iOS Privacy Measures – A Step Too Far?

[Black Hole]

In my view, targeted advertising is fine and funds the on-line services we all take for granted as being "free", so long as it is anonymised. In other words the advertiser shouldn't know where the advert is going, only that it has gone to somebody. I would be more concerned if when I bought something on my credit card (say), somebody could tell I am Black Hole on this forum, what my phone number is, and what I like to eat for breakfast.

Without this funding, services will have to monetise in some other way, and I don't think subscription is the way to go. Micropayments might work, if a de facto infrastructure emerges, but that doesn't address the loss of facility for small businesses to get their products "out there" using push advertising.

 

[trog]

In my view, targeted advertising is fine and funds the on-line services we all take for granted as being "free", so long as it is anonymised. In other words the advertiser shouldn't know where the advert is going, only that it has gone to somebody. I would be more concerned if when I bought something on my credit card (say), somebody could tell I am Black Hole on this forum, what my phone number is, and what I like to eat for breakfast.

Without this funding, services will have to monetise in some other way, and I don't think subscription is the way to go. Micropayments might work, if a de facto infrastructure emerges, but that doesn't address the loss of facility for small businesses to get their products "out there" using push advertising.

Can we assume that you do not use the customised firmware to skip adverts? Surely targeted advertising must mean that they hold at least some knowledge of you and I object to that, if they want me to view adverts then give me an incentive, either monetary or features only available if adverts are allowed otherwise I will always decline and block them.

 

[Black Hole]

Surely targeted advertising must mean that they hold at least some knowledge of you

No, not necessarily. An advertiser pays (say) Facebook to present its ads to people who might be interested in the product rather than just at random. The Facebook servers "know" what you might be interested in from your activity on Facebook and (more sinisterly) because their tracking cookies report back your other browsing activity. But the "knowledge" of who you are and what you are interested in is local to the Facebook servers only in the process of deciding what adverts to serve (or so I would hope).

Yes, I skip adverts and not necessarily using CF to do it. Yes, I ad-block, because the adverts on websites are too intrusive and performance-sapping when they need not be. But ultimately the adverts pay for the services, and if enough people reject them the services will become unavailable (or require up-front payment).

if they want me to view adverts then give me an incentive

The incentive is the availability of the service. There are already plenty of websites which complain if you have an ad-blocker running.

The complaint about Apple's apparently philanthropic push to eliminate tracking is that it is effectively anti-trust: it appears motivated by moral indignation, but actually gives Apple an unfair advantage when it comes to product placement.

 

[trog]

I would certainly not trust Facebook not to share that information for financial gain and the recent revelations of their response to the massive hack of members details a few years ago should be a giant warning to never use Facebook and block every element of it on every site you use. I accept that adverts on a site are a necessary evil but I strongly disagree to targeted adverts without a clear opt out option on entering a site and any site that fails to do that and triggers warnings on my adblocker or script blocker I will avoid using and seek an alternative site. Nobody should have the right to any of my information without my express permission.

 

[Black Hole]

Fair enough, there are bound to be people with that attitude, but there has to be a trade. There's no such thing as a free lunch. It has long been a source of amazement to me that the entire Internet runs essentially free of cost at the point of use. How do you think it should be funded? Who pays for the infrastructure?

How do you get on with websites when the "accept cookies" prompt pops up?

 

[EEPhil]

How do you get on with websites when the "accept cookies" prompt pops up?

It annoys me on the iPhone. I accept the cookies. The setting in Safari is to accept cookies. Then the next time I go to the site the ruddy pop up appears again. About as annoying as those adverts on Horror for hair loss/impotence. Are they targeting their audience? How do they know, or are they just fishing?

 

[trog]

@BH I never click on it, I click on the customise button and then decline the parts I object to. " How do you think it should be funded?" by those who profit financially from it.