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iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

appleinsider.com

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Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#251

Post by fulafel »

baddox wrote: post #123
kelnos wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was the reason I was an android guy until my wife told me to just get a phone that works. I have not heard anything that suggests Android phones work less than iPhones. That's certainly not been my experience, anyway. I've been using Android phones for 10 years now and they've always worked just fine. And I can sideload things, which I still do, and wouldn't want to give up. > Not letting you side load is a fe…

I would say that anyone who would even consider it remotely desirable to be able to sideload apps has very different desires and expectations about how much they will "fiddle" with their phone to get it working they way they like. In other works, "it always worked just fine" probably means very different things to someone who would want to sideload apps than the average smartphone user who has never even heard of "si…

There are many non fiddler users who use or appreciate the possibility of sideloading/alternative appstores.

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#252

Post by lukejduncan »

duskwuff wrote: post #9
novok wrote: post #8

The alert is annoying although for apps you want to have always on location tracking although, like some life logging apps. (Arc, etc) It's like OS doesn't want to accept there are apps you want always on location tracking on and for it to stop annoying you about it.

Yeah, I'm a little annoyed that there isn't an option for "no really, always allow". I understand that there's good privacy reasons to keep asking -- but I'm quite aware that a weather app will need access to my location, and I'm okay with that.

Except, most weather apps including the Weather Channel App sell your location data to hedge funds.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/loca...

> The Weather Channel app, owned by an IBM subsidiary, told users that sharing their locations would let them get personalized local weather reports. IBM said the subsidiary, the Weather Company, discussed other uses in its privacy policy and in a separate “privacy settings” section of the app. Information on advertising was included there, but a part of the app called “location settings” made no mention of it.

> The app did not explicitly disclose that the company had also analyzed the data for hedge funds — a pilot program that was promoted on the company’s website. An IBM spokesman said the pilot had ended. (IBM updated the app’s privacy policy on Dec. 5, after queries from The Times, to say that it might share aggregated location data for commercial purposes such as analyzing foot traffic.)

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#253

Post by [deleted] »

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #83
Waterluvian wrote: post #77

I'm probably saying the complete obvious, but Apple can completely crush Google if they execute this angle properly. Google has no choice but to support ads. They're an ad company. Apple has to keep hammering how bad the ad and privacy experiences are with Android. Make iOS an absolute delight to use in contrast. I'd pay a premium for that. Android has done a great job making me want an iOS device again, these last t…

I have never owned an ios device in my life and strongly avoid them but this makes drift slightly over considering one. If apple allowed easily sideloading apps I would consider moving over.

[deleted]

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#254

Post by jeffparsons »

Waterluvian wrote: post #77

I'm probably saying the complete obvious, but Apple can completely crush Google if they execute this angle properly. Google has no choice but to support ads. They're an ad company. Apple has to keep hammering how bad the ad and privacy experiences are with Android. Make iOS an absolute delight to use in contrast. I'd pay a premium for that. Android has done a great job making me want an iOS device again, these last t…

For some reason I still strongly prefer the look and feel of Android over iOS, but at this point my next phone will be an iPhone.

Why? Because Google recently stepped up its notification spam in their official apps. They're using a mechanism that's supposed to exist to notify me of things _I_ want/need to know about urgently instead to advertise products and services to me that I have no interest in.

It's tedious to track down all the places these are coming from and disable them. And I shouldn't have to. I paid a premium for a high-end flagship Google phone. As a phone user, I have to give the vendor power to do all kinds of things on my behalf and to me — in this case, the power to pull my focus, or even wake me up in the middle of the night. As a phone user, my bare minimum expectation is that this power will be respected. And yet Google has chosen to use this focus-pulling notification mechanism to serve me ads.

Google does not respect even their paying users. It feels like somewhere deep in their corporate culture, their users barely even exist to them. I'm just a sub-pixel blip on a request rate dashboard, and if they can temporarily increase my "engagement" by slapping me in the face, then a slap in the face it is.

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#255

Post by scarejunba »

throwaway55554 wrote: post #227
scarejunba wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, good one, mate. Now let's try the First Amendment. I'm going to try replacing "speech" with "cocaine". > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of cocaine, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Good god. This is immeasurably distu…

Are you somehow trying to equate ad companies hoovering up our location data with the first amendment? I was simply trying to convey how addicted they are to that data.

You can make everyone look addicted to something by replacing something with cocaine. It's because all the bad parts come from the fact that you're replacing something with cocaine

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#256

Post by judge2020 »

abeyer wrote: post #250
heavyset_go wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apps can detect this, and some apps will ban you if you mock your location.

Wait, they'll ban me from their privacy-invading malvertising? Where do I sign up?

https://www.pokemongo.com/

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#257

Post by _bxg1 »

otachack wrote: post #137
Waterluvian wrote: post #77

I'm probably saying the complete obvious, but Apple can completely crush Google if they execute this angle properly. Google has no choice but to support ads. They're an ad company. Apple has to keep hammering how bad the ad and privacy experiences are with Android. Make iOS an absolute delight to use in contrast. I'd pay a premium for that. Android has done a great job making me want an iOS device again, these last t…

Sure, but Google/Android has added fine grain GPS permissions in Android 10+ so we have the option to say "just track when using app" instead of "no" or "all the time". The problem, now, is rolling it out due to fragmentation.

Google Services commonly exempt themselves from those kinds of "privacy protections". Google's happy protecting your privacy from other companies, just as long as they continue to get special access.

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#258

Post by Polylactic_acid »

fulafel wrote: post #251
baddox wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that anyone who would even consider it remotely desirable to be able to sideload apps has very different desires and expectations about how much they will "fiddle" with their phone to get it working they way they like. In other works, "it always worked just fine" probably means very different things to someone who would want to sideload apps than the average smartphone user who has never even heard of "si…

There are many non fiddler users who use or appreciate the possibility of sideloading/alternative appstores.

I consider myself one of those. I don't run a custom android rom, I haven't even set a custom wallpaper. When I get a new phone I install fdroid and install a set of open source privacy respecting apps I know to work and do exactly what I want.

I like the app store model of having a 3rd party do quality control. I just want the option to select the 3rd party which is best aligned with my interests. Google and Apple do not have my best interests in mind.

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#259

Post by judge2020 »

surround wrote: post #181
privateSFacct wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"By default, users have a unique tracking/advertising ID attached to their phone." Google has the same thing, and with apple if you care you can opt out. "When Limit Ad Tracking is enabled on iOS 10 or later, the Advertising Identifier is replaced with a non-unique value of all zeros to prevent the serving of targeted ads. It is automatically reset to a new random identifier if you disable Limit Ad Tracking." So this…

> Generally you can't get unremovable malaware installed on an iphone. Apple uses FUD to justify restricting users from doing what they want with their phone. > If this type of privacy restriction makes you choose android privacy invading phones - go for android. This is not what I’m talking about. I want to be able to use tools such as NetGuard to enhance privacy, which iOS doesn’t allow.

"FUD" isn't so uncertain when there is known widespread android malware. iOS malware only happens in extreme cases (like ransomware via a bad profile https://i.blackhat.com/briefings/asia/2018/asia-18-Zhu-and-L... ), via something like XcodeGhost, or via safari tech support scams. Just look at how stark of contrast there is between the lists of malware for both devices - https://www.cyber.nj.gov/threat-profiles/android-malware-var... and https://www.cyber.nj.gov/threat-profiles/ios/#list-of-known-....

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#260

Post by judge2020 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #219
hamandcheese wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, you solved it by not stealing.

This is a slippery slope. In this case, is turning down the volume during ads also stealing? Is looking away stealing? Etc. Downloading files for later has been a basic feature of computers since decades. If Google is now giving us defective-by-design tools it shouldn't be considered stealing to fix them or replace them with something non-defective.

It sure is, but I think it's pretty clear that "using YT Vanced/other apps to watch all of my YT content" (or ad blockers for that matter) is effectively stealing by using Google's bandwidth, server time, data redundancy, etc. without giving them anything. Maybe you're fine with that, maybe even Google is fine with that (since, at least with only ad blockers, they still get the data to build their human-level intelligence ML model in 20 years), but not everyone wants to do so.
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