> 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)
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.