyal card and use a more anonymous system like Apple Pay the store can't really track you, but the issuer knows who you are (but can't connect you to what you bought that I know of). None of this is new. Unless you pay with cash and wear a disguise, you are giving something to them.
I wish Apple did not sell ads of any kind (the don't need even more money), but using knowledge you gain just from a transaction to make money, simply because you have to exchange some information to get what you want, is as old as selling anything (Omar in the market sees you bought two sets of flowers, assumes you are an adulterer, turns you in for a reward to the Czar).
I would really like Apple/Google Pay to get a copy of the receipt from the terminal. Paper receipts are a nuisance. The problem is that then Apple/Google has a copy of my receipt. I wonder if this could be done in a way that protects consumer privacy.
This would be amazing - I've seen something akin to this on some of my Amex cards - but for very few retailers. There are obvious privacy issues (though it could be easily made so only the purchaser can see the details) - and if someone were to get it right it'd be Apple.
I'm sad they didn't make it a base part of Apple Pay.
>Apple has taken money from a party that is so unsympathetic that it can’t appeal to a greater authority for redress. Apple has brazenly, in broad daylight, stormed into the Bank of Facebook, looted its most precious resource, and, camouflaged under the noble cause of giving privacy controls to the consumer, fled the scene.
Traditionally, the value of a business was related to the net present value of its future earnings. I don't know if that's an ironclad rule in today's investment world. But I think that reasonably anticipated future revenue is still a form of value.
>Facebook does not already have money from future ad revenue, therefore Apple cannot have “taken” it.
Suuuuuure they can... This is a thing!
There was a recent financial scandal where a company started out by buying accounts receivable at a small discount and ended up loaning money for hypothetical accounts receivable from hypothetical customers.
Then it makes no sense for the author to use the word money instead of data. And even if you substitute data, Facebook does not already have future data, just like they do not already have future ad revenue.
Analogies have to be consistent in their relationships between the objects of the analogies. I broke down the inconsistencies.
The utility of an analogy that compares every business offering a better product to consumers as a thief robbing another thief is pretty useless to me.
I guess the internet came in and robbed all the travel agents, secretaries, map makers, and other obviated middlemen too. And Facebook and Google robbed all the ad agencies. And then “fled the scene”.
The analogy is not "robbery" but "rob the mob". Namely, the idea that if your target is reprehensible enough, you can get away with things that you otherwise couldn't.
Does that imply that Apple would not “get away” with their privacy moves if Facebook was not reprehensible? I do not see why Apple would have to “get away” with anything. They did something their customers like, what difference does it make if Facebook is reprehensible or not?
Ever heard of the concept of "selling your business" ?
On what ground is it valued, at sell time, if not based on the promise of future equivalent revenues ?
This is hard, concrete, evaluated, value.
I find it hard to believe that people can complain about the _concept_ of ATT with a straight face. All that is being asked of you is that you ask the user for permission to track them. If you genuinely have an issue with that you need to reevaluate your business + your ethics.
Another win for Apple is convincing people that it’s somewhat obvious that Apple should have a ton of data about me so I guess best to limit it to one place rather than allowing “anybody” to get access to it. But put that into the context of buying a laptop from say HP and saying to somebody, do you think HP should know virtually everything about your usage of that laptop? So I hope for the day where we end up with hardware that we truly own rather than them owning us..
"I hope for the day where we end up with hardware that we truly own rather than them owning us.."
so frustrating to read this in 2021, with memories of the personal computer in the 80s and 90s. The exact market placement of PC's was to break a dependence on a central account somewhere. Many, many people knew exactly what that meant, supported a plural market of hardware and software (in the West) with their individual purchases, and things were fun and interesting.
Trading software and hardware was more like trading books and records - in the privacy of your town and home. So many positives to this model.
I actually don’t think the “general purpose computing hardware ownership” model scales in today’s world. Sure, enthusiasts will always buy them, but a locked down OS like iOS is a lot more resilient to the myriad of security threats out there. And there are a lot of them now. In my opinion as a consumer, I’m buying an iPhone because Apple curates the App Store and has strict rules for what gets on there. But to do that, they need a lot more info about me.
We’ve entered the era of “computing as a service” outside the enthusiast / PC gamer realm. At the corporate level, this is literally becoming the case: the new model is to just outsource everything for corporate devices, including ownership of the machines, and lease them through a managed services agreement. But this rebundling is less obvious in the consumer space as PCs have largely been replaced by tablets and smartphones (which do follow more of an “as a service” model).
but Hey,
THANKS APPLE, they CURATED the App Store !
(PS: if you got scammed and get your bank account siphoned off, or lost all your bitcoin, this is obviously Your Fault. Now that you have a problem, let's correct the previous statement : Actually, Apple Never promised anything, right ?)
Is this an article trying to generate sympathy for Facebook, claiming Apple is just as bad in this case and that they dont really care about privacy? Seems kinda suspect to me. Maybe I misinterpreted the tone here. I dont think Apple is all good and Facebook is all bad, but in the aggregate Apple does do more for privacy than Facebook and Facebook does want to know as much as possible about your life to push that into selling ads.
> I dont think Apple is all good and Facebook is all bad, but in the aggregate Apple does do more for privacy than Facebook and Facebook does want to know as much as possible about your life to push that into selling ads.
The article was about how Apple is out maneuvering Facebook. By restricting Facebook's third party access to customer information, Apple reinforces its own advertising position. They recently added another placement to the search page in the AppStore, and will no doubt expand to more areas. Their hiring of a former Facebook ad executive is telling.
It addresses this good guy / bad guy narrative. Apple is better at PR not necessarily better for consumer privacy.
But not once has the problem been the fact that Facebook serves ads. It's also not a problem when Apple does it and the problem also isn't how much real estate the ads take up on the store or wherever they're shown.
The problem has always been how Facebook gathers and uses the data they collect on you to better find out what ads to serve.
The article isn't pointing out a problem with serving ads. It's discussing the PR strategies around the tracking that powers ads. Despite the fact that Apple is also tracking the user, it is winning the PR battle.
I would disagree, Apple is absolutely better (or rather, less harmful) than Facebook when it comes to user privacy.
This absolutely does not mean that Apple is realy a defender of consumer privacy. Apple does not support privacy out of principle but does it for PR and market share. Apple will (and does) happily compromise privacy for their bottom line.
I read it more as an article looking back at things and describing the dynamics at play / unspoken intentions & the result. Apple pulled off a huge power move against Google and Facebook, and it paid off beautifully. It's worth taking a minute to describe what just happened.
No sympathy for Facebook, but the article illuminates the vast anticompetitive hammer that Apple yields.
Apple shouldn't be in charge of commerce on iPhone. It's as if there were only two electric companies, and they charged Tesla 30% to charge your car. The electric company is now in charge of the ads being beamed into your skull, because they had all the power and wanted more ways to make money. It's cute to say that it's in the name of consumer privacy and all, but really the powerful company is just thirsty for more.
> in the aggregate Apple does do more for privacy than Facebook
Then you are extremely naive.
Apple takes away from you as much private data as it can. It's just very bad at exploiting it, primarily because the company already earns so much money, it's not even incentivized in recognizing the benefit of data mining.
But with iPhones sells diminishing every year, the situation is changing. Growth must come from services.
Apple will continue to slurp away your private data.
Apple will invest more into this resource, and make more and more use of it, including for the targeted Ads that used to be "so evil" when they came from another Ad network, but hey, if it's Apple, it's different.
This is disingenuous. Using appstore buying behavior to target search ads in the appstore is not something many people would find creepy.
Facebook advertisers being able to target people for being sick, pregnant, poor and similar, based on photos you liked on instagram or even browsing non-facebook sites, is an entirely different level of privacy breech.
It is the same playbook as they did with Google. The $10B/ year placement fees for being default search engine on Apple devices, all while squeezing out most of the Data going to Google in the name of privacy.
A fairly large potion of Facebook Ads are actually Ads for Apps or specifically Games. Previously the Ad network ( in this case Facebook ) would know what sort of Games you have installed, and show you some relevant ( or similar ) games that you may like. There is no point showing you FPS games if you dont play FPS games at all. With ATT no ad network, including but not limited to Facebook will not have any "newer" data. And they cant target those ads for you. This is what the whole "tracking" argument is all about. ( At least from Apple perspective )
But since Apple has all those Data, they can now sell those Ads themselves. Of course the argument is the definition of Tracking. And may be the vast majority understanding of what tracking really mean, portrayed by Apple differs greatly to the actual technical definition. Benedict Evans [1] has quite a few words on it.
On the PR and media side it is the same playbook as they did with Qualcomm. Facebook and Qualcomm are evil, Apple are righteous. But when the trial did happen every single accusation Apple made against Qualcomm turns out to false before they were quickly settled.
The amount of hypocrisy from Modern Day Apple is even worst than Google in early 2000s.
The best source is actually reading all that was shown in court, so many juicy details in all shape and form. Along with evidence that confirm or reshape your certain belief with each individuals as well as companies.
The 2nd best I found was somehow from Cnet [1] from Shara Tibken. The link is a high level summary, her twitter account has many more information.
And it was at that moment I learned, It wasn't the reporter's problem for fake news. I discovered most Reporter's Twitter account actually report more useful information with very little bias. They were actually doing their job, wonderful and brilliantly old fashioned way. What was the problem is a lot of these were editorialised in print or online in order to drive click rate.
I was on Apple's side at first, although I knew their explanation of "Double Dipping" and Patents Percentage of a Devices were false. But I still gave them many benefits of doubt and that Qualcomm was over charging. But when all the figure was shown, Intel throw in the towel, the amount of Hypocrisy from Apple was far beyond anything I have seen. I seen then have gain tremendous respect for Qualcomm as a business and how professional they were in the whole account.
They may have sherlocked Tile (though I think this is debatable) but they absolutely did not sherlock Facebook Ads. Facebook Ads is far reaching and monitors you on and off their platform, showing ads in the app store using data about your App Store habits is a completely different ballgame.
How often does an individual actually use the App Store? I’ve already figured out my app load out and since apps can’t exactly share data the way desktop apps do, that’s not likely to change - I can’t get a package that handles data better than the original, using the original files.
Let them advertise there for now. It’s not like I’ll see it much.
I don't understand why FB didn't instead try to appeal to people's desire for freedom. Instead of talking about ads they could have built a whole campaign around how Apple doesn't let people control their own devices.
They could have helped us get real sideloading on iOS.
Apple is acting the same way they did when they kicked out Steve Jobs the first time doing everything they can to extract dollars with very little innovation.
256 points more to go guys. Rather pathetic you hide behind the downvote. So keep them coming. Over the last decade HN use to be a place learn and discuss now it has turned into this sad.
This is one important factor that very few FB users realize. The secret sauce is aggregating data captured outside of FB, which is hard to visualize and grasp for most people.
More than once friends/family have asked me if FB really can hear via your microphone, and my response is usually met with blank stares: no, they aren't listening to your microphone, they know much more about you from the sites you've visited.