Apple to Expand Digital Advertising Network to Third-Party Apps

The line between Android and Apple gets blurrier.

I don’t want ads Tim. That’s why I paid the premium over an Android.

A bit of a nit pick. That is Apple's privacy page. That's marketing. That is not their privacy policy. Some people think they are the same. They are not. Apple's privacy policy is linked in the upper right hand corner of that page.

Of course it's marketing. That's my point. It's a promise they make to their customers.

That bold portion of your comment. That's Apple's infamous marketing misdirect. None of them (Google, Apple, MS, etc) sell your personal information to advertisers. But by saying they don't specifically, the implication is made that the others do.

Be that as it may, Apple has always made a point that they are different from Google, Facebook etc. due to their business model. For example, here is a quote from a recent Tim Cook interview ('https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/apple-ceo-tim-cook-slams-facebook-privacy-human-right-it-n860816'):

<begin quote>
When asked what he would do if he were in Zuckerberg's position, Cook replied: "What would I do? I wouldn't be in this situation."
"The truth is we could make a ton of money if we monetized our customer, if our customer was our product," Cook said. "We’ve elected not to do that."
<end quote>

If the WSJ report is correct that they are expanding their (currently very limited) targeted advertising business, that is obviously no longer true, and they should be called out for it.

This is a quote from Apple's privacy page ('https://www.apple.com/privacy/'):

"Your personal data belongs to you, not others.
Whether you’re taking a photo, asking Siri a question, or getting directions, you can do it knowing that Apple doesn’t gather your personal information to sell to advertisers or other organizations."

Guess that didn't last long.

A bit of a nit pick. That is Apple's privacy page. That's marketing. That is not their privacy policy. Some people think they are the same. They are not. Apple's privacy policy is linked in the upper right hand corner of that page.

That bold portion of your comment. That's Apple's infamous marketing misdirect. None of them (Google, Apple, MS, etc) sell your personal information to advertisers. But by saying they don't specifically, the implication is made that the others do.

God, I wish people would grow up a bit, and get over the fact that advertising makes the internet (world?) go around.

I never click on Internet ads, and I'm happy to pay a fee for services that I like.

Yes, they know anonymised info about you and yours. No, they don't sell your specific personal info (they're not legally entitled to; see how GDPR has clarified how companies must handle this).

GDPR is an EU law. Companies are under no obligation to adopt GDPR compliant policies for people in other parts of the world. Here in the US they can pretty much do what they want with your data.

Now move on to more important things to worry about.

Incidents such as Cambridge Analytica or the leaking of realtime location information by mobile carriers should have made it glaringly obvious even to the most obstinate apologists that data privacy is not a trivial matter.

This is a quote from Apple's privacy page ('https://www.apple.com/privacy/'):

"Your personal data belongs to you, not others.
Whether you’re taking a photo, asking Siri a question, or getting directions, you can do it knowing that Apple doesn’t gather your personal information to sell to advertisers or other organizations."

Guess that didn't last long.

This is smart. Don't hit the customer over the head with a full fledged ad program. Do it piecemeal. Intro one component. Let 'em get used to it. Intro another. Then another. At that point they're conditioned. Look back over a couple of years and you have a multi-billion dollar advertising program that makes iAds a distant cautionary tale.

If people actually looked at the privacy policies of Apple vs Google, you'd find that Google is far more transparent on what exactly is done with the information gathered about you and you have more control over it than Apple. That's fact.

It's my opinion that Apple plays this (we don't sell your data, we're not FB, etc...) up into overdrive to justify the "walled garden" to the consumer. If you're concerned about nefarious apps as a reason to not like android, why are you on the internet? It's just as "wild west".

Of course it's marketing. That's my point. It's a promise they make to their customers.
Be that as it may, Apple has always made a point that they are different from Google, Facebook etc. due to their business model. For example, here is a quote from a recent Tim Cook interview ('https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/apple-ceo-tim-cook-slams-facebook-privacy-human-right-it-n860816'):

<begin quote>
When asked what he would do if he were in Zuckerberg's position, Cook replied: "What would I do? I wouldn't be in this situation."
"The truth is we could make a ton of money if we monetized our customer, if our customer was our product," Cook said. "We’ve elected not to do that."
<end quote>

If the WSJ report is correct that they are expanding their (currently very limited) targeted advertising business, that is obviously no longer true, and they should be called out for it.

I'm sorry. I'm going to have to bow out of this discussion. You're going in a direction of company philosophy and I was just pointing out the differences between the privacy page and the privacy policy. Apologies if I sound a bit curt. That company philosophy convo can get tiring. Nothing against you personally.

I personally don't think they should be called out on it. They have always had advertising revenue in one form or another. I think people put too much stock into that marketing phrase and didn't really pay attention to what Apple was doing.

If people actually looked at the privacy policies of Apple vs Google, you'd find that Google is far more transparent on what exactly is done with the information gathered about you and you have more control over it than Apple. That's fact.

Not sure that is true. Apple has lots of privacy controls. But in any case, none of this changes the fact that Google collects a lot more information about you simply because of their vast reach (through ubiquitous trackers all over the web, the search engine, Android and their other services). And they have been caught playing dirty (e.g. by circumventing user privacy options in web browsers), while Apple does things like blocking ad tracking in their browsers by default.

BTW, a lot of the information that Google has on you does not show up in their user-facing privacy dashboard, like e.g. tracking information from subsidiaries such as Doubleclick ...

It's my opinion that Apple plays this (we don't sell your data, we're not FB, etc...) up into overdrive to justify the "walled garden" to the consumer.

There is certainly a marketing element to it. But I do believe they offer better privacy at the moment. Not necessarily out of the goodness of their hearts, but because their data monetization efforts such as iAds have not been very successful so far, and because a perception of better privacy makes it easier for them to get into fields such as health record keeping. Generally they have far less incentive to hoard data on you because they don't depend on it for their survival like Google and Facebook do.

If you're concerned about nefarious apps as a reason to not like android, why are you on the internet? It's just as "wild west".

Apps can potentially access a lot more personal information stored on your device than a web page, especially on Android.

For me, privacy considerations are an important reason to stick with Apple. If they change their stance now, I may too ...

God, I wish people would grow up a bit, and get over the fact that advertising makes the internet (world?) go around.

Yes, they know anonymised info about you and yours. No, they don't sell your specific personal info (they're not legally entitled to; see how GDPR has clarified how companies must handle this).

Now move on to more important things to worry about.