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Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms

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Re: Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms

#121

Post by wruza »

jsjohnst wrote: post #73
MBCook wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not that I’m aware of. And I think that would be meaningless to 99.8% of users. It’s not like you can filter your searches anyway. If people DID start thinking of it as some kind of sealer quality, unscrupulous actors would simply open source their apps and leave all the garbage in. So it would become meaningless.

Further, what does it being open source help? They could publish the app source without the tracking SDKs (especially as some of them are big enough now that you have to hassle with git-lfs even if you wanted to commit it) and then build it with the tracking SDKs before submitting to the App Store.

Other people could build these apps at build farm and publish under trusted vendor name like linux distributions do. You don’t trust vim.deb from anyone, but e.g. vim.org and ftp.??.debian.org/debian have at least strictly no intent to abuse you.

Re: Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms

#122

Post by awiesenhofer »

MBCook wrote: post #26

No 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 never understood why one needs seperate apps for all these basic informations. I just use homescreen bookmarks to my trusted weather/news/sports sites. Not only are they more secure and ad-free, they load faster too.

Re: Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms

#123

Post by tombrossman »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #51

I really wish there was a reliable way to just shitlist all of these affiliate/analytics/tracking/ad SDKs device-wide. Third party SDKs sending who-knows-what to who-knows-where is such a plague in the app ecosystem, and even the developers including them seem to have no idea what the implications are. I don’t want any of them, ever.

A reasonable compromise would be to have some way of determining which apps don't do this prior to installing them, such as a paid app that does not need to rely on ads and proactively declares this in the app description. Google Play clearly labels adware and I am genuinely surprised that Apple's App Store does not.

I am happy to pay for apps that do not contain adverts or unnecessary tracking, but I have no way of obtaining this information on iOS. For Android, I can look at the store listing, try F-Droid, or scan with Exodus[0]. For iOS, I'm not aware of any user tools at all. Is this information available anywhere?

[0]https://exodus-privacy.eu.org/

Re: Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms

#124

Post by jplayer01 »

ekianjo wrote: post #52
dwighttk wrote: post #31

Earlier 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.

FDroid on Android has tons of FOSS apps that are quite good. Its a false dichotomy.

How do I get FDroid on my iPhone?

Re: Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms

#125

Post by sgroppino »

modzu wrote: post #40
MBCook wrote: post #26

No 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."

This may not apply to TrueWeather in particular, but other apps could have the same policy and send the app requests to other services that do collect personal information... so, for the policy to be clear it would have to say "At time of publishing TrueWeather nor any of the services used by TrueWeather collect any personal information"... just my humble opinion on this complex topic.

Re: Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms

#126

Post by ericd »

MBCook wrote: post #60
fipple wrote: post #50

The 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.

> to solo developers overseas Why is that kind of racism necessary at all? It has nothing to do with where people are. Developers want money. Duh. But the App Store has gone to “ basically everything is free“. The only two ways to accomplish that for most developers are in app purchases, which don’t work every app, and ad/data sales. As new people find new ways to monetize data that they can get their hands on, they’…

That's not racism - as fipple mentions, there are significant differences in legal accountability. And even if there weren't, pretty sure that would be considered slight xenophobia rather than racism.

Re: Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms

#127

Post by fooker »

danjoc wrote: post #68
alphabettsy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does having some kill switch solve the issue of an app that needs geolocation selling the data or otherwise using it in a way other than you intended?

Having an OS and apps I can trust to not send location data solves that problem. The kill switches ensures no roving bugs, modem AT commands, and passive tower triangulation when I'm not using the radio. Pretty simple really.

Do you trust the compiler/VM? How about the hardware? Maybe the fab too?

http://wiki.c2.com/?TheKenThompsonHack

At some level, you have to trust or decide what is tolerable for you.

Re: Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms

#128

Post by fooker »

danjoc wrote: post #65
MBCook wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I buy that phone, and I get a weather app… it’s going to need to know where I am to provide me the forecast. And once I give it that permission, how does the phone/OS prevent them from selling the data that I gave them permission to have? It doesn’t.

> it’s going to need to know where I am to provide me the forecast Why would you think that? I don't need to give a weather app my location. It only needs to have one or more locations of interest to me. My weather widget pulls multiple locations for me, and has no access to my location data.

By that logic, nothing needs your location.

Re: Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms

#129

Post by manmal »

My wife recently was at a certain chain store for books and paper accessories. She did not interact with Amazon in the store, and does not have the Amazon app installed. And yet, just minutes later, she started receiving Amazon recommendations for exactly the kind of items you would expect at the store she had been. I told her that this a coincidence, but other apps sending her location could actually explain it.

Re: Popular iPhone apps caught sending user location data to monetization firms

#130

Post by ekianjo »

rootlocus wrote: post #86
ekianjo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FDroid on Android has tons of FOSS apps that are quite good. Its a false dichotomy.

It's not a false dichotomy if you remember these arguments aren't generic, they're for the apple store.

I thought we were talking about smartphones in general?
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