No images? Click here
#246/ April 25, 2021
APPLE'S TRACK ATTACK
Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next, says "if you own an iOS device, next week is likely to bring you the most significant improvement in digital privacy in the history of the internet."
Kint is talking about Apple's new privacy feature called App Tracking Transparency (ATT) which is schedule to launch this week with Apple's new iOS 14.5 update.
Apple will require app developers to get consent before they can track you. According to published reports, you will be able to opt-out of all tracking on your Apple mobile device with just one click.
The NY Times reported on the event at which Apple announced the launch of this new software this week. The Times said..."Apple unveiled a series of new products on Tuesday that showed how it continues to center its marketing pitch on consumer privacy..."
Along with Google's recent announcement that they would end all third-party tracking on their Chrome browser, this development signals a new era in which major tech platforms are starting to acknowledge the damage that tracking has done to personal privacy and to confidence in democratic institutions.
Any marketer, publisher, or platform with half a brain needs to do a major re-think of dangerous, abusive tracking policies. You listening, Facebook?
Guaranteed to Blow Your Mind
Just how abusive is tracking? Let's take a look at an innocent publication like Smithsonian Magazine. You probably can't imagine that visiting the website of an organization like this can do you any harm, right? Think again.
Dr. Augustine Fou did some forensics on the website. Here's what he found. When you go to the Smithsonian website you think you are interacting with one party. You do not know that 2,200 other entities are loading crap into your browser to track you and harvest your data. Then these ad tech creeps can profit from pimping your info all over the web. Have a look...
Charming, huh?
Just for fun, I entered my own website into Dr. Fou's Page X-Ray Tool to see how much crap the website platform I use stuffs in there. Here's what I found...
Then I checked to see how much crap this email platform loads...
If you want to check on a website, here's the link to Dr. Fou's Page X-Ray Tool -- https://pagexray.fouanalytics.com/. All you have to do is type in the URL of the website and you'll get an "x-ray."
Science Too Controversial for TV Networks
One of my favorite campaigns of the last few years has been Samuel Adams' "Your Cousin From Boston" via Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. In a recent spot, 'your cousin' gets his COVID shot (watch it here.)
Upon seeing the needle, 'your cousin' passes out and a dream sequence ensues in which he and his friends celebrate vaccination by chanting "indoor beers!...indoor beers!" According to reports, the original script called for them to chant "science!...science!..." but apparently belief in "science" is too controversial for the nitwits at the TV networks these days and they made Sam Adams change the copy. I wonder where these morons think television came from?
Can't make this shit up.
Ad Fraudsters Moving into Streaming TV
Much higher costs than static display ads make Connected TV (CTV) ads a very attractive target for fraudsters. A report in The Wall Street Journal says a major new CTV fraud has been uncovered recently.
Cybersecurity company Human Security says that one million mobile devices have been infected with software with the ability to fake 650 million mobile ads a day which don't run but which clueless advertisers pay for.
According to the Journal, "...users downloaded what looked like legitimate apps on Android devices—games or digital flashlights, for example—and were unaware the apps contained code to perpetrate ad fraud..."
Web-based advertising has been an absolute pot of gold for crooks.
Instafraud
Speaking of which.... PR Week reported this week on a study by HypeAuditor that says that 45% of Instagram accounts -- owned by Facebook -- are fake (shocked I tell you!) They also reported that 55% of Instagram "influencers" engaged in some form of fraud last year. What lovely people inhabit our social media realm.
Court Says Google Misled Consumers for Two Years
Android users thought they had turned off location tracking on their phones. Ha! ZDNet reports that an Australian court has found that Google "misled domestic consumers about the way it collected personal location data on Android mobile devices for almost two years."
The court ruled that...
- Google misrepresented the "location history" setting on the phone as the controlling setting for collecting users' location data.
- Google failed to tell consumers that there was another setting inscrutably called "web and app activity" that in true creepy online fashion was automatically collecting location data even if "location history" was turned off.
Anyone who's ever tried to figure out what any web settings mean knows that it will make your brains fall out. Perhaps you remember a piece here a while back that quoted a few Google engineers as not understanding what the hell Google privacy settings do.
Has Someone Been Reading This Thing?
“Technology does not need vast troves of personal data stitched together across dozens of websites and apps in order to succeed. Advertising existed and thrived for decades without it... At a moment of rampant disinformation and conspiracy theories juiced by algorithms, we can no longer turn a blind eye to a theory of technology that says all engagement is good engagement, the longer the better. And all with the goal of collecting as much data as possible....If a business is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, then it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform."
—Tim Cook, CEO, Apple
Post of the Week
Not everything online is stupid.
What A Week
Thursday was Earth Day and Friday was Vagina Appreciation Day. I don't know about you, but between the planting and the panting, I'm exhausted.
