Apple pushes pop up for Personalized Ads in its apps on iOS 15
Apple has launched a new pop-up in iOS 15 to allow users to turn on or off personalized ads within the App Store and other Apple apps.
App Store Personalized Ads Pop Up
The pop up seems to be completely server side, rather than built into the beta release. It did not show devices as they were updated on the day the new iOS 15 beta was released. AppleInsider can confirm it currently does not happen on iOS 14.
Although the pop up appears to be only launched on opening the App Store app, it covers more than that. The pop up gives a user the choice of whether or not they would like Personalized Ads on at least several Apple apps.
As well as the App Store, other apps Apple may include are Apple News, iTunes, Stocks, plus any other app that could help make your ads more personalized.
"Personalized ads in Apple apps such as the App Store and Apple News help you discover apps, products, and services that are relevant to you," says the pop up. "We protect your privacy by using device-generated identifiers and not linking advertising information to your Apple ID."
"Turning on Personalized Ads increases the relevance of ads shown by letting us use data like account information, app, and content purchases, and where available, the types of News stories you read," it continues. "Apple does not track you or share your personal information with any third parties."
This new pop up comes after Apple starts to push more privacy features for iOS 15 and other Apple operating systems. Apple seems to hold it to those same standards.
In the past, Apple stated privacy is a fundamental human right. The company has brought more privacy features, starting with iOS 14 in September 2020. Features include but aren't limited to App Store privacy "nutrition labels," App Tracking Transparency pop-ups, and, in iOS 15, iCloud Private Relay.
Read on AppleInsider
App Store Personalized Ads Pop Up
The pop up seems to be completely server side, rather than built into the beta release. It did not show devices as they were updated on the day the new iOS 15 beta was released. AppleInsider can confirm it currently does not happen on iOS 14.
Although the pop up appears to be only launched on opening the App Store app, it covers more than that. The pop up gives a user the choice of whether or not they would like Personalized Ads on at least several Apple apps.
As well as the App Store, other apps Apple may include are Apple News, iTunes, Stocks, plus any other app that could help make your ads more personalized.
"Personalized ads in Apple apps such as the App Store and Apple News help you discover apps, products, and services that are relevant to you," says the pop up. "We protect your privacy by using device-generated identifiers and not linking advertising information to your Apple ID."
"Turning on Personalized Ads increases the relevance of ads shown by letting us use data like account information, app, and content purchases, and where available, the types of News stories you read," it continues. "Apple does not track you or share your personal information with any third parties."
This new pop up comes after Apple starts to push more privacy features for iOS 15 and other Apple operating systems. Apple seems to hold it to those same standards.
In the past, Apple stated privacy is a fundamental human right. The company has brought more privacy features, starting with iOS 14 in September 2020. Features include but aren't limited to App Store privacy "nutrition labels," App Tracking Transparency pop-ups, and, in iOS 15, iCloud Private Relay.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
IF users can be convinced it's a more private way of integrating user data for better targeting without uploading it all it to Apple. It's not sounding as far-fetched as it did when he first mentioned it.
Anyway until/unless that happens, looking forward to opinions (if any) from other members here on whether Apple currently using personal data to build anonymized ad profiles will still be acceptable for them. I'd wager this article will get almost no comments, preferring to make believe they didn't see it.
People hate ads. People hate pop ups more. People really, really hate pop ups that know too much about them.
I think it's ok for Apple to provide a platform for advertising that its apps and all third-party apps can use to target users' needs while maintaining some user privacy. This might allow some users to enjoy apps that they'd otherwise have to pay (more) for. BUT Apple better let me turn all ads in the apps that come with the iPhone as I feel I paid for an ad-free environment when I purchased the phone.
But anyway, you missed the point.
People hate ads. People hate pop ups more. People really, really hate pop ups that know too much about them.
The thrust of your point is that people really hate pop-ups that know too much about them. And they can turn the personalisation off. Hence there is no "know too much about them" problem.
Also, I believe that the only thing that is a pop-up, is this one-time thing that lets you select personalised or not. There's nothing here to suggest that any "ads" will be pop-ups.
Lastly, it's unclear if this is going to introduce any more "ads" in Apple's apps. It seems more targeted towards enabling better-targeted app suggestions in the app store.
While you are correct that it does not turn off all ads, it turns off the personalization. If you note, if you pay for the services from Apple, they remove ads (I have the Apple One pack and I get no ads in the News App). Removing ads from the App Store is ludicrous, the entire store is an ad. Personalization means that Apple can provide featured apps that are more applicable to you. If Apple were against advertising overall, then you would never see an Apple Ad on TV, and Apple TV+ Ad on TV or Web, or any one of hundreds of other advertising, product placement, and sponsorships that Apple does.
The articles cited above do not state that Apple has a stance against personalized advertising, they have a stance against un-consented targeted advertising, as well as an even larger stance against 3rd Party Targeting and aggregation services that attempt to use Apple's hardware and Operating System to track users.
Providing an authorization page explaining what Personalized ads are, how Apple aggregates and protects your PI, and then requesting consent is 100% consistent with the requirements that Apple has put on 3rd Party Developers to both have the "Content Labels" in the App Store, as well as the new requirements to request tracking permission.
Requesting that Apple remove Ads all together from their 1st party apps without payment would turn the ventures into a cost center instead of a profit center. A more reasonable request is to ask Apple to remove ads for a fee, which in most cases they do already.
In case of personalized ads, that is a useless approach to apply for ads.
Apple instead would need to scan your images for objects, food, location, brands, activities, etcetera and send this information to Apple so that the server can then feed you ads from the ad server based on what objects or meta-data was collected.
This data can be collected by Apple but you have to keep a relationship between device identifier and the collected data in order to be “personalized”.
In what way is a "product" listing not an advertisement?
In addition, you are then stating that Apple should make no money on the App Store, since the Vast majority of Apps are free. In addition, those ads tend to be for third party apps (I just opened the App Store on my Mac and on the discover tab the ads were all for non-Apple owned apps, only 15% of which had a download cost associated with them.
I would also note that the category tab does exactly what you ask for, as does the search bar. Nor are you required to use the App Store App to search for apps, as all the content is API'd and can be searched on Duck-Duck-Go, or any other search system that has no ads/steering, to a link directly to an app you find in a result.
It's nice that you would like to consume content for free. I work for a content publisher, without ads, we wouldn't be publishing as ads are how we "charge" users for our content.
We put up a popup on our site that detected ad blocking (not tracking, just basic blocking) simply requested that if you want read our content we respectfully request that you support the company so that we can all continue to have jobs and create that content. We received .1% of the revenue we receive from ads for 22% of the traffic. And that was with only 40% of those using ad blockers opting to voluntarily donate. So the other 60% decided that they would rather steal content.
Apple is a massive business, and you could argue that their profit margins are huge and that they don't "need" certain parts of their business to survive and make money. I would absolutely agree with you. In fact there is an argument to be made that they are shorting content creators on royalties, but that isn't the argument here (nor is iTunes/Apple Music as that is a whole other argument). This thread is about advertising.
I would leave you with the thought that if you walk into Best Buy, there are advertisements for products all over the place (or on their website for that matter). The same was true of Woolworth's 50 years ago. Walk into Macy's, they don't have a "search bar" for your pair of pants that you want, you look at a "category sign" for the Men's department, then you walk over and browse through all the adds for "sales", "specials", "new items", "clearance" and find what you want.
Also when you plunk down your credit card to buy that $37.99 HDMI "Gold Hi Speed Special Connection" cable, know that Best Buy paid ~$3.00 for it (far more than a 30% commission), that the companies do not get to set their own prices, and that the very same cable probably cost the manufacturer ~$0.50 to produce. Everyone in that whole supply chain has costs, employees that deserve a living wage (even if they don't get it), and need to make some profit to keep running.