Major Advertiser Works With China to Try Bypassing Apple's Privacy Rules (wsj.com)
- Reference: 0144873830
- News link: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/21/04/10/1331227/major-advertiser-works-with-china-to-try-bypassing-apples-privacy-rules
- Source link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/p-g-worked-with-china-trade-group-on-tech-to-sidestep-apple-privacy-rules-11617902840
> The move is part of a broader effort by the consumer-goods giant to prepare for an era in which new rules and consumer preferences limit the amount of data available to marketers. P&G — among the world's largest advertisers, with brands such as Gillette razors and Charmin toilet paper — is the biggest Western company involved in the effort, the people said.
>
> The company has joined forces with dozens of Chinese trade groups and tech firms working with the state-backed China Advertising Association to develop the new technique, which would use technology called device fingerprinting, the people said. Dubbed CAID, the advertising method is being tested through apps and gathers iPhone user data. Through the use of an algorithm, it can track users for purposes of targeting ads in a way that Apple is seeking to prevent.
Apple's response? "We believe strongly that users should be asked for their permission before being tracked. Apps that are found to disregard the user's choice will be rejected."
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/p-g-worked-with-china-trade-group-on-tech-to-sidestep-apple-privacy-rules-11617902840
I believe strongly (Score:3)
that tracking needs to die. I've never owned a cellphone because of this and probably never will at this rate. Give it up already!
Re:I believe strongly [in short Subjects] (Score:2)
You could have put more meaning in your Subject. And into your Comment, too.
Suffice it to say that your presentation was not persuasive?
(From the internal evidence, you don't even know anything firsthand about what you are writing about. But the extension of your "argument" is that you should never use an Internet-connected computer or a browser, and so you are already in a state of sinful self-contradiction.)
I believe strongly-NSA (Score:2)
Strongly implying there's only one way to track any given citizen.
Pepsico (Score:2)
I notice that Pepsi has a new promotion where you scan lids. I also notice, I presume in retaliation for protecting users, the promotion is not available for current Apple products. This is a new arena in Cold War over advertising and tracking.
Re: (Score:2)
yuck, sodapop is just artificial flavoring and water with a bunch of corn syrup in it because they are too cheap to use real sugar, it has absolutely no nutritional value
Re: (Score:2)
> yuck, sodapop is just artificial flavoring and water with a bunch of corn syrup in it because they are too cheap to use real sugar, it has absolutely no nutritional value
It's even worse, when I buy soda, I buy the ones without sugar. Making it flavored water essentially. Still works pretty well as a mixer though.
Re: (Score:3)
"Real sugar" soda tastes the same and many brands make you think it tastes different just by dumping more of it in. Compare the calorie counts. "Mexican Coke" only tasted better because it came in glass. None of it has any nutritional value. Fruit juice is only marginally better, some kinds have some amount of vitamin content, but even more liquid sugar calories which is the main health risk anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
I actually buy a product in plastic liter bottles. The original, with sugar, tastes better. But it may be other factors, as water source can also make a difference.
Re: Pepsico (Score:2)
You should look into the difference between "sugar" and "high fructose corn syrup". It comes down to a slight variation in the percentage of sugars used. Essentially, it's the same thing.
Re: (Score:2)
In the US, which runs on a corn economy. Sugar cane, while still grown in the US, is not dominant. What is used as a sweetener is largely a regional cost thing.
Can this be verified? (Score:2)
If so, I will be seeking and using alternatives to any P&G products that I currently use.
It's not a boycott, just redirected purchasing.
thanks for the info (Score:5, Insightful)
i will be sure to NOT buy P&Gs products, and i will keep an eye out for other companies that want to turn my phone into a platform for advertising, because advertisers ruined TV and radio, they trashed the scenery on highways with billboards, they turn everything to shit as far as i am concerned, i dont want them on my PC and phone too
Fingerprinting (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with (particularly web) tracking is that it has become so sophisticated, that unless you happen to observe particular patterns in page content being served to you, there may be no other way of knowing that you're being profiled.
Even assuming that you're using either some form of privacy VPN, or say the TOR browser, it's possible for web sites to track you using fingerprinting techniques. If you're curious, you can see this at least in part over at the EFF's web site, [1]here. [eff.org]
The quick explanation is that your browser has a whole stack of unique meta-data associated with it that a tracking company can use to follow you around the web, including things like your screen resolution, your browser, your display colour depth, your local system time and time zone, even the amount of reserve left in your battery if you are using a mobile device.
In order for us as regular citizens to have something more than the proverbial "snowball's chance in hell" to counter this, we are going to need a couple of things:-
1. Legal protections... We need governments to outlaw net fingerprinting. As most browsers have a "do not track" flag that is visible to web sites, there needs to be some form of policing and monitoring and expensive penalties for companies that flout these rules... We also need some more legal protection work regarding session cookies - the sort of thing that could be used to hide tracking data.
2. Obfuscation browsers... We need our browser manufacturers to come up with sneaky ways to alter data handed back to different remote domains in a way that makes it much harder for the domains to "pattern match" a browser... For example, a browser could likely falsify the colour depth data of your desktop without resulting in visible degradation [maybe allowing you to set a range of acceptable values]; it could have fun with time zones; it could micro-adjust reported resolutions between different domains until the match rate drops away so much that fingerprinting loses effectiveness.
Maybe most important of all, as end users we need to make sure that we don't sit back and let huge corporations "duke it out" like this... There will inevitably be limits to what Apple can do - and even their best efforts will only ever aide Apple tech users. And for just a glimpse as to what is happening in all the dark corners where we can't see, you only need to look at interviews like [2]this. [youtube.com].
We have a long way to go yet.
[1] https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXdYSQ6nu-M
Re: (Score:2)
> ... tracking company can use to follow you around the web, including things like your screen resolution, your browser, your display colour depth, your local system time and time zone, even the amount of reserve left in your battery if you are using a mobile device.
I would like to know what are the use case of a website knowing all these informations ? I get it for browser viewport size but the rest ... why ?
Re: (Score:2)
The argument in favor was so that it would be possible for the site to give you highly tailored content - perfectly formatted to suit your browser. More than that, it was supposed to be a "two way transaction" between you the user and the web site. For example, if you were to compare the size of an image file rendered at 24-bit-per-pixel with one rendered at a lower fidelity, then the amount of bandwidth the web site would need to push you the image could be drastically reduced. The idea, then, was to allow
All tracking and telemetry must be made illegal (Score:4, Insightful)
And I'm looking at you, Google. Don't pretend that you don't know I don't want to be tracked. There are no cookies and instead there is a "do not track" header. You know damn well what I want. But you send me a redirect to a page where you act as if I have a choice, a choice that you are legally obligated to give me. I can actually only continue if I submit to unnecessary tracking. The EU should be fining Google billions a day until this stops.
Re: All tracking and telemetry must be made illega (Score:3)
Yeah, that's not going to happen. Only the citizens want to stop the tracking, and they have no power or representation, so forget about it.
Re: (Score:2)
You can keep your defeatism. The GDPR is law. It's a start.
If anyone knows about violating privacy... (Score:2)
...it's the Chinese.
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, our NSA/CIA are such a bunch of poseurs... but we don't talk about "fight club", do we?
Boycott P&G (Score:3)
Clearly vying with the likes of Google for 'most evil company'.
Re: (Score:1)
Boycott P&G, and they just shift their portfolio over to Kraft Foods, Sony, and various defense contractors. You have to find a way to starve all of Wall Street. Good luck.
Re: (Score:1)
Oh sure sure sure let's just turn a blind eye to all of of this plug our ears and go LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU! pretending none of it is happening.
Why not just stop reporting what's being done to the Uighurs and the slaughter of citizens of Myanmar while we're at it? It's all just so inconvenient!
Re: (Score:1)
Oh please, quit the whining. You look for what works, not uselessly spin your wheels so you can feel like you're doing something.
As far as the Uighurs go, they are [1]"illegal combatants" [uighur.nl], curb you own damn dog on that one.
[1] http://www.uighur.nl/uyghur-militants-in-syria-the-turkish-connection/
Re: (Score:1)
Go back to Beijing.
Re: (Score:1)
:-) Heh, thanks for showing what kills American influence, too bad, on the whole I prefer the American empire to the Chinese one.
What good does your sophisticated profiling do... (Score:5, Insightful)
when I can't see your targeted ad because of my Ad-blocker?
Re: (Score:3)
Completely agree. Do not tell me now to disable my ad blocker because of your income. When I explicitly say "do not track", you go out of your way to track me. So I will run ad blockers on my PC and my phone to deny you your income. Advertisers are the ones that escalated this war. Every one should run ad blockers and this issue will be resolved rather quickly.
Re: (Score:3)
The profile can still be used to filter your news and media streams, and it can be used to find people with "undesired" views. Even if no harm is intended by the collecting party, data tend to leak and governance tend to change.
Ads are not the major problem with profiling.
Wrath (Score:3)
So now our own companies are working with a totalitarian Communist dictatorship to circumvent our own national privacy laws? Maybe it's time we started thinking about shelling out billion dollar fines to these egregious cretins.
Great news! (Score:2)
No, seriously. If Apple enter into an anti-tracking competition with China & a few megacorps, it'll advance anti-tracking technology dramatically. At the moment, smartphones broadcast our personally identifiable information, location, physical activities & online activities to everyone & anyone who can intercept it, including but not limited to oppressive regimes, shady corporations, & criminal organisations. I'd love to see it get a whole lot more difficult. The downside is that Apple are u
Time to find P&G alternatives. (Score:2)
Well, looks like it's time to find some new brands.
I already prefer Schick razors over gillette. And never even tried Charmin (but I have seen squeeze commercials forever).
Now I need recommendations to replace:
tide.
bounty. (Brawny is close)
head and shoulders
crest toothpaste, I guess I'll try Colgate.
Well, you let yourselves get into that situation (Score:1)
So you're on your own getting out of it.
It says volumes, that you're working with one of the most 'tracking invasive' countries on the planet.
Re: Well, you let yourselves get into that situati (Score:1)
Itâ(TM)s getting to the point where instead of a default route to the internet, I want to selectively choose what servers I wish to talk to. When I go to a web server, I want to talk to it, and nothing else. I wish there was a browser option to 404 all requests to anything other than the domain I navigate to.
Re: (Score:2)
> I want to talk to it, and nothing else. I wish there was a browser option to 404 all requests to anything other than the domain I navigate to.
[1]Umatrix browser extension [github.com] with a few of the defaults adjusted will do exactly what you want. Careful because the default configuration will connect to domains to retrieve cookies but then not return them. That means that P&G device fingerprinting will work by default even if you have Umatrix turned on. If you fully blacklist all third party domains and then only switch on the ones you want then it will do exactly what you want.
It's a bit of a hassle but it's worth it. N.B. this will break sites and
[1] https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix
Re: (Score:3)
> So you're on your own getting out of it.
> It says volumes, that you're working with one of the most 'tracking invasive' countries on the planet.
Proctor & Gamble is working with Chinese tracking companies - essentially dual use military technology in the same way that the Great Firewall of China is used to attack dissidents. This is a bit more than just 'tracking invasive'. How about if anybody here knows anyone who is still using a cartridge razor buy them a safety razor and a pack of 100 blades ($7 off your favourite web site) as a protest. It's not just much cheaper, it actually works better. Rival companies include Derby and Wilkinson Sw
Are the Chinese evil, jaded, or just smart? (Score:3)
Why do you want your handle to be the first visible identity associated with incoherent AC trollage? Even if there is a trace of something interesting in the trollage FP, how can you engage in a dialog with no one? (I used to care enough to wonder what motivated trolls. But now the only solution I want is total opt-in visibility for AC, implying I'd never see 'em. But should that imply invisibility extended to troll-feeders like you?)
At least you can change the Subject to something more thoughtful.
My main r
Re: (Score:2)
'Cos IMHO the "troll", as you call him, is right. When P&G and all the other western industrial companies decided to trade with China in the way they did, basically aiming to exploit Chinese people, they set themselves up for trouble. I'm not saying there should be absolutely no trade or working with places like China, however setting out to use places like China to undermine workers back home is asking for trouble; setting out to treat China as just another market, is asking for trouble. Setting out