Apple's claims about respecting privacy aren't fully serious, as the iPhone default doesn't disallow apps from tracking users, instead expecting users to do so
ID For Advertisers—in the first place.” https://twitter.com/... Jeff Higgins / @itsjeffhiggins : OR... Maybe I don't want some apps having information they don't need but I do want ads on streaming services & others I use a lot to be relevant. Obviously there's more involved but the easy answer is it's about user choice. That's why there's toggles for all or your preference. https://twitter.com/... Doc Searls / @dsearls : Apple vs (or plus) Adtech https://blogs.harvard.edu/... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : Smart as always, agree with much here. I would only add DNT was productive in defining “tracking” - influencing Apple (who contributed until the end). But it didn't have enforcement to back it up. Also influenced CPRA - now the law. And if apps don't follow ATT, FTC can enforce. https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple spent 2020 recasting itself as the privacy gatekeeper: the Identifier for Advertisers became opt-in under iOS 14, forcing every advertiser and network to ask permission while Apple's own advertising arm shipped enabled by default. Searls' post extends that asymmetry one layer deeper — even for third-party apps, the iPhone default tolerates tracking, and the privacy promise holds only if each user finds the toggle.
First-order effects
- Apple's opt-in framing shifts the enforcement burden onto individual iPhone owners: the company gets credit for offering choice without paying the cost of a restrictive default, while users who never touch settings remain trackable.
- Adtech firms and publishers squeezed by ATT gains an argument they lacked before — the gatekeeper's own house doesn't run on the rules it imposes, undercutting the moral high ground behind the prompt screens.
Second-order effects
- Critics such as Jason Kint can now frame ATT less as privacy policy than as competitive positioning, pushing regulators like the FTC to scrutinize who is exempt from a platform's own consent architecture rather than just whether prompts exist.
- Rival platforms facing similar scrutiny gain cover to argue that privacy defaults should be judged symmetrically across ecosystems, blunting Apple's differentiation in marketing and developer negotiations.
Third-order effects
- If default-settings become the real test of privacy claims rather than advertised commitments, platform power concentrates further — Benedict Evans' point that privacy proposals can entrench incumbents cuts both ways, since only a dominant OS can afford to make tracking opt-in for everyone else.
- The durable question moves from 'does the user get asked?' to 'who wrote the default?', making regulator attention shift toward platform-set defaults as the locus of consumer protection.
The trend: Platform privacy postures are increasingly judged not by opt-in features they ship but by which data flows their own defaults exempt — a standard Apple's iOS 14 rollout helped create and now has to live under.