Thread by @jason_kint

incoming. “Tracking prevention” is here in a big way. eg: Apple’s iOS 14.5 is kneecapping Facebook’s core profit model of mining our data while we use apps that Facebook doesn’t even own - aka “tracking.” 94% of users are saying NFW to prompts. /1

Conventional wisdom is tracking prevention helps Google and Facebook as they have a ton of data from owned apps (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Search, Gmail, Maps) but that’s wrong. Regulators have shown most of their data comes from acting as third parties - aka “Tracking.” /2

Facebook, Google, and the most powerful lobbies in the tech media industry have spent more than a decade propping up narratives to defend their most important members' "surveillance economics." But they’ve lost enormous credibility everywhere in the past few years. /3

Facebook has attempted to use soft terms like “personalization” to describe these "surveillance economics" but the term “tracking” has now stuck to describe these pervasive parties mining users' behavior across apps and websites. This is exactly what Apple has set out to stop. /4

and now those who pump "surveillance economics" are left with one remaining defense… they claim changes will harm premium publishers and small business and frequently yell “But China!”.
Facebook has literally run national ad campaigns pumping this. More on that in a minute. /5

But now let’s check in on those premium publishers. Here comes another new @dcnorg data point for everyone on how advertising industry has shifted in the last decade. /6

As of 2020, 80% of ad impressions across premium publishers are being sold thru third-parties. These third-party tech firms have a competitive advantage because they are able to “track” users unknowingly across much of your web use and apps. /7

This is a massive shift from a decade ago driven by the weaponization of data collection. Throw in scale and ease-of-buying and that’s been the game which third parties have exploited - namely two companies, Google and Facebook. Sheryl Sandberg led both teams in this strategy. /8

This didn't have to be bad. But unfortunately, a majority of these ads are purchased based on this "tracking" - often using Apple’s IDFA or third-party cookies as proxies for real people. In doing so, publishers’ apps and websites are *treated as interchangeable commodities.* /9

and in treating publishers' sites and apps as interchangeable commodities, users are tracked and targeted “elsewhere on the web/apps” at the cheapest price available rather than in the more valuable context of the premium publishers who fund the costly news and entertainment. /10

this shifts profits towards publishers with the cheapest content costs, the most data surveillance, and most willing to pay off the intermediaries, primarily Google and Facebook, by playing nice to "surveillance economics." Do you see the problem? /11

premium publishers’ inventory must also compete in the two largest sales channels *run by Google and Facebook* against the inventory *owned by Google and Facebook* *the two biggest trackers* - which have an insurmountable data advantage. See the problem? /12

Industry, regulators and, most importantly, the public, have grown to understand the core of the two companies’ business models relies on unbridled data collection - aka tracking. The numbers below clearly back this up. /13

So now come the tech and policy changes. In one corner is "Team Tracking" led by Facebook, Google and a plethora of adtech investors trying to protect status quo which only 5% of the public would opt-in for when they truly understand it (see tweet #1). /14

In the other corner is "Team Privacy." Led by Apple and a leading global data protection laws in GDPR and California (CPRA 2022/23) along with inventions like the @globalprivctrl giving users data protection which 70% of the public would choose if given an opportunity. /15

there are a few false narratives from google, facebook and the "surveillance economics" lobby that need to be destroyed. /16

yes Apple defined “tracking” but they copied W3C in trying to align with users’ expectations. Focus is on bad actors who profit off surveillance economics like a # of adtech companies and Facebook. But there is some unintended shrapnel for good actors, this can be fixed. /17

also, surveillance economics lobby argues changes to privacy will only lower ad prices making Google and Facebook stronger. Neither of these are backed up by solid research. Quite the opposite. It also doesn’t pass common sense considering the massive warnings by Facebook. /18

If you want to better understand Facebook's fear over improvements to privacy impacting its "surveillance economics" and the tipping of the privacy scale I'm describing, I highly recommend this report in NYT. /19 nytimes.com/2021/04/26/tec…

If you like the podcast version or want to educate your friends and family on the awfulness of Facebook Inc (with some fair concerns about Apple at the end), here is 30 minutes from The Daily. Again, highly recommend. /20 nytimes.com/2021/05/11/pod…

If you're reading about or have heard about these new privacy protections in Apple devices and saying "I've got to get some of this," Washington Post did a spectacular job explaining them. Feel free to share this. /21 washingtonpost.com/technology/202…

If you saw my mention of California law and Global Privacy Control, highly recommend understanding that the state AG has endorsed. Whereas EU hasn't properly enforced GDPR yet, California may not be so kind. They know Google and Facebook's game, too. /22

https://twitter.com/globalprivctrl/status/1390756809611255808?s=20

If you've been shown research how valuable "surveillance economics" and "tracking" are to publishers, recognize you're looking at a narrow slice of market. Here is the best research I've seen observing entire market empirically. /23 wsj.com/articles/behav…

Here is the actual full study by a globally recognized researcher in the field. Again, highly recommend for those who go deep. It includes 50+ sophisticated sites of all types/sizes/etc. /24 weis2019.econinfosec.org/wp-content/upl…

Lastly, if you want to go deeper on some of the charts above or just simply follow @DCNorg, please do, please share, please retweet. I wrote about all of this the other day. 🙏🏼/25 digitalcontentnext.org/blog/2021/05/1…