I don’t know if everyone and Leifeng.com editors have the same thoughts. There are countless moments every day and feel that they are being “surveilled”.
This voyeur is not someone else but his own phone.
When I wandered on a certain treasure while fishing at work, when I opened another software at noon, it would definitely push the things I had just browsed, but I had no choice but to accept it.
But safe children’s shoes may know that these unintentional privacy leaks actually hide risks. Your work, income, address… These privacy leaks not only determine the advertisements you see, but also the prices displayed on the website when you shop. , And even be packaged and sold to make money.
Therefore, both Apple and Android are increasing privacy protection.
The mobile app can no longer do bad things behind your back
A few days ago, Apple’s iOS14 announced that it will launch a new privacy policy. Among them, the two most noteworthy updates are about IDFA (Identifier for Advertising) and the clipboard, because they will profoundly affect the major players. App business model.
It is precisely because of this that all the apps panic. Especially the big brother of advertisers, Facebook, under the unanimous condemnation of advertisers, Apple has announced that it will postpone the update of IDFA until the beginning of next year.
Apple pushed the official version of iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 updates early this morning.
iOS 14 updates the core user experience of the iPhone , and improves the widgets, App resource library, call and Siri interfaces, information, maps, guides, light apps, and privacy.
The privacy and security updates are mainly concentrated in the Safari browser and the app store. A big advantage for users is that the App on the phone can no longer do bad things behind your back.
Look specifically.
iOS 14 has added an “indicator” feature-when any application has a camera or microphone enabled, you can see a flashing green dot in the top right corner of the screen, which is to remind users: there are applications using the camera now . At this time, pull down the notification bar and you will see the App that is currently using the camera or microphone.
For example, if an app is using the user’s camera, a green light will light up;
If the app is using the microphone, the yellow light is on; if the app is recalling the content on the user’s clipboard, a text prompt appears on the user’s screen;
If there is an app that applies for your photo permission, you can only authorize specific photos or albums instead of all.
Prior to this, if an application was authorized to call photos, they could only open all or not all.
In other words, it is clear at a glance which apps are frequently acquiring your information and who has affected your privacy.
According to Apple executive Craig Federighi, the reason why Apple thought of this feature actually originated from a user feedback email:
The customer told me in an email that he felt that there was an app secretly listening to him in the background. Because after he talked about something, an advertisement popped up on his phone about something related to him. Although I knew that it was impossible to happen, I still felt it necessary to provide an indicator.
In addition, on iOS 14, Apple now also provides a “fuzzy positioning” function, which only allows apps to get your approximate location, not the exact location.
In this way, APP developers will not be able to obtain more privacy from users through location information.
No one likes to actively sell privacy, and no one thinks that it is reasonable to call data privately. Once these back-end behavior calls become clearer and clearer, the system is willing to give more restrictive means to protect their private data. , Probably will not become a problem.
Apple’s move is a good start.
Whether or not IDFA opens up permissions, how can advertisers’ “cheese” be moved?
Seeing this, I believe many people have a question, why does Apple suspend updating the IDFA function? Does this function really move the cheese of advertisers?
First come to the IDFA under popular science.
The full name of IDFA is Identifier For Advertising, a unique identifier related to the device, which can be used to open up advertisements between different apps.
For example, after you search for a certain product in a certain treasure, when you browse a webpage with a browser, the advertisement of that webpage will show you the corresponding advertisement of that product. Of course you can reset your IDFA so that others can no longer track your behavior.
In fact, as early as iOS 10, Apple introduced Limited Ad Tracking (LAT), allowing users to turn off the identifier through the following path:
Reset the IDFA value in “Settings→Privacy→Ad Tracking”, or restrict the use of this ID.
After a wave of operations, IDFA will be set to 0000000-00000-000000-0000, so it cannot be tracked. It’s just that this privacy setting path used to be hidden deeply in the past, and the idea of iOS 14 is to enlarge this feature.
Seeing this, we would think that if 99% of users choose “Do Not Track”, won’t they become “Private Browsing”?
Is it true?
In fact, it is not, because even if the advertiser identifier (IDFA) is turned off, your data will still be stored in the app you are using. The advertising content in the app will still be displayed and will be delivered based on your preferences, but it cannot be passed to other apps.
From the user’s point of view, this is definitely a delightful thing, but advertisers think that Apple is playing a monopoly. And Apple’s approach was interpreted by many media as breaking the way for apps.
why?
Because IDFA seems to be just a string of codes set by Apple for each Apple device, but it corresponds to a huge “programmatic advertising” market-Google, Facebook, Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance and other companies do all It’s this kind of business.
In 2019, Facebook’s advertising revenue reached 70.7 billion US dollars (approximately 482.4 billion yuan). In the same year, Alibaba’s advertising revenue exceeded 100 billion yuan, and Baidu and Tencent’s advertising revenue reached 78.1 billion yuan and 68.4 billion yuan respectively.
If Apple opens up this feature, it means that developers can only get a string of invalid characters, which directly means that each application will not be able to monitor the effect of its advertising.
Advertisers are certainly not happy.
On August 26, Facebook warned advertisers that Apple’s upcoming anti-tracking tool may cause Audience Network revenue to drop by more than 50% because the application will be deleted from the personalized content in the advertisement.
In the article “Why Apple Didn’t Cause a Panic”, the author mentioned that Facebook’s ad click rate using IDFA is about 0.69%, and that of ordinary ads is about 0.16%. It is calculated that the US$2 billion Audience Network advertising revenue lost due to the loss of IDFA only accounts for 2.8% of Facebook’s US$70 billion annual advertising revenue.
In other words, the impact of losing advertiser identifiers on Facebook advertising revenue is less than 3%.
But advertisers will not let go of any external factors that may affect their business, and Apple obviously will not take the risk of losing app developers.
Therefore, under the unanimous opposition from advertisers, Apple compromised and delayed the update of this feature until early next year.
Although the delay in closing IDFA gives advertisers a buffer opportunity, what should come is still coming. Advertisers must think about how to deal with it, and more importantly, they must realize that the privacy issues they face are not limited to this one. .
Because we prefer whether to open up privacy, we can have the final say.
For more such interesting article like this, app/softwares, games, Gadget Reviews, comparisons, troubleshooting guides, listicles, and tips & tricks related to Windows, Android, iOS, and macOS, follow us on Google News, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest.