If Apple makes it an App Store policy, what choice do they have?
Google would look pretty bad if it continued to complain at that point.
If Apple really wanted to protect user privacy, they would provide something similar to the iAd Framework they provide for their own Apple App Store Ads, where the app can ping the iAd Framework to tell if the user installed the app from an Apple App Store ad and monitor the users long term engagement, while Apple handles all the attribution on their end. If Apple took the same approach they use for their own App Store Ads it would be a big step forward in helping protect user privacy and eliminate the need for all the fingerprinting, etc that some ad networks do.
The fact they didn't, I feel this is nothing more than a fluff PR move by Apple and does not seem genuine.
As for your proposed system, it could work, but the advertiser might be able to deduce a bit as they track them through engagement. A black box seems like the best system for users, and if Apple can force that on to developers more power to them.
I usually don't mind if they disclose it upfront. But to hide it and present an argument as neutral is dishonest.
>With the new set of APIs, Apple will become the intermediary between the app and advertising network for conversion tracking, eliminating the need for apps to install third-party ad SDKs which potentially expose sensitive user data.
Am I missing something or is this not really any different than the 3rd party ad SDK problem the author portends? Whether the app uses a 3rd party sdk from Google/FB or built-in lib functionality via the class SKAdNetwork - it doesn't seem any different.
This should make it much cleaner.
Who knows who could have clicked this advert, with the ID "Advert-presented-to-ugh123"? Could have been anyone. We've successfully masked out any tracking, hooray for Apple.
Also I don't know enough about in-app and app-to-app advertising, but I'm surprised if the mechanisms described are sufficient to keep everybody honest.
This gives you a way to count installs (and almost nothing else; you probably can assume arrival times correlate with time of installation and learn something about your global user base from that, but that’s all I can think of) without getting any permission from the user.
Applications can still use the old approach, but that’s more work and won’t produce accurate install counts. Apple thinks the end result will be that fewer apps will do it, making the dialog asking for network access rarer, and users more wary of giving the permission.
besides that, with the 2 previous sdk, advertisers know if the install was from a good user vs a abandoned user/bot that installed it once and vanished. the new apple sdk conveniently will not let advertisers make that distinction.
They allow apps like gas buddy to wholesale sell your real time location to governments by using vague language in their privacy policies (which I cannot even find a link to on their homepage).
This is one case where iOS widgets can impact your privacy: setting it to 'only during use' also qualifies the widget to refresh your location when it displays. It's not obvious to me whether any access of the widget screen is sufficient or whether you have to scroll past/to the GasBuddy widget to explicitly trigger that.
Anyway, Apple has been a loud advocate for privacy, and its CEO has strong personal reasons for valuing it.
I don't know what this is referring to, could you please share?
You control this. I don't recall whether this app supports "Never" as a Privacy > Location Services choice, but you can choose "While Using" instead of "Always".
Apple has been a loud, proven advocate and supporter of Privacy. This comment is all snark and nothing factual.
