iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by fierarul » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 6:24 AM UTC

thombles wrote: post #102

freehunter wrote: post #24

On the other hand Apple has forced apps to use location data for purposes it should not be used for. Termius, for example, is my favorite iOS SSH app. But according to them, they can’t keep an SSH session running in the background unless they’re constantly tracking your location data. And somehow Apple approved this usage of location data. I don’t want to give Termius my location. I don’t want them tracking me everyw…

Apple's effective policy is that any long-running service should be mediated via a remote server. This affects not just SSH but every other protocol that relies on long-lived TCP connections such as IRC and XMPP. Not only can you no longer maintain the connection - you also need an out-of-band way to provide notifications via APNS. Together these requirements have hugely damaged traditional or federated protocols. No…

> Meanwhile Matrix gets by because they have a company with actual money subsidising the client app (Riot) and providing notifications for every user, no matter which homeserver they happen to be using. Without that benevolence provided for iOS, Matrix could well be another non-starter outside FOSS circles.

So, I'm reading this that regardless of using a separate 'homeserver', Matrix receives all traffic/notifications?

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

#272

Post by fierarul » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 6:26 AM UTC

tialaramex wrote: post #221

merpnderp wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Granted it's been quite some time, but one of the reasons I switched to iOS from Android was Facebook kept "accidentally" exploiting bugs in Android and Google never did anything about it. At the time Facebook wasn't even one of the apps you could delete from your phone. Hopefully Android is better now.

> one of the reasons I switched to iOS from Android was Facebook kept "accidentally" exploiting bugs in Android and Google never did anything about it. At the time Facebook wasn't even one of the apps you could delete from your phone. Hopefully Android is better now Um? What? None of my Android phones, going back a great many years, had Facebook. So sure, I couldn't delete it - because it wasn't there.

My guess is you buy expensive/vanilla-OS Android phones. Lots of other Android phones have Facebook apps that can't be deleted.

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

#273

Post by developer2 » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 6:33 AM UTC

lern_too_spel wrote: post #237

lilyball wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absent memory pressure, apps can stay open for up to 10 minutes in the background. The correct solution here is for the app to request background processing and to schedule a local notification in 9 minutes saying that the app is about to run out of background time and pause (and then clean up the notification if the user returns to the app before it fires). This means you're not abusing anything, and it lets the use…

Or instead of using a hack that intermittently fails, you could use a platform that lets the app function correctly. The app can pester the user about if they want to keep the connection open only if the user specifically wants that. Termius works perfectly on Android without requesting my location.

Hint: if Apple allowed apps to run indefinitely in the background, it would be less than a month before almost every app "needs to run in the background", for user-unfriendly reasons. And battery life would drop to a couple of hours.

This is why I'm an Apple user. Hate regarding Apple's policies like "use a platform that lets the app function correctly" (ie. drain battery running in background just to do more tracking, or because every developer assumes THEIR app is so special that it must never be unloaded from memory, in order to open instantly when being swapped back to... weeks after user's last interaction). With hilarious frequency, the complaints people have about Apple are precisely the reasons I prefer their products.

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

#274

Post by cglong » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 6:38 AM UTC

This feature sounds great on paper, but what's always bugged me is that this only applies to third-party apps. Apple's own location tracking apps (Maps, Find My) aren't subjected to never-ending scary pop-up messages like their competitors.

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

#275

Post by SXX » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 6:54 AM UTC

emptybits wrote: post #142

surround wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s two things about iOS that bothers me, privacy wise: - Apple still makes money off of ads, creating a conflict of interest. By default, users have a unique tracking/advertising ID attached to their phone. - iOS is extremely restrictive, making certain privacy adjustments impossible.

Yes. But FWIW, a user can reset their "Advertising Identifier" anytime they want: Settings -> Privacy -> Advertising -> Reset Advertising Identifier... Now if iOS was more hacker friendly, I'd write an app to automate that action and have it run regularly or on a random schedule or something.

> Now if iOS was more hacker friendly, I'd write an app to automate that action and have it run regularly or on a random schedule or something.

Of course you never mentioned Android in your post, but I just want to point out that Android in no way is more hacker-friendly. As soon as you obtain root access half of apps will stop to be feature-complete because Google have SafetyNet and there is no way at all to make your own legit "hacker" apps trusted to use elevated privileges. How is your phone is useful if part of games wont work, streaming wont work, banking apps dont work, etc.

Of course they sell it under sauce of anti-malware and "security", but it's Android have anti-consumer DRM system that make your compromise between useful apps and whatever hacks you wish to apply. So not that much more useful compared to jailbroken iOS.

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

#276

Post by gempir » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 6:58 AM UTC

jeffparsons wrote: post #254

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…

I haven't noticed more notification spam in Google apps, but what I have noticed is the way better notification management in recent years.

I can long press on notifications and directly block it forever or finely tune the App sending it what it is allowed to send etc.

Last time I used an iPhone I still had to double swipe to even dismiss a notification, which is super annoying because most are probably spam.

If Notifications on iOS were as good as on Android I would instantly switch.

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

#277

Post by in3d » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 6:59 AM UTC

hamandcheese wrote: post #167

in3d wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Google can show a screen after each search encouraging people to contact Apple if they want it removed. Will you switch to Bing? They can do the same thing. Other websites can also bother iPhone users worse than ads do or make visitors pay for access on iOS but not on Android. Apple does not run the Internet.

iOS has roughly 50% market share in the US. Most rational companies are unwilling to alienate half of their users (and the more lucrative half at that).

Why "alienate"? Apple bothers me with their iCloud when I'm doing a bunch of unrelated things all the time but I'm not alienated. Google could show a sensible explanation (true or not) about how Apple's changes will cause their search quality to decline and could get users on their side.

If Google went nuclear as an answer to losing 99% of their revenue from iPhones/iPads/macbooks and blocked their users completely, I would personally switch to Android right away. Google's search results and maps are much more important to me than a polished UI and a high-end screen.

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

#278

Post by ncallaway » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 7:06 AM UTC

JoBrad wrote: post #174

ncallaway wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I haven't used Android in a while but I assume it doesn't have this. I've started getting these notifications on my Android device. Each app that makes a location request in the background causes a notification that allows me to take away location access from the app, only allow location access when the app is in the foreground, or always allow location access.

This notification is slightly different: you still get a notification when an app asks for permission. But later on you get a notification telling you that the app has been using a given feature x times, and you have the choice of changing the permission again. For location, it also shows a map of each location gathered by the app.

Yeah, that's what I'm describing.

You get a notification when the application accesses your location from the background.

You're not using the app at the time it makes the request, and you get a system notification telling you about the location access.

I haven't seen a map on Android though. I like that.

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

#279

Post by 2ion » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 7:11 AM UTC

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.

It is almost irrelevant for existing users what has been added in Android version n + 1, because they will never get updated to n + 1. The joys of the Android vendor ecosystem. Even very expensive phones like Sony get about 1 (mid) or 2 (high-end) major upgrade only, and that's still not guaranteed. Project Treble did nothing to fix this.

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

#280

Post by xs83 » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 7:20 AM UTC

egdod wrote: post #130

xs83 wrote: post #125

As someone who works in this space I see this from an alternative angle. Yes we use data like this in order to advertise to you, No Apple is no better than Google at how they approach this - they are just walling you further into their walled garden. Google uses your location information to track your locations in order to provide better (more relevant) advertisements through their own ad platform. Apple does exactly…

> Apple does exactly the same but because it doesn't have it's own ad platform this gets sent to their "Approved Partners" who do it on their behalf. Apple sends my location information to third parties? Citation needed.

Specifically: (highlights via are mine)

To provide location-based services on Apple products, Apple and our partners and licensees[1], such as maps data providers, may collect, use, and share[2] precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device. Where available, location-based services may use GPS, Bluetooth, and your IP Address, along with crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower locations, and other technologies to determine your devices’ approximate location. Unless you provide consent, this location data is collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you and is used by Apple and our partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based products and services[3]. For example, your device may share its geographic location with application providers when you opt in to their location services.

Some location-based services offered by Apple, such as the “Find My” feature, require your personal information for the feature to work.

[1] is basically discussing how Apple and its partners (advertising partners, business alignment partners etc) and importantly licensees (e.g. people they licence this data to for things like advertising) can use your data

[2] Collect, Use and Share - basically carte blanche

[3] Location based products and services - advertising is included in this - again via licensees!