From the top hit for IDFA (the wikipedia article):
> Starting in iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5, and tvOS 14.5, users are prompted to decide whether to opt-in or out of IDFA sharing before apps can query it. This choice can be altered in Settings.[2][3] In May, 2021, Verizon-owned advertisement analytics company Flurry Analytics reported that 96% of US users opted out of IDFA sharing.[4]
Apple replaced the hardware ID with a random number (the IDFA) that could be reset by the user at any time, or turned off completely.
Google eventually followed suit, although any app that received the. READ_PHONE_STATE permission was immune to the protections.
> READ_PHONE_STATE is one of the Android permissions categorized as dangerous. This is because it “allows read only access to phone state, including the phone number of the device, current cellular network information, the status of any ongoing calls, and a list of any Phone Accounts registered on the device”.
... it is often requested and misused by other types of applications that do not have any reason for needing it, including malware.
On iOS tracking and access to personal information is always opt-in. It’s literally a modal alert asking if you want to give permission when an app requests to access the IDFA for the first time.
Apple’s own apps don’t need to display the prompt because as per their privacy policy they don’t collect or use information for tracking purposes (which is also visible in the privacy labels of their apps in the App Store).
> Apple’s own apps don’t need to display the prompt because as per their privacy policy they don’t collect or use information for tracking purposes (which is also visible in the privacy labels of their apps in the App Store).
This is the privacy policy [0] of an example of their app, Apple News. I quote:
"Advertising
In order to deliver great content to you from leading publishers, Apple News is ad supported. If the Personalized Ads setting is on, Apple’s advertising platform may use information about your account, the topics and categories of stories you read, and publications you follow, subscribe to, or turn on notifications for to serve ads that are more relevant to you. We may also use information about your subscriptions to personalize your ads on the App Store."
In this case, you're referring to "Data Linked to You". "Data Linked to You" is based on the account you used to sign in to the News app + your activity within the news app - to create suggestions within the News app.
This does not allow Apple to track you from the News app e.g. access the IDFA of the device, sharing it with third parties or other apps.
It's made clear from the policy which I took the liberty to quote here that Apple News tracks your interests and uses it to personalize ads not only inside the same app but also Apple's App Store. Same policy states that whether you are logged in on the app or not, you will still receive ads.
They claim they do not share this data with other third parties but they sure as hell use it for their own advertising ecosystem.
Using an opt-out is completely different from using third party ad blocking technology and is much more friendly. I can set the IDFA opt-out on my father's iPhone and nothing will break, but if I set him up with ublock or dns blocking and it starts breaking websites, he will be totally confused and not recognize what's happening. Also, using hacks to block tracking is not 100% reliable and allowing the user to have a specific option like Apple does is better for the user.
Billboards still require tracking. If you had the option of putting a billboard up in 1 of 2 neighborhoods and it would get 10k impressions in either location which one would you choose? The optimal strategy is not to pick randomly. The optimal strategy is to predict the conversion rate of both locations. In order to do that you need to investigate who is likely to see your billboard and learn about their interests to see if they would be likely to be interested.
Couldn't one say the same of any brick and mortar store? If a shoe store is going to open in my neighborhood, for example, how much data do they need for it to be optimally located? I guess they could seek out the online browsing history of all the friends of all the people living within 1 mile from the shoe store and analyze it.
I don't doubt that billboards are placed with some careful thought, but tracking is certainly not "required" - some aggregate stats about an area should work, especially as there isn't much feedback on who saw the billboard and bought a product etc.
tracking: the act or process of following something or someone
I haven't seen a billboard that would follow me around before. Placing them at popular location depends on existing data (or often just plain-ass thinking, like obviously a hub in the middle of the town will have more people see it compared to the middle of nowhere), and only very very indirectly generates any sort of new data (e.g. if you only place a single ad in a specific place and can correlate that placement with an increase in product sales.. but that is thoroughly unrealistic and I only write it to be nitpicky with myself).
>I haven't seen a billboard that would follow me around before.
I've never seen a png file follow me around either. It's the people who are selling the advertising space that are doing the tracking. They want to show how valuable of a location they can offer you.
Smart billboards available through Gannett (largest billboard company in US) and track license plate numbers. I used them in Florida until they were banned in 2020.
Billboards that identify car types are still legal AFAIK.
I am no bootlicker for any corp, but I do value and appreciate Apple’s focus on privacy, and I think that many criticisms of it is just nitpicky and doesn’t help anyone (e.g. calling that buy icloud service label an ad..).
On the other hand, I very much await sideloading to be forced out of Apple by the EU.
> I am no bootlicker for any corp, but I do value and appreciate Apple’s focus on privacy, and I think that many criticisms of it is just nitpicky and doesn’t help anyone (e.g. calling that buy icloud service label an ad..).
Many of the same people who see no issue with this mock and insult Microsoft for promoting Edge etc., in Windows. And will pretzel themselves into explaining how "that's different".
> I think that many criticisms of it is just nitpicky and doesn’t help anyone
This is true, but many criticisms are valid. Apple News is user-tracking adware that cannot be uninstalled on MacOS. You cannot install an app on any of the iDevices without telling Apple. You cannot get your GPS location on an iDevice without telling Apple. Apple is spending considerable resources growing their ad business, so expect this to grow worse over time; and combined with Apple's inclination to deny user control, there is no way to opt out without opting out entirely of iDevices.
Meanwhile, the only competitor(Google's Android) tracks everything you do everywhere.
So Apple's privacy perspective is way better than Android's. Could it be better? Of course, and I'm fine with trying to pressure them to do more for protecting our privacy, but between the 2, it's not even close, Apple is WAY more private with your data than Google will ever be.
> Meanwhile, the only competitor(Google's Android) tracks everything you do everywhere.
The difference is you can avoid the tracking easily. This is a direct result of prioritizing user control. You can install apps without telling anybody, you can get your GPS location without telling anybody, and so on. Apple, by denying user control, makes privacy worse for users who care, and it will only get worse as Apple ramps up its services business.
That's funny! You can not opt-out of Google tracking, they just make it look like you can. There is a reason Google runs the Google Play Store, fonts.google.com, maps.google.com and gmail.com for instance. It's not because they are nice, it's because they make oodles more money hosting that stuff free and yanking data from you for their actual money making business.
Except for the Play Store, all of those apply equally to iOS devices. You do not even need to log into a Google account to use an Android device, even one purchased from Google. iOS is strictly worse in the amount of privacy allowed to its users.
They are called “display ads”. Apple did not invent them. If your site produces above average content, then display ads are likely more profitable then keyword ads, since they target high quality ad real estate instead of high value eyeballs.
The IDFA on iOS is a random device identifier and not tied to your identity. It would allow an advertiser to correlate that it’s the same device that has installed several apps, nothing more. It also resets in certain situations.
Facebook on the other hand, creates a grand central repository of everything there is to know about you and sells it to whoever wants to pay. Just like Google.
