Facebook's Criticism of Apple's Tracking Change Called 'Laughable' by EFF (macrumors.com) 46
The MacRumors site writes:
Facebook's recent criticism directed at Apple over an upcoming tracking-related privacy measure is "laughable," according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a non-profit organization that defends civil liberties in the digital world.
Facebook has claimed that Apple's new opt-in tracking policy will hurt small businesses who benefit from personalized advertising, but the EFF believes that Facebook's campaign against Apple is really about "what Facebook stands to lose if its users learn more about exactly what it and other data brokers are up to behind the scenes," noting that Facebook has "built a massive empire around the concept of tracking everything you do...." According to the EFF, a number of studies have shown that most of the money made from targeted advertising does not reach app developers, and instead goes to third-party data brokers like Facebook, Google, and lesser-known firms.
"Facebook touts itself in this case as protecting small businesses, and that couldn't be further from the truth," the EFF said. "Facebook has locked them into a situation in which they are forced to be sneaky and adverse to their own customers. The answer cannot be to defend that broken system at the cost of their own users' privacy and control."
"This is really about who benefits from the normalization of surveillance-powered advertising..." argues the EFF. And they ultimately come down in support of Apple's new privacy changes.
"Here, Apple is right and Facebook is wrong."
Facebook has claimed that Apple's new opt-in tracking policy will hurt small businesses who benefit from personalized advertising, but the EFF believes that Facebook's campaign against Apple is really about "what Facebook stands to lose if its users learn more about exactly what it and other data brokers are up to behind the scenes," noting that Facebook has "built a massive empire around the concept of tracking everything you do...." According to the EFF, a number of studies have shown that most of the money made from targeted advertising does not reach app developers, and instead goes to third-party data brokers like Facebook, Google, and lesser-known firms.
"Facebook touts itself in this case as protecting small businesses, and that couldn't be further from the truth," the EFF said. "Facebook has locked them into a situation in which they are forced to be sneaky and adverse to their own customers. The answer cannot be to defend that broken system at the cost of their own users' privacy and control."
"This is really about who benefits from the normalization of surveillance-powered advertising..." argues the EFF. And they ultimately come down in support of Apple's new privacy changes.
"Here, Apple is right and Facebook is wrong."
Facebook's concern is clearly only for itself (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re: Facebook's concern is clearly only for itself (Score:2)
I'm play my trap card.
Re:Facebook's concern is clearly only for itself (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay, but I wish we could get more substantive FPs to kick off the discussions. So could I have done better? Probably not, but...
I will describe my personal solution to my minor Facebook problem. I realized I was spending a significant amount of time on Facebook and the time felt like it was mostly wasted. Engaging, but wasteful engagement. So I set a 5-minutes-per-day rule, enforced with a kitchen timer. Worked much better than expected. Forced me to focus on the important bits, and turned out there weren't many. Having broken the cycle, I realized how trivial Facebook was and most days I don't even visit. (If I do need to reach someone via Facebook, we normally take it to email after that.)
Now about the MAJOR Facebook problem of abuse of personal information... Lots I could say, but I want to wait until I've finished reading Zucked by Roger McNamee. Or maybe someone who has read that book has something to add? Or another book to recommend? (I've read at least five with Facebook in the title, but most of them were basically hagiographies. Saint Zuckerberg? I don't think so.)
And closing with a question: Which corporate cancer is most abusive of personal information? Obvious candidates: (1) Facebook, (2) the google, and (3) Microsoft (including such properties as LinkedIn).
Re: Facebook's concern is clearly only for itself (Score:2)
I use the iOS screen time feature to do the same thing. I can always ask for some extra minutes if I need them, but it keeps me from endlessly scrolling without realizing how much time has passed.
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Basically the ACK, but I'd probably have to be paid to use an iPhone.
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If I'm not going to care at all about Facebook, the last thing I'd want to do after not using them would be to read a freakin' book about them.
Fuck facebook. The day they vanish, the Internet will be a better place.
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It's called knowing the enemy. Also related to following the money. Simply destroying Facebook won't solve the problem if there is still money on the table. (For similar reasons, these days I read a lot of books about China, but I've been moving back towards Russian books recently. (This is a job for "Cyberspace Force"!))
(And does anyone know how to suppress the unneeded keyboards on Windows 10? I can understand why the English keyboard keeps popping up on the machine with English support added, but this on
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I created a Facebook account to track a particular bit of information and simply found no need to use it much and realised after a time various people were taking offence at not responding to their facebook addiction. A real warning and why I deleted the account, it forces you to respond, it forces you to defend your real identity, that is it's really destructive hook. Deleted that account well over a decade ago. Never ever once considered starting it up again.
As for the political manipulation and the corru
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But I can't delete my Facebook account! My user-id number is one of the last university specials before they opened it up!
Seriously, as regards the ACKs, I just hit a Like or other emoji once in a while. If they complain, I remind them of my email address. (And if they don't have my email address, they can ask nicely, but I'm kind of hesitant to give it out these years.)
The democracy thing is more serious. While I agree with you, I think that's "path dependence". Facebook could be redirected onto other path
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the best starting point would be cutting Facebook into small pieces with equal numbers of users distributed to each piece
Good god! Haven't you ever seen Fantasia? Cutting Facebook into little pieces will just create an army of Facebooks, each of which is just as evil as the other.
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I'd give you the Funny mod if'n I ever had a mod point to give.
But I don't mind the idea of little Facebooks. However that creates a new problem of selecting the one I want to hold my data. Too many choices is also a problem.
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The problem is that it will inevitably be a subset of them - likely more than one but it may be anything from the empty set to all of them :). The value (for you, not them) in a "social network" is the other people you have to communicate with. So you would have to figure out which set of Facebooks you would want to join and then figuring out which one to post a comment to. (And ultimately only one or two would succeed, which means you would have to repeat the exercise over and over again).
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No, you just define the APIs so your queries to your choice (of a tiny baby Facebook) are appropriately echoed to the places where your friends have chosen to store and share their personal information. There can even be provision for certain amounts of temporary caching of the information you are likely to want to see, but the basic rule should be that OUR personal information is only stored (and used) where WE want it to be. (I would actually favor a peer-to-peer approach where the results of those querie
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What we need is a blockchain-type social network (without the computational requirements of Bitcoins/etc) with applications and open-source websites that allow to interact with it and let any computer be a node in the network.
A quick search shows there are already quite a lot of such projects happening right now. But as is usual with open-source, there's lots of projects competing with each other instead of joining forces against Facebook.
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The computational requirement of BitCoin is basically an insane way to create an artificial scarcity. I've read a number of books on it, mostly written by advocates, not skeptics, and it's still nuts. But as a sales pitch, the idea of BitCoin mining helped BitCoin create a Gold Rush mentality. For now. The idea of cryptocurrency isn't nuts, but basically as an alternative fiat currency, not as a gold mine.
I don't see any particular need for blockchain to implement the kind of distributed system I described.
Re: Just like Trump (Score:1)
Itâ(TM)s fortunate for him that heâ(TM)ll be living rent free in your head for the next few years.
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Itâ(TM)s fortunate for him that heâ(TM)ll be living rent free in your head for the next few years.
You're right, jails could be considered "rent free" by their occupants.
Re: Just like Trump (Score:2)
Your head is a jail? How does that work?
Opt-in? (Score:2)
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Nevermind, its "opt in to track" and not "opt in to prevent tracking".
Yup - the default is opt out (or, at least, actually getting asked to be opted-in)
Degrees of evilhood ... (Score:5, Insightful)
As mathematicians distinguish between different kinds of infinities ( like countably many, or uncountably many) one has to look at the differences.
Facebook has no viable model of revenue other than selling their user's data. Its users are its only product. Apple, on the other hand, can do all the evil things Facebook is doing, it can collect the users data and sell it.
But, Apple has other streams of revenue too. So it is not solely dependent on monetizing the user data. If, and when, such practices threatens its other revenue streams, it will throttle back. Facebook has nothing else that will be impacted.
Of course, Facebook can try a subscription model and promise not to monetize the data of paid subscribers.
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Mod parent up.
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The evil are fine, thanks for asking!
Re:Degrees of evilhood ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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People at apple are so paranoid and they are trying their hardest to scare internet users. Steve Jobs use to lease a new car every couple of months to use a loophole to drive with no license plate. Im not interested in that kind of privacy.
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But, Apple has other streams of revenue too. So it is not solely dependent on monetizing the user data. If, and when, such practices threatens its other revenue streams, it will throttle back.
I believe that eventually this is exactly what will happen, no ifs about it.
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Of course, Facebook can try a subscription model and promise not to monetize the data of paid subscribers.
They could try. They would instantly lose 95% of their user base, who would flee to an ad-supported social network. The fact is that this sort of service is ad supported because, by and large, that's what end users prefer. I'm not saying users like advertising, targeted or untargeted (both have their distinct relative pros and cons from a user perspective), but most people prefer not having to pay subscription fees and are willing to look at ads instead.
What Facebook is actually going to do is to get by w
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but most people prefer not having to pay subscription fees and are willing to look at ads instead.
When it comes to Facebook, people need to remember that doing neither of these things is also a viable option. No sane argument can be made at this point for continuing to use Facebook or any of its platforms.
Apple does not and never will monetize user data (Score:4, Insightful)
But, Apple has other streams of revenue too. So it is not solely dependent on monetizing the user data
WTF? Apple doesn't today monetize user data. Furthermore they are have repeatedly not only said they will not, but have taken action after action to prove how strongly they are against monetizing user data...
Apple has multiple revenue streams, but NONE of them monetize user data. So there is no fallback to monetizing user data because they have many forms of income and never need to do so, and have spent a long time making it technically impossible for themselves to do so even if desired.
It's like someone saying "well on the one hand, Facebook likes to eat children. But on the other, Apple likes children. So plainly they are both evil.". Whaaa?
Re: Apple does not and never will monetize user da (Score:2)
It's like someone saying "well on the one hand, Facebook likes to eat children. But on the other, Apple likes children. So plainly they are both evil.". Whaaa?
Perfectly stated!
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These companies are at extreme levels of valuation by the stock market and they are under heavy pressure to produce revenue. How long Apple will be able to hold off these analysts demanding another 5% revenue growth on top of everything else? 1000$ devices have been tapped out. Its very much possible Apple is gearing up to eat children that Facebook is eating right now.
You have it backwards and wrong (Score:1)
Apple can start eating children tomorrow,
My point is they, can't because of technical controls Apple has been putting in place for years. Apple literally has no data abut users they can monetize.
These companies are at extreme levels of valuation by the stock market and they are under heavy pressure to produce revenue.
Apple already produces plenty of revenue, and part of the reason they do is exactly because they do not monetize user data. If Apple did so the value would fall, so BECAUSE OF those pressures,
They're Both Wrong, On Many, Many Levels! (Score:2, Interesting)
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Gaslighting pure and simple (Score:5, Insightful)
Sort of like the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) mounting eminently successful lobbying campaigns which have enabled terrestrial radio to avoid paying performance royalties to sound recording owners (they only have to pay publishers) unlike what radio stations across the entire rest of the planet have to do. By claiming it would bankrupt them. All of this based on some temporary exemption initially granted to them by US Congress back around 1939 while the FM radio networks were being built up. (they're still being built up 80 years later as we speak)
The same exact reasoning applies to protecting Facebook's advertising revenue model, which is based on the monetization from micro-targeting users and tracking their every move. They can charge higher rates for this, and will see a marked decrease in said revenue if the tracking stops. Definitely worth enough billions to invest massive resources in an opinion-modifying crusade. For good effect, and besides their claims about this hurting small businesses they should also add that it will hurt children, war veterans and recently widowed suburban homeowners.
It pays to remember that on Facebook: Users Are The Product (...and their privacy a mere afterthought)
People already know (Score:4, Insightful)
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oogie boogie (Score:2)
FB reminds me of Oogie Boogie form Nightmare Before Christmas, when he is falling apart... Ah, my bugs, no not my bugs...
If it's from Zuckerberg... (Score:2)
does not change the problem (Score:2)
regardless of who is right or who is wrong, the question still stands: how can people target ads to those that are would be customers than those who aren't? everyone wants to spend money wisely but if there are no targeted advertising do we just give up and go back to traditional ad buy? it's not like local newspapers are thriving either and local news and broadcast radio are slowly dying off as more and more are getting their news and media (and everything else) on line...
so how do you marry local business
Re:does not change the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
When you are in need of a product or service, you search. Google or whatever. Like the yellow pages in the old days. There you can find the local business.
When you are not in need of such, you don't need to hear about it.
There seems to be a misconception that businesses must have a right to pollute public space, media space etc with "Hey look here, we want your money" messages. There is (or should be) no such right.
Ads today virtually only exists because somebody makes money from selling ads, not because businesses need to advertise.
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