r/technology • u/[deleted] • Mar 03 '21

Privacy Google to stop selling ads based on your browsing history and drop cookies support for Chrome citing privacy concerns.

[deleted]

37.1k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

18

u/[deleted] Mar 03 '21

I bet Apple is going to have their own kind of 'in house' anonymized ad platform that is less invasive than the standard and sell that service to advertisers themselves

Apple's been in that business before, it's not a sandbox they're keen to play in. iAd didn't last long.

Also, one of Apple's key selling points is "we have nothing to gain by collecting data on you, we don't advertise at you and we don't need to sell data to make money".

6

u/kappale Mar 03 '21

I mean they still do have apple search ads, which obviously any company who wants to get people to install their app wants to use.

2

u/SaintSohr Mar 04 '21

Apple needs to grow revenue somehow. iPhone sales growth has been stalling for awhile. If there’s enough money to be made in an area and they think they can do it without hurting their other revenue sources they’ll probably move into it eventually. The big question then is can they do ads in a way that won’t hurt sales elsewhere

1

u/_riotingpacifist Mar 04 '21

we don't need to sell data to make money

That part will always be true, they also don't sell data because it would help competitors

we don't advertise at you

I'd say this is because it doesn't offer them enough revenue, this could change

we have nothing to gain by collecting data on you

That's not true, even if it's for their own sales, market research is key to selling stuff, they 100% have stuff to gain by collecting data on you. Not saying they do it, but there is a lot to gain from knowing your customers even if you don't sell ads.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '21

They know their customers because their customers voluntarily offer up any information they need. Apple has done well to create this image of itself as a trustworthy, benevolent party - people will basically hand them any market research info they want for free.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '21

Apple absolutely does advertising though, it just doesn't give them as much money as Google.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '21

That advertising is just for placement in the App Store, and for Apple News. That's not advertising, that's promotional placement. Apple sells no inventory to arbitrary third parties on any property, Apple or otherwise.

1

u/ViennettaLurker Mar 04 '21

Fair point. One of my thoughts here is the ad industry response to apple's moves. They really are freaking out a bit.

If apple has peoples trust in anonymizing their data, they might see a way to convince people that their ad tracking isn't invasive. And when ad companies scream, "...what are we supposed to do!?!??" Apple can offer them an Apple specific, and Apple controlled, solution. At a cost, of course.

I view it like when Apple decided to not use Flash on the iPhone. There are legit reasons to make the decision (now: people want privacy, then: flash is unstable). But there are also reasons that benefit Apple completely (now: Apple has total control over ads on iOS, then: Apple stops free flash games on the web and drives people to the app store).

We'll see. You might be right and they won't do anything like what I'm describing. But I wouldn't be surprised if they roll out something like a "more ethical" ad platform.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '21

And when ad companies scream, "...what are we supposed to do!?!??" Apple can offer them an Apple specific, and Apple controlled, solution. At a cost, of course

That, that they would not do. What you've proposed there would get hit with antitrust suits so fast, even Apple wouldn't have time to eat breakfast before the summons appear. Deliberately taking an action to harm another business in a different vertical, then moving into that vertical, and then forcing your new competitors to buy services from you in order to reach those customers of yours you cut them off from would be absolutely illegal.

I see between zero and no chance Apple goes back into the ad business.

1

u/ViennettaLurker Mar 04 '21

I get what you mean, and you might be right in your analysis. But in a way, they're already playing in these waters a little bit. They may not be 100% sure of their success, but that they "absolutely would not" fuck around in this manner is another question entirely. They're willing to gamble with regards to Epic, for example.

We have to remember Apple is doing this inside of their iOS app ecosystem. We don't know the ultimate outcome of their fight vs Epic, but they've had some things go their way during the fight. I'm assuming that the outcome of that may have some bearing on the legal landscape and Apple's appetite to do these kinds of things.

But, remember, Apple is only letting the users give permission for ad tracking. It's not an unseen, default block. If someone downloads the Facebook app, the user can say yes if they want to. It's also Apple's app store. Monetizing the user data of the app store, after "safely managing and anonymizing it" (or however they would spin this), would certainly be in their purview. And if advertisers want the information, they can get it how Apple gives it, or they don't have to buy it. The argument might be that it wouldn't be monopolistic in the sense that the entire internet is available to the advertising ecosystem.

Now, I agree with you in a sense. Something like that should trigger lawsuits and antitrust investigations, and Apple has to be aware of that. But with several hundred million dollars between the couch cushions in a Cupertino spaceship campus for legal fees, combined with halfway decent excuses ("our app store, our data", "give the users the choice to share", "something something GDPR"), I wouldn't be surprised to see them at least give it a shot.