SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the if-the-advertisers-don't-like-it,-it-sounds-like-a-good-idea dept.
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow5743
Apple's limits on tracking will "sabotage the economic model for the Internet."
Apple's latest operating systems for the Mac and iPhone will soon be rolling out, and with that comes new restrictions on ad-tracking in the Safari browser. Adding a 24-hour limit on ad targeting cookies is good for privacy under Apple's new "Intelligent Tracking Prevention" feature. But if you're an advertiser, the macOS High Sierra and iOS 11 Safari browsers spell gloom and doom for the Internet as we know it. The reason is because Safari is making it harder for advertisers to follow users as they surf the Internet—and that will dramatically reduce the normal bombardment of ads reflecting the sites Internet surfers have visited earlier. Six major advertising groups have just published an open letter blasting the new tracking restrictions Apple unveiled in June. They say they are "deeply concerned" about them:
The infrastructure of the modern Internet depends on consistent and generally applicable standards for cookies, so digital companies can innovate to build content, services, and advertising that are personalized for users and remember their visits. Apple's Safari move breaks those standards and replaces them with an amorphous set of shifting rules that will hurt the user experience and sabotage the economic model for the Internet.
Apple's unilateral and heavy-handed approach is bad for consumer choice and bad for the ad-supported online content and services consumers love. Blocking cookies in this manner will drive a wedge between brands and their customers, and it will make advertising more generic and less timely and useful.
The letter is signed by the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the American Advertising Federation, the Association of National Advertisers, the Data & Marketing Association, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, and the Network Advertising Initiative.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by mhajicek on Monday September 18 2017, @12:54AM (3 children)
Sure they keep them until they expire. They expire in 24 hrs.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @01:21AM
Some cookies expire before they are even set! Amazing.
And, isn't it nice that cookies are set, like just set out there to cool, or something, rather than violently inserted against my will! NOBODY expects the Violent Imposition of the Cookies! Mostly because the corps will not tell you about them, because they know that if they did, people would object to digital rape and stalking.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 18 2017, @05:59AM (1 child)
I think you should take another look at cookies. A lot of cookies do expire in 24 hours. Then, you've got things like supercookies that never expire. https://www.techopedia.com/definition/27310/super-cookie [techopedia.com] There is an entire spectrum of cookies, in between. Your banking institution may insist on relatively short term cookies, forcing you to log back in periodically. Many cookies are good for a week, or a month. Those supercookies are the worst - they are intended to be permanent, and to track everything you ever do, for-fucking-ever.
Cookies that last 24 hours should be "the standard". Better yet, session cookies. The moment I close the browser page, the cookies are deleted.
Being tracked does me no good at all. Other people and corporations, most of whom I've never heard of, profit by tracking me. The bastards should offer to PAY ME for the data, not to sneak around behind my back stealing my data.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Monday September 18 2017, @02:37PM
Honestly, I don't have too much of a problem with being tracked by the website I go to, using a cookie linked to that site's domain. If my bank or some other site wants to keep a cookie on my computer showing when I last logged in, I don't see a problem with that. And for a lot of sites, it is handy to not have to log in every day; this site is a prime example, though password managers do make this easier now. The real problem is information is shared cross-site: site A should not be able to find out from site B's cookie that I was looking at item X.