Advertisers have said that system is likely to generate less revenue.The delay could benefit Facebook, which last week said the changes to the iOS 14 operating system would render one of its mobile advertising tools so ineffective on iOS 14 that it may not make sense to offer it.
But what makes it funnythe premise is a series of people loudly sharing in the real world the sort of information that gets unknowingly tracked onlineis actually the perfect analogy to help explain how the tracking industrywhat ought to be considered the privacy theft industryhas grown into existence.The tracking industry, led by Facebook, is up in arms aboutthe new ad-tracking privacy protection feature in iOS 14. Real-world marketers could never get away with tracking us like online marketers do.Imagine ifpublic billboards were taking photos of people who glance at them, logging those photos to a database, and using facial recognition to match them with photos taken at point-of-sale terminals in retail stores.That way, if, say, you were photographed looking at an ad for a soft drink, and laterpurchased that same soft drink, the billboard advertisement you glanced atcould get credit for your purchase.Just because there is now a multi-billion-dollar industry based on the abject betrayal of our privacy doesnt mean the sociopaths who built it have any right whatsoever to continue getting away with it.They think our privacy is theirs for the taking because theyve been getting away with taking it without our knowledge.No action Apple can take against the tracking industry is too strong.
Its because Apple is facing investigations over its monopoly practices, so is waiting to see how those turn out before destroying a large chunk of another companys ad revenue.
Kids and Gen Z dont use it, and most millennials have it only to bridge communication with aboomer family during COVID or have dropped it entirely.What Apple is doing here is sending a resounding message to Facebook: Wealthy people who arent averse to purchasing a thousand dollar status symbol phone will be granted a pittance of immunity from the overwhelming hellscape that is predatory surveillance capitalism.
Hes previously written or edited for Computerworld, Petri, Microsoft, HP, Cyren, Webroot, Micro Focus, Osterman Research, Ferris Research, NetApp on Forbes and CIO.com.