Apple has allowed Facebook, TikTok etc. to track users across devices AND device resets via the iCloud Keychain API.
When you log into FB on any account on any device, then install FB on a new device, or even after you erase the device, they know it's you even before you log in. Because the info is tied to your Apple iCloud account.
And there's no way for users to see or delete what data other companies have stored and linked to your Apple ID via that API.
It's been like this for at least 5 years and nobody seems to care.
None that I found. You can test it right now yourself. Install FB, log in, delete FB, reinstall FB. Your previous login info will be there.
That would be fine if users could SEE what has been stored and DELETE it WITHOUT going through the app and trusting it to show you everything honestly.
What's even worse is that it silently persists across DEVICE reinstalls.
Erase and reset your iPhone/iPad. Sign into the same iCloud account. Reinstall FB. Your login info will still be there.
Buy a new iPhone/iPad. Sign into the same iCloud account. Reinstall FB. Your login info will still be there.
If you're asking whether advertising works, there is plenty of science making clear that it does, without fishing for anecdata.
As to whether every company buying ads is making a good investment, mileage may vary - but the blunt answer to your question is that yes, people do purchase things because they saw ads for it, the advertising economy is well understood. Companies like Google whose fortunes rest almost entirely on the known efficacy of advertising are not full of idiots who have never thought about whether or not ads actually work.
"Is an economy based on selling attention ultimately the most beneficial and productive one for all participants" is a separate question, but it's not the question you're asking.
> there is plenty of science making clear that it does
Funded, ran, and interpreted by whom?
I can't remember the last time I bought anything just because of its ad, that I already did not know about or was going to buy anyway, nor I know anyone who did.
In fact, if I see an ad TOO often, it permanently turns me off the product or service.
The whole ads racket seems like a case of an emperor with no clothes at best, and a thin veil for mass surveillance at worst.
One day you'll need to buy something outside your sphere of knowledge; a washing machine, drain cleaner, car tyres, whatever. The seeds of biased selection have already been implanted by years of conditioning.
It's such as shame to see the country that produced the Sinclair Spectrum and so many classic gaming legends become so irrelevant in computing and gaming..
There's still stuff going on with Deepmind and Grand Theft Auto but a lot is owned by American companies these days. The UK is a bit lacking on the capital markets and the like these days.
Standard Hacker News is heavily "moderated" these days (if not by the mods themselves then by mobocracies misusing tools), which means that anything that falls outside the Happy Silicon Valley / Everything Is Good / Nothing Is Wrong narrative will get flagged and buried.
As a result, sadly, it's become basically a Reddit style echo chamber, where negative news is suppressed. Often, the justification is "it's politics!", as perhaps might be the case here. Despite the fact that Silicon Valley's products, and Silicon Valley itself, are becoming more entangled with "politics" and the US government than ever.
There are better tools than Reddit to see what gets swept under the moderation rug, at least.
> Just feels like it's starting to get quite questionable
There's no way the technology to make and modify "life" including cloning humans hasn't been secretly used or attempted at least once ever since it was discovered.
When you log into FB on any account on any device, then install FB on a new device, or even after you erase the device, they know it's you even before you log in. Because the info is tied to your Apple iCloud account.
And there's no way for users to see or delete what data other companies have stored and linked to your Apple ID via that API.
It's been like this for at least 5 years and nobody seems to care.
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