Earlier quoted context omitted.
While generally true, I've also found free apps are usually decent and not-scummy if they're open source.
Could you give us some examples? I'd like to go check them out.
Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms
41–50 of 261 posts
Re: Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
>There are so many good apps on the store made by good developers. It’s amazing how much better your experience is if you just avoid free apps when possible. Yes. It cannot be emphasized enough. Go pay for apps that are good.
While generally true, I've also found free apps are usually decent and not-scummy if they're open source.
generally a good rule of thumb, though ive also seen a few cases of a good open source app having a bunch of scummy forks that end up being more popular on the app store (eg shuttle vs phonograph). i wonder if google promotes apps with advertising more than their ad-free counterparts? the conflict of interest is so obvious but i digress..
Re: Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms
#43Sue Apple, because they own the "curated" distribution channel and they have too much money.
Why would you blame Apple instead of the people behind the offfending application?
Re: Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms
#44I wonder if some of what these developers are engaged in could legally be interpreted as fraud? Civil fraud is a thing.
Some of these developers have:
- making misleading and knowingly false statements - profiting from these actions - people were fooled by these statements
The tricky part might be demonstrating ‘harm’, but at least some jurisdictions have enshrined a legal right to privacy, violation of which could be grounds for legal action.
Re: Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
>There are so many good apps on the store made by good developers. It’s amazing how much better your experience is if you just avoid free apps when possible. Yes. It cannot be emphasized enough. Go pay for apps that are good.
While generally true, I've also found free apps are usually decent and not-scummy if they're open source.
The best free apps I've found are just business moats to point you to another money maker. As callous as I'm phrasing it, those free apps tend to be leagues better than the population of paid apps.
Re: Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms
#46No surprise to see a number of weather apps on here. Seems to be such an incredibly scummy category. The built in Apple app is fine for basic information. There are plenty of high-quality third-party apps. Weather Line (my fav) is $2. DarkSky is $4. Instead people go for these weird free apps covered in ads with terrible UIs. The NOAA one isn’t made by the government, seems like using that name should be some kind of…
I bet Apple will crack down on these location tracking SDKs, but it likely wouldn't eliminate this type of tracking.
The main reason these apps are getting caught is because they are blatantly including the SDKs of the monetization firms in their client apps, and transparently sending data directly to the servers of those firms.
But what's to stop a weather app from just doing it server-side, so it's undetectable to third parties?
For instance, a weather app must send location data to some backend, in order to fetch weather data. That backend could send the location data to these exact same monetization firms. It would be difficult for Apple to detect and block this behavior.
Re: Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms
#47No surprise to see a number of weather apps on here. Seems to be such an incredibly scummy category. The built in Apple app is fine for basic information. There are plenty of high-quality third-party apps. Weather Line (my fav) is $2. DarkSky is $4. Instead people go for these weird free apps covered in ads with terrible UIs. The NOAA one isn’t made by the government, seems like using that name should be some kind of…
shameless plug for my app true weather: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.conceptual... Privacy policies don't need to be complicated: "TrueWeather does not collect any personal information."
The problem is when not being complicated means they are aren't truthful. Do you track crashes? Do you have any logging that tracks an IP address?
I view my dedicated home IP as personal, if not all that private, information. Does minimal logging actually require storing personal information? Is there a common, or legal definition of what personal information is?
I'm all for simple policies, but I would also rather they be accurate, and I would hate to see people who are trying to do good by having a simple policy like that end up in trouble because the law doesn't quite agree.
Re: Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms
#48No surprise to see a number of weather apps on here. Seems to be such an incredibly scummy category. The built in Apple app is fine for basic information. There are plenty of high-quality third-party apps. Weather Line (my fav) is $2. DarkSky is $4. Instead people go for these weird free apps covered in ads with terrible UIs. The NOAA one isn’t made by the government, seems like using that name should be some kind of…
I bet Apple will crack down on these location tracking SDKs, but it likely wouldn't eliminate this type of tracking. The main reason these apps are getting caught is because they are blatantly including the SDKs of the monetization firms in their client apps, and transparently sending data directly to the servers of those firms. But what's to stop a weather app from just doing it server-side, so it's undetectable to…
The firms would then have a much harder time knowing if the information is genuinely from end users, if they no longer collect directly from user devices.
Re: Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
While generally true, I've also found free apps are usually decent and not-scummy if they're open source.
generally a good rule of thumb, though ive also seen a few cases of a good open source app having a bunch of scummy forks that end up being more popular on the app store (eg shuttle vs phonograph). i wonder if google promotes apps with advertising more than their ad-free counterparts? the conflict of interest is so obvious but i digress..
Generally I trust the Fdroid repository much more than I trust Google's repository. Though if Fdroid became very popular with the masses I don't think that could continue to be the case, unfortunately. It's a difficult problem to weed out the bad apps...
Re: Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms
#50The lack of any real business model besides gambling on mobile apps sends the market from professional firms like Autodesk and Adobe to solo developers overseas. They have much lower accountability which makes this entirely predictable.