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Apple Right, Ad Industry Wrong


This piece from the Type A Group Newsletter was very popular this week. I am reprinting it here today.

As usual, the tin-eared aristocrats of the ad industry are on the wrong side of an important issue.

Apple is planning to release a new version of its Safari browser with new cookie-blocking technology, called "Intelligent Tracking Prevention."  It will put strict limits on the ability of websites and advertisers to track us across the web.

According to digital expert Don Marti it looks like Safari has built a set of features that will help protect us from the kind of tracking we don't like, while not screwing up features we like such as single sign-in to favorite sites (my words, not his.)

Apple has said  
“...users feel that trust is broken when they are being tracked and privacy-sensitive data about their web activity is acquired for purposes that they never agreed to.”
Damn right. I even know a guy who wrote a book about that.

Of course, all the major advertising trade bodies are soiling their shorts at the thought of not being able to spy on us everywhere and know everything we do online. They are not satisfied that people are so disgusted with online ad practices that 600 million web enabled devices are now armed with ad blockers.

Listen to this horseshit from a consortium of ad trade groups including the 4A's, ANA, and IAB:
“Apple’s unilateral and heavy-handed approach is bad for consumer choice and bad for the ad-supported online content and services consumers love...Blocking cookies in this manner will drive a wedge between brands and their customers, and it will make advertising more generic and less timely and useful."
What planet do these imbeciles live on? Do they really believe anyone is going to buy that crap?

Here is a study published last year that reports that of 13 different forms of advertising studied, the top 8 most disliked were all forms of online advertising.



Furthermore the argument that Safari's "Intelligent Tracking Prevention" is "...bad for consumer choice..." is laughable. Any idiot who prefers to be followed around the web by assorted squids and slugs is perfectly welcome to download dozens of free web browsers that are more than happy to spy on everything we do.

Every impartial study I've ever seen says the same thing: Online advertising is the most disliked and most distrusted form of advertising. One of the primary drivers of this situation is tracking.

When are the "leaders" of our industry going to get their heads out of their asses and realize how they are destroying the integrity of web advertising by not supporting initiatives like Apple's that are trying to establish responsible guidelines for online advertising?

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