Facebook May Actually Be In a 'Stronger Position' After Apple's iOS 14 Privacy Changes (cnbc.com) 31
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday said he is confident the social media company "will be able to manage through" Apple's upcoming planned privacy update to iOS 14, which will make it easier for iPhone and iPad users to block companies from tracking their activity to target ads. "We'll be in a good position," Zuckerberg said Thursday afternoon in Josh Constine's PressClub Clubhouse room. Apple's upcoming privacy changes will inform users about device ID tracking and ask them if they want to allow it. The tracking is based on a unique device identifier on every iPhone and iPad called the IDFA. Companies that sell mobile advertisements use this ID to help target ads and estimate their effectiveness. Apple has said that the change will roll out early this spring.
Zuckerberg explained that the change could benefit Facebook if more businesses decide to sell goods directly through Facebook and Instagram. "It's possible that we may even be in a stronger position if Apple's changes encourage more businesses to conduct more commerce on our platforms by making it harder for them to use their data in order to find the customers that would want to use their products outside of our platforms," Zuckerberg said. Zuckerberg on Thursday said that already Facebook has 1 million active shops on its services and 250 million people using shops actively. "Compared to the early conversations we had about how people would use this across Facebook and Instagram and our product, I think this is something that's well on track to be something that's going to be increasingly important to people," Zuckerberg said.
Zuckerberg explained that the change could benefit Facebook if more businesses decide to sell goods directly through Facebook and Instagram. "It's possible that we may even be in a stronger position if Apple's changes encourage more businesses to conduct more commerce on our platforms by making it harder for them to use their data in order to find the customers that would want to use their products outside of our platforms," Zuckerberg said. Zuckerberg on Thursday said that already Facebook has 1 million active shops on its services and 250 million people using shops actively. "Compared to the early conversations we had about how people would use this across Facebook and Instagram and our product, I think this is something that's well on track to be something that's going to be increasingly important to people," Zuckerberg said.
Well that turned around quickly (Score:4, Insightful)
It started as
"Apple's changes will destroy small businesses' ability to grow on our platform - whaaaa!!"
to
"This actually totally benefits us and small businesses selling using our platform! (and the whole attack we did a while back was just total bullshit, but shush don't tell anyone!)"
Gee Mark, can you make up your fucking mind??
Re:Well that turned around quickly (Score:5, Insightful)
Gee Mark, can you make up your fucking mind??
You have to realize Zuckerberg isn't talking to you - he's talking to his investors. Now that he knows they won't be able to stop it, he has to keep Facebook's investors from deserting the ship.
Re: (Score:1)
Investors cannot "desert ship". For someone to sell shares, somebody has to be buying them.
Re:Well that turned around quickly (Score:4, Interesting)
There's always a sucker around. They'll probably short the stock and send it tumbling down.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure. And someone is always willing to buy shares. I'll buy all the FB shares you have for sale at $1 (Until I run out of money). What happens if investors desert ship is a newer, lower price is discovered as the equilibrium price. This means that Zuck will have less money, which makes him sad. Also, all his investors will too.
Re: Well that turned around quickly (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Shares of stock in a publicly traded company with sufficient trading volume are as liquid as cash. Stop splitting worthless hairs.
Re: (Score:2)
Investors cannot "desert ship". For someone to sell shares, somebody has to be buying them.
True but a lot of selling pressure lowers the price. There is always someone willing to speculate on equities when the get cheap enough right up until the company goes bankrupt and recently the trend has been even after - /me looks and Hertz and JC Penny.
That said having the stock price goes down absolutely negative effects not just wealth of the existing share holders but the company as well. Many companies retain some 'treasury stock' a quantity of their own shares they hold on the book as an asset, if th
End users might jump ship though (Score:2)
While I think people do know the privacy trade-off they make when choosing to use Facebook, others believe that many people are stupid/ignorant enough not to understand. If people really are ignorant, then to what degree are they? Will a big war in saying an app is tracking you be enough to put people off?
We saw a big shift from WhatsApp to Signal when folks misinterpreted pri
Re:Well that turned around quickly (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
If you're so superior to Mark, why are you so poor?
There's a case to be made that my neighbor's dog's tightly coiled pile on my lawn serves a far superior service to the environment and society than Mark Zuckerberg ever has or will.
It's bluster (Score:3)
FB managed to stay ahead of that curve just barely with targeted advertising. When they lose that they're more or
Re: Well that turned around quickly (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
The changing the framing (Score:3)
What Mark figured out is it's not just FB having to respect everyone's privacy, it's all iOS apps. And FB is willing to put the resources to skirt as close to the edge as possible - dropping massive sums of money to working around it. Meanwhile, an app with 4 developers isn't going to do that - they don't have tens of millions (or more) to set on fire spinning up fake companies to push apps to see what gets through. The do have the resources to include the FB privacy busting toolkit though. So FB is goi
Probably a bad sign (Score:2)
The users are the real weak point here. Anyone that actually cared about privacy would not be installing any social media apps on their phone.
Re: (Score:2)
This sure looks more like a Facebook PR (Score:2)
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Zuckerberg promotes own bugware? (Score:1)
Translation: Our Facebook app comes with its own built-in tracking and bugware.
Happy Mark (Score:1)
Simple Solution (Score:1)
The Law od Unintended Consequences (Score:1)
I'll admit I haven't looked into Apple's new privacy changes much, but it sounds to me like those changes are only going to negatively affect smaller companies that don't have the wide-ranging data and pervasive tracking that companies like Facebook already have. Facebook users willingly provide information about where they are, what their interests are, etc. So Facebook still has plenty of data to base their ad delivery on. But small businesses don't. Just like Facebook is saying in the quote, this will pr
Re:The Law of Unintended Consequences (Score:1)
"of", even. Typing is hard.