Apple is technology company that sells consumer electronics, software and online services. Not just that, as the company also markets itself as a supporter of privacy.
CEO Tim Cook even once said that technology "does not need vast troves of personal data" to succeed.
The company boldly claims that because its business model doesn't require extensive use of users' personal data. And because of that, Apple really wants people to take their privacy seriously. To do that, and to also criticize competitors, the company releases an advertisement, in order to take things humorously.
The ad follows Ellie, who stumbles on an auction where different pieces of her online data are being auctioned off.
First, her emails, including "ones she's opened and read." Next, her drugstore purchases, her location, her text messages, her contacts, and her browsing history.
In the ad, Ellie is surprised to realize just how much of her data is being collected, stored, and auctioned off by bidders that may come from various sources.
Read: Android Collects 20 Times More User Data Than IOS, Research Found
This is a fact that not many people realize.
This is because not many people take their privacy that seriously.
With the privacy-focused ad, despite being absurd on the surface, Apple makes a point that people's data is being traded like commodities.
The internet allows anything that can connect to it, to be tracked even with just a few lines of code.
Tracking people on the internet is extremely easy, and because of that, almost all websites, apps, search engines, social media platforms and other web-based services are collecting their users' activities.
While some track users for testing or other purposes, like improving user experience, others rely on user data to show personalized ads.
The most prominent in the online advertising business, would be Alphabet's Google and Meta.
It's worth noting though, that personalized ads aren't necessarily bad. Unlike ads on newspaper or magazines, ads on the internet are shown differently to different people. This is because ads on the internet are personalized, meaning that the ads can made relevant.
Since the very beginning of the internet, during the time when no one with an internet presence know how to create subscription or other payment method, the World Wide Web was mostly built with money from advertisers.
Fast forward, most websites and services people use every day, including the apps people install on their phones, run because of digital advertising.
The thing is, when privacy is a concern, tech companies track users mostly without them knowing at all, and most certainly, without (directly) asking for permission.
While relevant ads are certainly better than other forms of ads, but the ads can be scary.
"It's not creepy, it's humor!" the ad said, in a jab to competitors.
For most people that are being tracked wherever they are on the web, searching for something on Google on their desktop computer and a while later, the ad for that something can be find on their phone.
For years, internet platforms got away with it.
With the ad, Apple's biggest opinion isn't that there should be no personalized ads, or that all ad tracking is bad. It's just that people should have a choice.
Apple wants marketers to blatantly ask for permission, and not hiding that request somewhere in a privacy policy list that most people won't bother reading.
Further reading: Ways To Protect Your Privacy On The Internet: Your Personal Information Is A Commodity
