> Facebook Still Crying Over Apple’s iOS 14.5 App Tracking Transparency

William Gallagher, Apple Insider:

“While thinly veiled as a privacy-protecting measure, Apple’s iOS 14 policy changes harm the entire ad-supported ecosystem— from developers to advertisers to end consumers,” they write in the full paper. “By sharply limiting the ability of third-party apps to create value through personalized advertising, Apple’s policy changes undermine competition.”

Somebody let me know when they find the “value” that’s in it for me in the creepy-stalky “personalized” advertising.

Rather than an academic study of an issue, the paper reads as a position statement. It is critical of Apple for not having “convincing explanations,” for example, but the authors seemingly did not ask Apple for any. It does briefly attempt to put App Tracking Transparency in a wider context of what else is happening with privacy in the industry. However, it chiefly does so in a damning criticism of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulations. The authors state that the EU’s GDPR regulatory measures, meant to reduce spam sent to the public, have “had a negative effect on venture capital investment.” It connects this to Apple’s ATT by stating that any system that requires users to choose to opt-in to advertising could “chill innovation and reduce welfare to consumers.”

Aww. Poor Facebook. Maybe they should’ve been up front about what they were doing with all that data.

Oh well, too late now. Fuck em.

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