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from the if-the-advertisers-don't-like-it,-it-sounds-like-a-good-idea dept.
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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, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @01:56AM
There's a very simple reason. In the classical notion of business you are selling a product and people are buying that product. Your customer is your users. There's a mutual alignment of interests. When they're happy, you're making money.
Now enter ad-driven "free" services. This bastardizes the entire notion of business since your customer is no longer the people using your product, but advertisers. And the interests of advertisers often run directly contrary to those of consumers. Consumers don't want to be bombared with ads, yet advertisers want to bombard consumers with ads. Consumers generally don't want their information tossed around to any and everybody willing to pay for it - as this article reveals, advertisers heavily rely on this very activity. Essentially making your product better no longer necessarily guarantees an increase in revenue. However, increasing the amount of advertising or attracting people who might otherwise not be interested in your product (through means such as misleading clickbaiting) do guarantee increases in revenue.
You essentially end up destroying your business in the process of generating revenue. You can even see this happening, to a degree, on services that have been wildly successful like YouTube. Much of the issue of censorship, draconian content control, demonetization, and so on all come down to advertising. And of course I have no idea how anybody visits that site without an adblocker. I once visited it on a public computer, and seeing some 30 second auto-playing unskippable ad before a video was.. well that was the end of that. As the demographic doing that grows up (or dies.. not sure which direction they are) their business model is going to be in serious trouble if that's how they actually make money.