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.
Related Stories
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Apple made its latest OS update available Monday, but the release of High Sierra was tainted somewhat by the fact it comes replete with a critical vulnerability that allows an attacker to dump plaintext passwords from the macOS Keychain.
Researcher Patrick Wardle, chief security researcher at Synack, discovered the issue in early September and privately disclosed to Apple. The disclosure, however, did not preclude Apple from making High Sierra public yesterday. Wardle said in a post published yesterday that he expects a patch to be forthcoming.
The vulnerability is not exclusive to High Sierra; Wardle said he also tested it on Sierra, and that it appears El Capitan is vulnerable also.
Wardle did not provide specific information on the vulnerability, other than to say that non-privileged code or a malicious application could gain illicit access to the Keychain and steal passwords. He said the bar is set low in terms of ease of exploit.
Wardle emphasized too that an attacker would already have to be on a Mac machine in order to carry out his attack, and that the Keychain would have to be unlocked, which it is by default when the user logs in.
"Theoretically, this attack would be added as a capability or as a payload of such malware," Wardle wrote. "For example, the malware would persist, survey the system, then use this attack to dump the keychain."
-- submitted from IRC
Previously: Ad Industry “Deeply Concerned” About Safari’s New Ad-Tracking Restrictions
Ask SoylentNews: How did Your Upgrade to macOS High Sierra Go?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @11:42PM (67 children)
Fuck them
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday September 17 2017, @11:54PM (66 children)
I'd agree but it breaks standards. I'm old enough to remember the last time browser makers thought that was a good idea and that is not a road I want to go down again.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @12:21AM (49 children)
Exactly what browser standard does it break?
It's not talking about Mosaic/Netscape/IE specific html tags from the 90's that weren't supported in other respective browsers, but this is about blocking ads. Ads are part of the www, but were never a www standard.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 18 2017, @12:39AM (48 children)
Keeping cookies until they expire is. Sure, allow users to nuke them any way they see fit if you like. Breaking standards as a default is a bad thing though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(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.
(Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Monday September 18 2017, @01:24AM (13 children)
Where are our DN posts, Buzzard? What have you done! Did you break standards, or just censor some innocent AC?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @01:56AM (1 child)
Buzzard wants to have a silly feud with a troll, that's fine. But he should not be causing collateral damage to the site to pursue his personal vendetta.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @05:00AM
Collateral damage?
I salute TMB for his work in keeping this site running. If his regexes are hindering yet more postings of dn spam here ( and I do trust it was properly moderated as spam ), good work!
This looks to me like a Bayesian filter keyed on crowdsourced spam moderation to disallow future postings of like material?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Monday September 18 2017, @02:01AM (10 children)
Somehow I'm not surprised to see YOU taking ownership and spouting indignation.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by aristarchus on Monday September 18 2017, @02:30AM (9 children)
Our posts, frojack, not mine! They belong to all Soylentils, as a side benefit of our total commitment to free speech, even Nazi free speech. I am sure you know that DN is not my style at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @11:19AM (8 children)
If any part of that posting belongs to me, its like dogshit on my shoe.
I am quite happy TMB has an interest in making the spam pooper drop it somewhere else.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 18 2017, @11:47AM (3 children)
More than anything, I like playing with the regexes. A well designed one is a work of art, even if it does look like line noise to most people.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @02:24PM
Well, there are works of modern art that are harder to understand. ;-)
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday September 19 2017, @12:02AM (1 child)
Well there's no risk of art breaking out in the lameness filter anytime soon.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 19 2017, @12:41AM
Ha! Everyone's a critic...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:29AM (3 children)
Agreed, except that it goes against the stated values of SoylentNews, an absolute respect for free speech! And what are regular expressions, but speech? If we ban them, what is next, spam modding some ancient Greek philosopher who is uncomfortably critical of adolescent libertarians?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 19 2017, @10:33AM (2 children)
You've been around quite a while. You know perfectly good and well that spam has always been specifically excluded from our commitment to free speech. It's at best disingenuous of you to pretend otherwise, even for a troll.
And no, we won't be Spam modding you or allowing you to remain Spam modded unless you start spamming again. If you have something repetitive to say, put it in your sig and it shall be instantly spread unto every post you've ever made.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday September 19 2017, @07:01PM (1 child)
You don't say! What if you, O Mightenly Brazzeire, have something repetitive to say, should I put that in my sig? Or are you saying sigs are spam?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 19 2017, @07:57PM
Really, I'd leave your sig as it is right now. You'll get more Informative mods.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Monday September 18 2017, @01:46AM (16 children)
When a cookie expires should be a user's decision.
Helping the user apply limits is a courtesy.
The real objection here is these limits are only applied to advertising tracking cookies, not the cookies every user expects to be set to so that a web site can retain your place and pick up tomorrow where you left off today - or merely resume the order you were putting together without holding a great deal of state information from one page view to the next.
There is not much you do on the web that needs cookies to last longer than a day.
So one could take the view that this is merely ENFORCING the standard as it was originally written and intended. Cookies are for fleeting information so that the server can resume were it left off. They were never intended for tracking you from site to site for advertising.
This is why I cringe every time I see one of those EU warnings that "This site uses Cookies". It gathers permission without ever divulging what those cookies are used for and who else can read them. Its security theater once again, and it empowers advertisers: After all you said yes. And yes is forever, unlike what it means on a date.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @01:50AM (1 child)
Yeah, porn binges are self-limiting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @09:46AM
I find your lack of stamina. . . Normal..
(Score: 5, Informative) by edIII on Monday September 18 2017, @02:24AM (5 children)
I like the idea of the default being no cookie survives the session. Close your browser, and it's all gone. That's consistent with the original idea for a cookie; Enhance site operation and remember limited user data for the next session.
You have to add sites to a white-list when you want cookies and sessions to persist. As always, I can decide based on whether a cookie is 3rd party or not. Other plugins like Ghostery help me block traffic cookies by default.
I'm always for opt-in when it comes to tracking and advertising, and surprise surprise surprise, Big Ad is not.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 18 2017, @06:04AM
I agree - mostly. There are some places that I choose to allow the site to set a more durable cookie. But, that durability should be the user's choice. Unless I click the "remember me" button, the cookie expires with the session, or within 24 hours, and I'll be happy.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by rob_on_earth on Monday September 18 2017, @10:35AM (2 children)
"Welcome to X we use cookies to enhance your experience. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies. Do you want to know more? "
"Welcome to X we use cookies to enhance your experience. Please click "Allow persistent marketing" in your browser to continue. Do you want to know more?"
for page after page after page just like Europe currently forces companies to do for even session cookies. Users will blindly click to Close/OK and accept these new messages they have the old.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday September 18 2017, @07:19PM (1 child)
I agree. The Stupid Tax is quite high, but I think we all pay it in different areas. All we can do is educate the people around us about it, and if they're willing to receive information/help, we inoculate them against the bullshit and engage their defenses.
That's all we can do. It is death by 10,000,000,000 cuts to the industry though. Every person I've set up has not gone back to advertising. I pulled out one of my pfSense routers I set up for some relatives that was successfully blocking all advertising on iPhones, Androids, computers, etc. It was sorely missed, and demanded to be put back in.
Teach a man to fish....
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:01AM
pfSense looks interesting, thanks!
I'd +1 but I'm a coward.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by TheRaven on Monday September 18 2017, @01:08PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @07:36AM (4 children)
Cookies should be done away with.
Web sites use Javascript for everything nowadays, so just keep login information in a Javascript object. That would fix every problem caused by cookies - tracking, information leak between tabs, etc.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 18 2017, @11:49AM (1 child)
Speak for yourself. SN functions quite acceptably with javascript disabled entirely.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @03:46PM
I can vouch for this claim. I disable JS entirely in my browser and still much of the web is perfectly accessible, including SN.
Sweet, thank you!
Of course if you don't care about zero days and criminals violating your privacy and using your hardware to commit crimes in your name... go ahead, enjoy JS!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @02:36PM
That's doubly wrong:
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday September 18 2017, @07:21PM
What's wrong with session cookies? You log on, you get a session cookie. Don't interact with the site for so many minutes, your session cookie expires.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @12:53PM (2 children)
Please don't call them EU warnings. The EU law doesn't require warnings, it simply forbids setting cookies without consent.
1: They set cookies before even showing the warning.
2: They don't have a no button. Refusing to accept a no is not consent. Ask any feminist if in doubt.
3: Even if you don't click yes, they just say that you accept anyway. That's not legal in the EU. It may or may not be in the US.
If you want to call them anything EU related, call them those "we refuse to follow EU law" warnings.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday September 18 2017, @01:10PM
Actually, the EU law forbids setting tracking cookies without consent and goes to quite a length to define exactly what is allowed. 99% of the sites that prompt you about cookies do not need to do so: As long as the cookie is only used to store state for visitors to a single site, they're fine.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @03:09PM
I guess most of those are actually "we don't really have a clue, but we heard somewhere that the EU requires us to show a warning if we set cookies so here it is"-warnings.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Mykl on Monday September 18 2017, @01:56AM (12 children)
It's important to note that Apple is providing this as a user-configurable option. You can choose whether to automatically expire 3rd-party cookies after 24 hours, or not.
Does that make a difference, TMB?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @02:24AM
Wait, somebody accepts third-party cookies? Setting that to "hell no" is always part of my initial browser config, along with installing add-ons like uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 18 2017, @03:09AM (10 children)
Yeah, kudos to them for doing so. I have nothing whatsoever against users doing whatever they like with their machines. That should be an affirmative, opt-in setting though. Or change the standard official-like. Either works for me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Troll) by http on Monday September 18 2017, @03:30AM (9 children)
Nice dodge, but the fact that you did says much. Is political office your ambition?
Which standard?
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 18 2017, @10:43AM (8 children)
That would be both this one [ietf.org] and the even older de facto standard implemented by Netscape in 1994 and used by every browser with more than three users since 1995.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Monday September 18 2017, @01:12PM (7 children)
Followed almost immediately by:
Sounds like Apple's implementation is exactly what the standard permits.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 18 2017, @01:33PM (6 children)
In fact, no. That is not what it looks like. Defaulting to destroying them after X-time-period is not remotely what that looks like. That looks precisely like letting the user do what they damned well please but defaulting to storing cookies until their expiration time.
If you don't like the standard, get the standard changed. This ain't politics though so don't go trying to redefine things to suit yourself, meaning be damned.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheRaven on Monday September 18 2017, @02:25PM (1 child)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 18 2017, @02:37PM
I was going to say the same of you. My statement would have the benefit of actually being true though. You're attempting to twist a well-documented standard to mean something entirely other than what it means. You sound like SCOTUS talking about the Commerce Clause.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @02:41PM (1 child)
Let me highlight the relevant part for you:
If the checkbox allows it, then it is disallowed by default. Therefore an implementation that defaults to not permanently storing a cookie is explicitly permitted.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 18 2017, @03:10PM
That's some nifty mental gymnastics you just performed to make something say the opposite of what is explicitly stated elsewhere in the RFC. You looking for a SCOTUS seat along with TheRaven?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @09:12PM (1 child)
What I see in Cookie Management:
This explicitly states that the user agent (I assume this means browser) may discard old cookies. It gives an example of a "least-recently-used" algorithm, but an "anything older than a day" algorithm would still fit with this statement.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 18 2017, @09:21PM
If that were why they were dropping them after N hours, that would be fine. It's not. Not even sort of. Their explicitly stated purpose is other than resource management and thus breaks the standard. Period. End of story.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @01:30AM (3 children)
What?
Microsoft tracking became an unavoidable standard in Windows 10, at least not without severe challenges for the unprepared.
If the breaking of cookies used to track me somehow disrupts an economy that I don't benefit directly from, then those sites that don't work right won't work right and I'll go somewhere else until they figure out how to fix it or make revenue in a more direct fashion.
This pervasive, and presumed, advertising model for the internet is horrible. i blame google, and apple takes a small step to fix it and the big business lobbying comes out immediately.
People whined about flash, too, but we got over it.
besides, for all we know the new apple phone will just use your face scan as metadata instead. and all the sites that TMB visits get the metadata of his face to know it was really him looking at the phone when the ad played.
(Score: 5, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 18 2017, @03:13AM (2 children)
You think I'd use an Apple product on purpose?! I'd rather super glue my balls to the back of a man-hating lesbian's motorcycle and tell her she has a nice ass.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 18 2017, @06:08AM
Oh, fuck, don't do that to me Buzzard. Coffee on my keyboard and screens, and I couldn't even catch my breath from trying to laugh. Damn you man . . .
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday September 18 2017, @02:54PM
I think we've found the next Windows startup sound.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Informative) by TheRaven on Monday September 18 2017, @10:01AM (11 children)
Most importantly, from the PRIVACY section:
I.e. the user agent (browser) is free to discard cookies at any time before their expiration date (though it is required to discard them at this point) and may present any UI for doing so (for example, a checkbox saying 'delete tracking cookies from scumbags automatically' is fine). I used the Self Destructing Cookies plugin with Firefox on Android for quite a while to do exactly this: it deletes cookies as soon as you leave a site (and deletes known tracking cookies almost immediately) and stores them in a separate location where the user can explicitly undelete them (if they actually are useful, for example the login here).
The real problem with this is that it's probably already too late. Advertisers are now using far more subtle fingerprinting mechanisms than cookies and this can't be fixed easily by the browser.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 18 2017, @10:54AM (10 children)
Emphasis mine.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheRaven on Monday September 18 2017, @11:37AM (9 children)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 18 2017, @11:50AM (8 children)
I'm exceedingly dubious that resources were their motivation.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheRaven on Monday September 18 2017, @01:04PM (7 children)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 18 2017, @01:37PM (6 children)
You're twisting meaning to suit yourself. Stop that.
Users are free, and always have been, to take affirmative actions that are not standards compliant. The RFC even acknowledges this. User agents are not. Not without violating the standard.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday September 18 2017, @01:58PM (5 children)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 18 2017, @02:17PM (4 children)
Which is fine as I've repeatedly said.
Bullshit someone else. There is no possible way that cookies could become a resource issue on any modern, or even quite old, computer. Any resource policy that says otherwise has nothing to do with resource allocation at all.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @09:38PM (3 children)
The hoops you will jump through to try to color this as against the standards is sickening TMB.
I honestly don't think you have a horse in this race except you refuse to admit when you are wrong.
YOU ARE WRONG SLUGGER.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 18 2017, @10:41PM (2 children)
A most well thought out and insightful rebuttal. I stand corrected and humiliated.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:00PM (1 child)
No point in rehashing the same thing you ignore above champ. At some point you just got to call someone out for being wrong and leave it there.
You can lead a horse to water and all that.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:17PM
Nice excuse but all the excuses in the world won't make a privacy policy into a resources policy. I'm afraid you're just going to have to crank your denial up to 11 or live with all that fail.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Virindi on Monday September 18 2017, @12:11AM (14 children)
Not that I see very many ads myself, but whenever I see the "personalized" ads other people are getting the suggestions are terrible. For instance, people will often be bombarded with ads for something they have already bought.
I think the old model of choosing the ad based on the content it is being displayed alongside is more effective*. But, that wouldn't allow Google marketing to flap on about how they have a magical proprietary algorithm that makes people buy stuff. Then the information their algorithm was using would be public! Oh no!!!
Not being able to track consumers would be far from ad armageddon. Maybe it would be a pain for Google, but I'm sure they could come up with some fancy marketing about how their algorithm picks the best content for your ad to run on. The biggest problem is that that wouldn't align with the apparently unstoppable freight train of "the best way to do everything HAS TO BE to know everything about everyone always"**.
*You know, like ads have been from the dawn of time. If you want to sell a new type of sewing needle, put the ad in a sewing magazine.
**And we have to be the only ones with access to this mountain of private data. Well, us and the spies. And of course anyone willing to pay enough and make guarantees that they won't let our competitors have it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by stretch611 on Monday September 18 2017, @01:03AM
You are absolutely right. After all, look at all the money poured into TV advertising... its not like TVs can do any ad tracking or personalization at all. (Unless you are stupid enough to have a "Smart" TV ;) )
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday September 18 2017, @01:52AM (1 child)
So where are you going with this line of reasoning????
It almost sounds like you want MORE tracking, so that once you buy Doohicky from Junk R Us, you will never see a doohicky ad from them again because they will have a record of it, look you up each time they detect they have served you an ad before.
Be careful what you wish for.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Virindi on Monday September 18 2017, @01:58AM
Where I am going is that TFA is really about how they want to track and not about making effective ads.
"The internet needs tracking to survive!!" stinks of an excuse come up with by the "masters of the universe" to support their "know everything about everyone" goal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @04:15AM (1 child)
The issue is that this change breaks the kind of advertising that these companies provide.
If you want to serve ads they need to target what a user is doing right now in order to have maximum effect.
Targeting the user is usually a waste of money for businesses as there's no guarantee that the ads go to people actively looking right now.
That being said, there are other forms of advertising lie content marketing and free tools that are immune to this.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday September 18 2017, @06:34AM
Freudian slip?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 18 2017, @06:16AM (7 children)
Ditto here. I block most ad servers. The few ads I do see, are for things I've already bought, and things that are similar to things I've already bought. I suppose that Amazon has the most intelligent advertising that slips through my filters. "People who bought this, also bought . . . " Now and then, I actually see something interesting among that trash. Ebay does much worse - they KNOW what I've bought, and what I haven't, what I've looked at through them. But, they insist on offering crap that I'm never interested in. The stupidest shit they push at me, is "men's styles". Not once have I ever bought a designer brand of ANYTHING, no Calvin Kleins, no Nike, nothing of the sort. But, they think I'm into men's styles. Go figure.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday September 18 2017, @11:01AM (5 children)
No, they just want you to wear nicer clothes and spend more money..
It only takes one ebay user to click on a "suggested" item and buy it for them to figure *you*, The Mighty Buzzard, will buy Calvin Klein undies, if they just show you the ads often enough.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday September 18 2017, @12:01PM (4 children)
Should be an "or" after the *you*, sorry!
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @08:37PM (3 children)
did you confuse Runaway with the mighty buzzard?
i do too
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 18 2017, @09:22PM (2 children)
That's fair. I am wearing his underwear today after all.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:39AM
But not Calvin Kleins...
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Common Joe on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:07AM
Fueled by being sick and having no sleep all last night, I read this comment and I suddenly had a vision of putting you, Runaway1956, and a couple of other SN controversial posters into a room together, then bring in a video recorder, and start the session by playing the Weird Al song "Jerry Springer".
Before I get modded as a troll, I'd like to suggest selling the video to help bring in money for Soylent News. I don't have any money right now, but I'd go rob an old lady to purchase a copy of that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @06:34PM
> Not once have I ever bought a designer brand of ANYTHING, no Calvin Kleins, no Nike, nothing of the sort. But, they think I'm into men's styles. Go figure.
Maybe it's just their way of indirectly criticizing your current wardrobe :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @02:56PM
Indeed, while I don't see normal ads, I'm always surprised when watching videos on Amazon Prime (where due to the streaming and the required login, Amazon knows exactly what I watched there), I get advertising emails suggesting me to watch the very same thing I just watched. Not even the next season, but the very same season of the very same series I just finished watching. It somehow doesn't make sense.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Snotnose on Monday September 18 2017, @12:14AM (4 children)
Don't require cookies. Serve your own ads. Don't support huge spying networks. Don't make obnoxious ads. I bought that washing machine 6 months ago, quit showing me ads for them.
In other words, don't fuck with me and I might, just might, let you show ads. Until then, fuck off and die. Hopefully very painfully.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by frojack on Monday September 18 2017, @01:56AM (3 children)
So not only should magically Samsung KNOW that you bought a washing machine, but they should tell LG and Bosh and Maytag too?
Are ye Daft Mon?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @04:25AM
If they wouldn't use stale information that wouldn't be an issue. Not only does it creep potential customers out, but it's a waste of money.
The right way to do it is search ads or content helping customers understand their needs and how the product solves or addresses those needs.
There are other options, but interestingly, most don't require cyber-stalking random people.
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Monday September 18 2017, @10:08AM (1 child)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1) by purple_cobra on Monday September 18 2017, @04:29PM
I don't have too much of a problem with, for example, buying a book from Amazon then, after I've added it to the basket, an element on the same page displays other books of a similar subject that might be worth looking at. Being tracked from site to site is not something I'm happy about though.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by drussell on Monday September 18 2017, @12:37AM (6 children)
Pretty much any time someone says it is "Bad for consumer choice" they mean the exact opposite... It is bad for their business model of spamming you incessantly! :) Not so much for making the consumer actually go out and find the product they really want or need rather than having the scungiest player ram "bargains" down their throat...
I'm happy for pretty much everything that is "ad supported" on the internet do die a flaming death. Consumers don't really love that garbage as much as the producers think they do. Or at least, they shouldn't!!! :)
(Score: 2) by Virindi on Monday September 18 2017, @02:01AM (3 children)
The whole root of the problem is that most of them do. It just makes life extra annoying for the rest of us.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 18 2017, @06:22AM (2 children)
Really? Some people actually LIKE to be spammed? Maybe you're right - I don't hear a lot of people in day to day life bitching about advertising.
Personally, when I want something, I research options using a search engine. I get very specific, and look at specifications. I don't just ask for a doodiddy - I search for doodiddies with capabilities A, B, and C. From there, I look at price ranges, and usually narrow things to mid-price range. I'm left with one to twelve choices, so I look again at specifications, and finally, I give a thought to appearances. "Oh, that one's perfect! Except, it looks like a huge hunk of shit. Choice number two actually looks cool, so I'll get that one."
(Score: 3, Informative) by Virindi on Monday September 18 2017, @07:12AM
Yeah that's not what the marketers want.
The type of people they are after will see something, hear some hype about it, and start getting really excited about the item. They will start telling their friends how this item is so great and a really big step up from the items of the past. After a short time, they will no longer be able to contain themselves and will just buy it.
In short, the behavior they are looking for is the pure emotional excitement about the idea of the thing. Rational analysis of options (or even if it is actually needed) doesn't come into the picture except as a skewed mental justification. Factors weighing against the purchase of the item are ignored. Realistic cost-benefit is never considered; the most rosy way to possibly view the situation is used, because the person is super excited about the item and trying to convince themselves to get it.
Let's put it this way......I've seen this effect before :)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday September 18 2017, @02:53PM
Really? Some people actually LIKE to be spammed? Maybe you're right - I don't hear a lot of people in day to day life bitching about advertising.
Exactly. Most Americans actually like it, they just don't talk about it. But look at how many Americans 1) watch TV with ads, and don't bother to mute the ads, use a DVR, etc., and 2) use the internet without an ad-blocker. It's only a minority of people who don't like ads. They only start complaining if the ads get *so* onerous that they can't even do what they're trying to do (like back in the bad ol' days of the internet with pop-ups, where you'd get so many pop-ups that you couldn't close them all, couldn't even look at the site you're trying to look at, and it crashes your browser--THEN regular people actually started complaining about ads for a change).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @11:16AM
If advertisers cared about consumer choice they would respect the DNT HTTP header, and if they did that Apple would have no reason to limit tracking.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday September 18 2017, @02:48PM
Pretty much most of the major tech companies, you can assume the truth is the exact opposite of whatever they say in their public statements. ISPs, advertisers, Microsoft, Sony, Oracle...
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @12:38AM (4 children)
I skip the Sierra upgrade, but this news has motivated me to start looking at Safari as my primary browser and I plan to quickly upgrade from El Capitan to High Sierra because of this one feature.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Monday September 18 2017, @01:59AM
Not much new here that you couldn't get with UBlock and similar.
With Apple it will always work they way THEY want it. With browser addons you have a chance of making it work the way you want it.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by KiloByte on Monday September 18 2017, @03:56AM (2 children)
Firefox has this for years.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Monday September 18 2017, @10:12AM (1 child)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday September 18 2017, @11:00AM
Thank you Mario! But out cookie is in another place!