As this is a user configurable option, it's hardly a net neutrality issue. You haven't lost any control over what you can access or how deeply advertisers may invade your privacy.
> As this is a user configurable option, it's hardly a net neutrality issue.
That's what makes it not a net neutrality issue? To continue the analogy, if my ISP decides to limit traffic from some non-paying upstream provider, but makes it a user configurable option, it's also hardly a net neutrality issue? So I haven't lost any control over what I can access because the option exists, right?
Net neutrality is a two-way street, not just about users. This one is just more favorable to most of us because we like the result. Same way with Google's safe browsing lists and other things. But we can't pretend there's neutrality here like there would be if the browser was completely hands off. Sure it may not be "net neutrality" as defined by only network providers, but the concept of neutrality spans more than the network.
If your ISP gave you the option to deliberately rate-limit access to some sites and you used it, that would not be a net neutrality issue. Correct. The hazard is if they default to throttling and make it hard to unthrottle. Particularly if the things they are throttling are their competitors and not their own services.
As I understand this feature, Apple will not be excluding their own services' cookies from it. This is not an anticompetive act. It is not an anticonsumer act. And as you have the choice to turn it off, it is not an impediment to your ability to consume and degrade your privacy by allowing advertisers into your life.
> If your ISP gave you the option to deliberately rate-limit access to some sites and you used it, that would not be a net neutrality issue. Correct.
Yes it would. Net neutrality basically says "regardless of what users ask for or what providers provide them, they can't give preferential treatment to some companies over others".
I do agree that, since this is on-device and not targeted definitely is the right way to go and alleviates many net neutrality concerns. But the closed classifier, the choice of 30 days, etc and that this is a single browser doing it on a device where they allow no other browser just gives me a slippery slope feeling that Apple can unilaterally choose which default parameters users browse under outside of web standardization.
I think the 3rd party cookie thing is a bit of a red herring anyways. If ad networks weren't so stupid, they'd use first party cookies and correlate unique identifiers on the backend. Even when done w/ minimal fingerprinting (which iOS is exempt from most forms of due to its user base consistency) and IP tracking (which iOS also more exempt on cell networks than home ISPs), it can be quite effective.
I'm going to be honest. The idea that users cannot request data be restricted in reaching them is not something I've heard associated with net neutrality before. Fuck, I'm in violation of it! I throttle video streaming services so they don't interfere with other applications on my home network.
You can have other browsers on iOS. They don't perform as well, and I do disagree with Apple over that decision. But they do exist.
Users cannot request providers do it for them. As in you requesting Comcast sell you a Facebook-only plan is in violation of net neutrality even if y'all both want it. Doing anything you want as a end user on your own system or a provider sending you whatever bytes they want is still neutral because nobody in the middle (device, network provider, etc) is doing it.
> You can have other browsers on iOS. They don't perform as well, and I do disagree with Apple over that decision. But they do exist.
What other engine can I use other than mobile Safari? Maybe I wasn't clear with "browser". I mean as in no Apple code, my own rendering engine, etc so that Apple can't make decisions about what it does.
While I'm not a fan of the "webkit only" policy on iOS, I'm pretty sure this tracking blocking is not included directly in the webkit rendering engine and thus other iOS browsers would not be affected by this change.
If you want to run something with no Apple code, don't run iOS. Otherwise you are running the non-FLOSS code and trusting them at some level. It seems silly to distrust webkit because it is "Apple code" (which is FLOSS) and yet trust iOS (which is not FLOSS)
As long as the traffic limit is imposed by your device, or by content provider, this is not a network neutrality issue.
However, if the filtering is done (even opt-in at your request) by the network, that is a network neutrality violation. Making that filter opt-out rather than opt-in is better, but both are still technically network neutrality violations
To come back to your analogy, this filtering is being done by your device. It is not being done by Apple directly so it is not directly analogous.
Indirectly analogizing to the intent behind Net Neutrality, there is a point to be made about giving established players more of an advantage. I am assuming that Apple is going to make this an opt-out option. That certainly lends weight to the concern that this can make Apple into a gatekeeper for advertisers / trackers. If this option were opt-in this would be much less of an issue (and have much less of an effect).
Other than opt-in vs. opt-out and market share, I don't see any fundamental difference between this and any other ad blocker or privacy protecting tool that maintains a white or black list.
I am unaware of any such requirement and can't find anything to back it up. As far as I can tell, the VoIP industry seems to widely support Net Neutrality so I would be surprised if this is a significant issue.
