Some very perverse creeps stole iCloud photos of high-profile celebrities and posted them online. This created a PR crisis for Apple's CEO Tim Cook. Apple Pay was being launched as part of the company's latest software update. This process took over a decade and brought in high-profile retailers and payment processors. There was one problem: nobody wanted their credit card details to be in the hands the same company that had stolen dozens of nude images of Jennifer Lawrence a week before.
Advertisement
Apple needed a rebrand urgently, and we delivered. The company launched a polished campaign within days. It also included a new website and a letter from Cook explaining the company's increased privacy prowess and the security measures taken in the aftermath of the leak. Cook stated that Apple was not only a company you can trust, but it was also arguably the best company. Unlike other Silicon Valley companies (*cough*FB *cough*), which built their Silicon Valley empires by selling your data to marketing companies. Apple's business model is built on the sale of great products and no data-mining required.
This ad campaign has been running for seven years and it seems to have worked. It has worked so well that we can trust Apple with our credit cards, personal health information and most of our home contents in 2021. We felt safer after Tim Cook spoke out against the data-industrial complex in interviews this year. He then released a series of iOS updates to give users the power they deserve.
iPhone users had the ability to use the App Tracking Transparency settings (ATT) that were included in iOS 14 to allow them to tell their favourite apps (and Facebook!) to stop tracking. Apple promised that these apps would not track you while you browse the internet and other apps on your iPhone. It turns out, that was not the case. The Washington Post first reported on a study that tested Apple's ATT feature and found it to be useless. The researchers stated:
We found no significant difference in third party tracking activity between the top ten apps tested. Only the number of tracking attempts was slightly lower (13%) when the user selected Ask App Not to Track.
What the heck happened? ATT addresses a powerful piece of digital data used by advertisers to identify your device and your identity across multiple sites and services. It is the ID for Advertisers or IDFA. An app's refusal to track you is a violation of their right to access this identifier. This is why Facebook and other companies have lost their minds. Facebook could not determine if an Instagram ad was converted into a third-party sale or whether you downloaded an application because of an advertisement you saw in your newsfeed.
Unfortunately for these companies, but not for us, tracking doesn't end with the IDFA. The fingerprinting, or the collection of disparate pieces of mobile data to identify your device uniquely, has become a popular alternative to major digital advertising companies. Apple eventually told them to stop doing that. Because fingerprinting can be used in many different contexts and under many different names, nobody was able to copy it. Apple didn't seem to care, except for a few banned apps.
Advertisement
Gizmodo was told by an Apple spokesperson that Apple believes tracking should be transparent and under their control. The user can choose Ask App Not To Track and the app will inform the user that they do not want to be tracked in any way. All developers, including Apple, are required to respect the user's choice. We will work with any developer who isn't honoring the user's choice or remove them from the App store.
The same statement was made by the company to the Post when it tried to find out why some apps were not being tracked and sent a lot of data to third-party marketing firms. This could include everything, from the mobile carrier used by a person to their total storage space on their device. It could also be combined to create a unique fingerprint.
Advertisement
Apple replied to the Post by saying that it would reach out to these companies in order to find out what data they collect and how they share it. This is a similar response to the one it had made so far. These apps remained unchanged even after Apple's statement, according to the Post.
This move seems un-Apple considering Apple's long-standing attempt to be the privacy protector in Silicon Valley. Apple is facing antitrust investigations in several countries because of its strong grip on its App store. Perhaps Apple doesn't want developers who try to circumvent the IDFA and grab other bits of data to see where it might lead. Apple was forced to give up some control over in-app payments in one antitrust case, particularly last month.
Advertisement
Apple critics have raised concerns for months about possible antitrust issues with Apple's ATT rollout. Apple was granted the IDFA, a powerful piece of information about all its customers, and other tech companies were left scrambling to find any scraps of data. Apple could be subject to even more antitrust scrutiny if all those data became its sole property. Apple appears to be doing what most of us would do in this situation: choosing its battles.
