Apple Shares New Video Focusing on Limited Ad Tracking in Safari

The one time we can unanimously agree that apple did something good.

Have you met the users on MacRumors?

I really don't know why do people need to prevent websites from tracking them! I am not saying this is a bad feature, I already believe this is a good from community feedback, but I want someone explain to me why it's needed, because I feel that tracking me by websites it good thing and improving the user experience, seeing relevant searches, related videos, content and ads to what I like is good for me and making life easier on internet.

Agreed. If you exercise even a modicum of caution, like me, websites can't gather any personal information!

The one time we can unanimously agree that apple did something good.

I really don't know why do people need to prevent websites from tracking them! I am not saying this is a bad feature, I already believe this is a good from community feedback, but I want someone explain to me why it's needed, because I feel that tracking me by websites it good thing and improving the user experience, seeing relevant searches, related videos, content and ads to what I like is good for me and making life easier on internet.

Oh, Google is sending a gift certificate to you right now. You truly an enlightened one that knows the massive dossier they are building on you is for your own good. Google has assigned you what they call a "universal identifier" that links every single thing site you visit, everything you click on, etc., with every where you go, everything you say to Google assistant, every photo you are sent or received, every gmail you are sent or received, every document you upload to Google Docs, every song, podcast, etc. you listen to, everything you read, etc. etc., etc., along with all the other data they buy from credit reporting, other data brokers, etc. All for you own good. What could go wrong?

In addition to Google, law enforcement thanks you since that data is all available to them via legal service, or simply buying it. Hackers and Intel agencies and current and future despotic governments and intel agencies thank you for being so positive about every intimate detail of your life being assembled. Former East German Stasi are dreaming of how nice it would have been not to have to pay informers or costly surveillance teams or install microphones or intercept your mail to have all this.

China, Russia and other authoritarian regimes are so excited to hear there are people like you who understand how beneficial it is for you to have that information collected.
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I have yet to be told by anyone, "I know what you do on the Internet." Anyone who has was called out for something he voluntarily posted publicly. Aside from that, none of the privacy alarmists have given any example of how they were harmed.

"Privacy alarmists" -Posted by someone who uses an alias to post. What do you have to hide?

Didn’t Mac OS safari just drop DNT?

Yep, but it was only ever a preference that sites could choose to aknowledge or ignore. They removed Do Not Track and left in their anti-tracking measures.

And what is the problem for being perfect customer, at the end I will only use the service I want and will only buy products I need, right?

Read the book "The Power of Habit" (2012). It's not only a great book that everyone should read, but there are a couple of enlightening chapters on this topic and how third party's knowledge of what you do/prefer can be and IS used to reshape your own habits without you even knowing about it. This includes musical taste and even pregnancies.

I love, love, love this advertising push on privacy Apple is doing. Keep it up.

Yet Kinja requires that you disable this for their commenting system to work. Hilarious. You think they’d have a way to figure this out.

They don't want to figure it out, because they are probably using tracking to monetize their users.
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I really don't know why do people need to prevent websites from tracking them! I am not saying this is a bad feature, I already believe this is a good from community feedback, but I want someone explain to me why it's needed, because I feel that tracking me by websites it good thing and improving the user experience, seeing relevant searches, related videos, content and ads to what I like is good for me and making life easier on internet.

That would make you the *perfect* consumer. To each his own. From my point of view: no privacy = no freedom. It all depends on what you value.

Didn’t Mac OS safari just drop DNT?

They dropped it from both iOS and MacOS because virtually no sites respected the setting and it was being used as a method of browser fingerprinting. Exactly the opposite use for which it was designed.

Fair question. Re-read my post. The only examples we've heard where a lack of discretion caused harm were self-inflicted. Typically, when someone publicly made controversial comments that outraged. Sometimes there's vindictive members in the audience. Anonymity is your only safeguard.

A legitimate marketer or public researcher doesn't pose the same risk as a zealot or hostile group. MacRumors and its backstage associates, for example, aren't likely to do something irrational. You might. I'm anonymous to you. MacRumors, however, knows my real identify and how to locate me. And more importantly, I know their identity and how to locate them if they cause me harm.

You're missing the forest for the trees:

1) You are making the classic mistake of treating your private information as discreet pieces of data when the real threat lies in the amalgamation of your data. The fact that you visit the site Macrumors isn't all that significant (though for some sites such a disclosure may be be extremely harmful to someone), it's that people know ALL of your website visits, your searches, your clicks, your posts, etc., etc. And, all of the that is added to an ever growing number of dossiers assigned to you, the most massive of all is Google's. *Remember, Google deliberately misreads people by disclosing only the information that is specifically held under your Google ID, NOT THE INFORMATION THAT THEY LINK IT TO.

2) You don't understand the threats you and your family face from your acquiescence to this harvesting of your private data. It's only limited by your imagination. As a dossier is built on you and your family, access to that data is an enormous threat to you, not from some hostile actor, but from a hostile government, institutional and corporate abuses, hackers, etc. Let's start with some easy ones. What if an administration decides to screen out people who don't have "acceptable" thoughts? What if they asked for a list of everyone who visited particular sites, made particular searches, made particular posts? What if they used your gmail scans to screen out anyone who ever communicated with a person they didn't approve of? What if an insurance company or business decided to lower their health insurance costs and screened out anyone who searched topics that may indicate they have a physical or mental illness? See how that works?