Consumer Online Privacy and Tracking: What is happening with Apple, Google, and Advertisers

by Angela K. Durden
Technology inventor protecting creator's copyrights. Business writer, novelist, songwriter, and Citizen Journalist.

Imagine this: You're in your car, get hungry, stop at Wendy's* for a Frosty and a Single with Cheese and Bacon, then continue your trip. Immediately upon entering the highway you notice every billboard you approach changes the messaging to say:

GET A FROSTY and a

SINGLE with CHEESE and BACON from WENDY'S.

Weird, but you keep driving and you don't stop at Wendy's. You notice mobile billboards. They seem to be just in front and to the right of you so you can read:

We notice you like WENDY'S. Isn't it TIME you got a FROSTY and a SINGLE with CHEESE and BACON from WENDY'S?

Still, you don't stop, instead opting for music from your radio and the announcer says —

"Hey, [InsertYourNameHere], you know you should get a Frosty and a Single with Cheese and Bacon from Wendy's." 

Your paranoia has kicked into high gear and you haven't even had a toke in years; that is, I assume you haven't. But just because you're high doesn't mean your paranoia isn't real because, yeah —

That is weird, but that is exactly what happens online whether or not you purchase any goods.

Apple (the company that brings you all those deliciously wonderful mobile devices) has blocked just such ads on their Safari browser. (Read the full article here about that.) To that I say "Good on you, Apple." Apple says the default setting will be Off, but that users can turn on ad tracking in their Settings should they choose to do so.

See? Consumer choice.

The same article goes on to say that even Google/Alphabet will be bringing out an ad blocker on its Chrome Browser except — here is where you can hear me chuckle if you were in my office as I write this — Google won't shut off all ads, only the annoying ones. And by annoying you can read "Those that are not paying the premium price for access to eyeballs."

Apple's move is not exactly revolutionary.

I have several books for sale on Amazon. In my various marketing reaches, I often go to their website, copy the link for that book, and create a hyperlink in whatever I'm sending out. Guess what? I start getting ads popping up all over the place encouraging me to buy my own books. Like I'm going to do that. Duh! I'm trying to sell my books [see here].

So Apple's move to cut out ad tracking isn't exactly revolutionary. They just know it is a method that is broken. Apple knows ads for a product are being served to the very person who just bought it and that advertisers are wasting money. Large ad agencies already know this: Online ad campaigns are being pulled and defunded.

Apple has always been about what the market can bear divided by ROI to develop new products. Now, I wouldn't go so far as to call myself The Sage of Technology, but dang it, it isn't bragging if it's fact. Too bad my predictions came twenty-five years too early. Here is what I said years ago, and because I'm quoting me, I hereby give you permission to freely quote me, too:

This Internet thing is going to turn out to be one big rip-off. You just wait and see. Somebody's going to figure out how to point you where they want you to go and deny access to what you really want. The helpful and very efficient Boolean language will cease to be used. Nobody will read ads in the daily newspaper anymore and those print publications will die. Porn will be the biggest earner and will increase slavery for sex trafficking of adults and children.  

Okay, so I didn't exactly say all that. What I actually said was, "There is something nasty in the woodshed and I don't like the smell of it. Why won't these Internets work like I want them to?"

Screwed it all up for regular folks, that is exactly what Google has done. Hell, just ask the EU about fining Google/Alphabet for that manipulation over there. Apple has interpreted the writing on the wall and are acting accordingly. Of course, advertisers who are not in-the-know are unhappy with the move and, frankly, will be even more unhappy with Google in 2018.

See, Google said to advertisers, "I like it. Lemme put a ring on it."

Except like a man engaged to several women at the same time, Google has been playing false to everybody. Sure, Google does a lot of things that consumers benefit from, but those are just the things designed to keep us from seeing what they are really doing.

Much like Hitler who gave the Volkswagen to his country as he said "Don't worry about what's on those trains," Google gives consumers this marvelous search engine and blogging portals that allows us to find all sorts of things and write about stuff, but they also made promises to advertisers and have broken every one while slowly but surely destroying the ability of the little guy to do any meaningful advertising.

Learn our SEO and you'll pop up high on the native results when these terms are searched on, they said, and businesses did it only to find that didn't work for long because —

SURPRISE! Google changed how to use the Internet.

Use our new AdWords program and you'll pop up high on the search results, they said, and businesses did it only to find that didn't work for long because —

SURPRISE! Again, Google changed how to use the Internet.

And now Google says they will only block annoying and distracting ads?

The Sage of Technology speaks again. Listen up!

• Commerce on the Internet will eventually be a place where only The Bigs, The Majors, and Tech Giants will operate. 

• The Bigs, The Majors, and Tech Giants will have laws changed favoring their business model and punishing other business models.

• Leaving the online commercial world by the millions will be those who own businesses and are tired of the manipulations that take their money and do not deliver promised services. 

• A new cash-based economy will grow and businesses will again advertise locally.

• New forms of advertising will arise that are quicker, more responsive, and go directly to consumer. (See blipbillboards.com.)

*LEGAL  NOTICE! LEGAL NOTICE!: The mention of Wendy's is in no way a paid endorsement of the chain and the author is not receiving any goods or services from Wendy's. This article is not tracked by any first-, second-, or third-party Frost---errrr...cookies of any flavor. Though the author was 17 when she first had a Frosty at a Wendy's in Gainesville, Georgia, when her evil younger sister introduced her to what could've soon become the author's drug of choice except she had to travel from Habersham County to Hall County on a two-lane mountain highway in a two-hour round trip to get to the nearest Wendy's and that was just too far to go for that addiction, and though mention of Wendy's might induce the reader to believe the author does, in point of fact, enjoy the products of that chain, the editors of ROTW and the author herself want you to believe they have crossed their hearts and hoped to die if they lie and ask that you pretty-please believe them that they are receiving no advertising dollars for this article which so heavily mentions Wendy's.