Edzell Castle, Angus, Scotland. Photo by John Oldenbuck via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0
This is the RADAR, Ranking Digital Rights’ newsletter. This special edition was sent on November 16, 2021. Subscribe here to get The RADAR by email.
This season at RDR, we’ve done some deep thinking on one of the fastest-changing aspects of the industry we study: advertising models.
We’ve been waiting and watching to see how things change for Apple and the ad ecosystem around it, following the April 2021 rollout of its App Tracking Transparency(ATT) program, which requires app developers to get user consent before tracking them across the web. Was this move really driven by Apple’s commitment to privacy? Or did it have more to do with the company’s desire to edge out its biggest competitors in the digital ad space?
As of last month, the verdict is in: The majority of iOS users are not opting into third-party tracking — and Apple’s ad business has more than tripled its market share since April 2021, according to the Financial Times. FT also reported that ad revenues for major third-party app companies like Facebook and SnapChat have dropped by as much as 13 percent in what appears to be a result of the change.
Then there’s Google. Privacy nerds have heard about Google’s forthcoming “FLoC” system, which will move Chrome users away from third-party cookies and towards a “cohort-based” tracking model that the company says will be better for people’s privacy. But some are skeptical as to how much this program will really protect people’s privacy and security. In late October, we found more reason to worry when a federal judge in New York unsealed the amended 2020 antitrust suit filed against Google by 16 state attorneys general plus the AG of Puerto Rico, who together allege that this initiative is almost entirely profit-driven.
The suit lays out a litany of accusations that the company has engineered a quasi-monopoly over digital advertising markets, colluded with Facebook to control the market, and engaged in a host of related deceptive practices. On the FLoC front, it cites internal company documents indicating that Google’s so-called “Privacy Sandbox” (the origin of the FLoC system) was originally dubbed “Project NERA” and that it was intended to “successfully mimic a walled garden” in what a staffer described as an effort to “protect our margins.” RDR’s Aliya Bhatia and Ellery Biddle wrote about it this week in Tech Policy Press.
Although both Google and Apple say that they’re making these changes in order to better protect user privacy, the profit motives are clear, present, and enormous. While the changes may whittle away at the troves of data that so many digital companies have on us, they also will help to consolidate our digital dossiers in the hands of a few uniquely powerful platforms, and reduce or even eliminate many of the smaller players in the ecosystem. If we’re really moving to a paradigm where first-party tracking dominates the sector, we have to ask: How might this shift affect people’s rights and matters of public interest? RDR’s Ellery Biddle and Veszna Wessenauer dug into this in our latest blog post.
Read the post here →
RDR MEDIA HITS
Washington Post: The Facebook Files have put Meta’s controversial news feed ranking system back in the spotlight, causing some lawmakers to suggest that people should be able to use platforms like Facebook without having to submit to their recommendation algorithms. Speaking about the issue with the Washington Post, RDR’s Nathalie Maréchal said, “I think users have the right to expect social media experiences free of recommendation algorithms.” She also noted that while Meta’s research on chronological feeds may be compelling, it should be taken with a grain of salt: “…as talented as industry researchers are, we can’t trust executives to make decisions in the public interest based on that [internal] research,” she said. Read via Washington Post.
CBS News: When Facebook (now Meta) announced plans to end its use of some facial recognition systems, many privacy advocates celebrated. But RDR’s Nathalie Maréchal urged caution about the purported change, noting that the announcement came amid policymakers criticizing the company for putting profit ahead of people’s rights. The company is “trying to sidestep the real and extremely important questions about its governance…and [its] transparency record,” she said to CBS News. Lo and behold, Meta announced last week that it will continue collecting and using biometric data in the metaverse. Read via CBS News.
EVENTS
The Internet Governance Forum | Best Practices in Content Moderation and Human Rights December 8 at 11:30am ET | Register here
RDR’s Veszna Wessenauer will participate in a session at IGF on the relationship between digital policy and the established international frameworks for civil and political rights as set out in the UDHR and ICCPR.
