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Apple’s ad network gets ‘preferential access to users’ data’ vs Facebook, Google

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Re: Apple’s ad network gets ‘preferential access to users’ data’ vs Facebook, Google

#61

Post by 3131s »

spanhandler wrote: post #31
wutbrodo wrote: post #3

I had a very brief stint working on mobile ads in 2011, so I have some vague familiarity with the sausage factory and its implications for user privacy on mobile devices, and this is par for the course for Apple. A big part of their marketing strategy is duping people into thinking they're pro-user, when they're one of the most aggressively anti-user companies I can think of. What's really impressive is how successfu…

I wish anyone, anyone else would make competing operating systems & accompanying software suites that performed as well and required as little unproductive horseshit to keep working properly, and in fact worked as hard to make my life easier through useful integrations (little things, like auto-fill auth code from a text message—god, so nice). I don't like them but any time I use something else I feel like I've made…

That's odd, because my operating system, available software repositories, and desktop environment are all pretty great.

Re: Apple’s ad network gets ‘preferential access to users’ data’ vs Facebook, Google

#62

Post by macintux »

jeffbee wrote: post #53
iji40 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don’t, because they do. The entire thesis of the upstream argument is false. You’re arguing a falsehood. There are no special libraries to defeat privacy available to first party apps. They use the same exact methods externals do. The first party app documentation is literally the public site with very few exceptions.

I think you're being a little obtuse. How do you address the fact that I can disable microphone for any 3rd-party voice memo application but I cannot disable it for Apple's "Voice Memos". This is a clear double-standard regardless of how fondly you feel about your own contributions to Apple Maps.

I imagine Apple is making the assumption that the only reason to run Voice Memos is to use the microphone, but that’s clearly not the case. I agree with the sibling comment, file a bug.

Re: Apple’s ad network gets ‘preferential access to users’ data’ vs Facebook, Google

#63

Post by fragmede »

wlesieutre wrote: post #25
jeffbee wrote: post #2

Apple exempts all their iOS software from their own privacy scaremongering. iOS never pops up a scary dialog warning you that Camera has accessed your location twice in the last week, even though Camera accesses your location every time you start it. There is a completely separate iOS privacy regime for Apple's own apps.

And Apple is 100% sure of exactly what happens with that location data. I'd be happy to get some limited exceptions to this, like "3rd party camera apps can get pre-granted location access, but only if the developer agrees that the location data will be used for nothing but EXIF tags, and if it is ever found to have left the device the developer gets delisted from the app store."

There isn't a box inside of Apple HQ marked 'location data, do not eat', so Apple isn't actually 100% sure where the location data is. There are numerous safeguards, both in their device and the online platform to try and make sure it never leaks, but no one other than their marketing team would say 100%.

Re: Apple’s ad network gets ‘preferential access to users’ data’ vs Facebook, Google

#64

Post by slowmovintarget »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #44
slowmovintarget wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are not using "their computers". We are using our own computers. Apple made them. I realize Apple likely doesn't feel the same way. I also think this is kind of an "of course Apple does that." A great many people pay money for this particular experience.

With due respect, you're giving the OP a deliberately ungenerous reading to score a point. If I tell you "I like using Dell's servers because [reasons]" you wouldn't say, "They're YOUR servers, Dell just made them" because I said "Dell's servers" rather than "Dell servers".

The trouble is with the language though, especially when thinking about who is permitted to do what with the device.

I wasn't trying to score cheap points, I was attempting to demonstrate two concepts that had been collapsed into the pronoun "their" really must be considered separately when thinking about authorization.

I apologize if the message was muddled in "gotcha" language. I aim to do better than that.

Re: Apple’s ad network gets ‘preferential access to users’ data’ vs Facebook, Google

#65

Post by dwaite »

save_ferris wrote: post #10
acdha wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scaremongering isn't the right way to describe a real, well-documented ongoing concern. We have a long history of app developers trying to monetize their user's privacy, and that also explains why your comparison is inaccurate: if you buy an iOS device you are already trusting Apple. If you don't trust Camera to do nothing more than geotag your photos, you can't use iOS at all because every mechanism which would prot…

Don't you think it's at least a little hypocritical that they don't extend the same privacy configuration options to their apps that they mandate for 3rd party apps? Sure, I generally trust Apple more than a random 3rd party developer, but the fact that Apple doesn't trust me to set my own privacy configuration for the camera makes me trust them less.

I'd need a valid example of Apple not asking for permissions. What usually happens is that Apple built-in apps are able to ask for permissions and consent _differently_ than third party apps, such as greater control over the messaging.

For the most part, apps _do_ ask for permissions, for instance Maps and Safari do ask for access to your location. However, Safari has quite a few UX customizations outside what is generally available so that it asks for permissions on behalf of a website, rather than on behalf of itself.

When possible, Apple will try to create a higher level system so that third parties get access to a better UX (say, a pop-over browser or map control or photo picker) but they are usually slower at doing so.

When possible, Apple will try to create a higher level system to allow third parties to have a better UX here. For example, there is an anonymous advertising API which Apple uses and which they are exposing to apps in iOS 14. This does not result in the 'tracking' privacy prompt.

The largest exception last year was likely Find My, in the face of the crackdown on background location tracking. Since the activation lock/location tracking is part of the system, the UX was drastically different than say Tile's app. Apple launched a third party program for Find My this year as they start to try and make up the differences. They still have a way to go there.

Re: Apple’s ad network gets ‘preferential access to users’ data’ vs Facebook, Google

#66

Post by spanhandler »

3131s wrote: post #61
spanhandler wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish anyone, anyone else would make competing operating systems & accompanying software suites that performed as well and required as little unproductive horseshit to keep working properly, and in fact worked as hard to make my life easier through useful integrations (little things, like auto-fill auth code from a text message—god, so nice). I don't like them but any time I use something else I feel like I've made…

That's odd, because my operating system, available software repositories, and desktop environment are all pretty great.

Mine are too, if I devote a lot of time to futzing with them and tolerate a lot of nice-to-have features being absent or a pain to get working. Stripped-down Linux in something like dwm or i3 is really nice but you have to baby it to get it to a good place—that is, building up from a minimal distro is much easier to get to a pleasantly-working and predictable system than stripping down a big one—and then hope you don't need it to do something you didn't anticipate on short notice. KDE is OK as long as you don't do much with it (luckily, "not doing much with it" describes web dev pretty well, so far as what I need that's not server-features which are indeed more convenient and usable on Linux than macOS).

Desktop's a collection of locally-not-exactly-optimum-but-tolerable-but-actually-bad-if-you-zoom-out tech like systemd, pulseaudio, and Wayland (and xorg, for that matter) all of which could be good but kinda aren't.

Basically Linux is sort-of fine if I can carefully control the environment I use it in and don't care about nice to have features or its rough edges, mostly relating to display and audio stuff. Win10 is surprisingly OKish but is spyware and its built-in or related suite of productivity programs are worse than what macOS offers, for my purposes (I don't need interop with Office).

A lot of what I like about macOS I didn't realize I was missing my first 17ish years of using Windows and 10ish years of using Linux. Now other operating systems may have some very nice things (tiling wms! and... I struggle to think of another thing, actually) but fall down hard on a11y, not-unpleasant settings interfaces, associated software suite quality (god, Preview is good), and a bunch of little things that I didn't realize I was missing before.

Again: for the love of god, someone with capital please compete with macOS. You don't have to clone them, but care about battery life, performance, and holistic UX half as much as they do, and undercut them on price and/or freedom, and I'm there.

For the record my work machine right now is KDE on Debian in a VM on Windows because Linux (well, xorg and Wayland) hates my hardware and crashes ~hourly if I don't put it in a safe widdle VM away from all that mean ol' real hardware. My favorite distros are Gentoo and my new love, Void. I did the Linux-on-a-Thinkpad (gentoo, even!) thing in the early 00s. Windows user since 3.1. I honest-to-god think I was blind to how much time I was losing to my OS before I had to use a Mac for iOS dev. It's... a lot. That stuff feels like work, but man, it's not.

[EDIT] yes I know claiming two high-touch (though Void isn't, actually) distros as my favorites may seem hypocritical and a probable source of my issues but aside from a brief golden age in the first 2-3 years of Ubuntu when they were basically Debian with a nicer installer and less-obtuse defaults (like making any browser other than Firefox the default on a Linux desktop in '08) I've not experienced the heavier, batteries-included distros being less work than the lighter ones, unless you get incredibly lucky and the reports that your hardware works turn out to be actually true and not technically true, and the stars align, and you never plug anything new in. Plus they usually perform really poorly.

[EDIT EDIT] oh I thought of a second nice thing other operating systems have: ZFS.

Re: Apple’s ad network gets ‘preferential access to users’ data’ vs Facebook, Google

#67

Post by saurik »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #44
slowmovintarget wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are not using "their computers". We are using our own computers. Apple made them. I realize Apple likely doesn't feel the same way. I also think this is kind of an "of course Apple does that." A great many people pay money for this particular experience.

With due respect, you're giving the OP a deliberately ungenerous reading to score a point. If I tell you "I like using Dell's servers because [reasons]" you wouldn't say, "They're YOUR servers, Dell just made them" because I said "Dell's servers" rather than "Dell servers".

I live in my landlord's apartment. Technically, they have a key to enter. I absolutely have to trust them to ensure they don't come inside if I am not here. However, they still have to ask permission to enter (unless it is some clear and obvious emergency), as we don't consider it to be my landlord's apartment: we consider it to be my apartment; the language is trying to shift the discussion into some weird natural stance that somehow, just because Apple made something and I can't know for sure they aren't lying to me about whether they honor the restrictions I tell them, it somehow means they don't have to ask... that's bullshit :/.

Re: Apple’s ad network gets ‘preferential access to users’ data’ vs Facebook, Google

#68

Post by saurik »

jeffbee wrote: post #34
xoa wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

System apps are right there with every single 3rd party app in terms of control though. They have an explanation just like Apple requires in general, and you can turn off location or whatever else usage. If I go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services, "Camera" is right there with the standard indicator for that it has been used, a "While Using the App" set, and "App explanation: 'Photos and videos will be tagged w…

My complaint is not about the initial permission, it's about the thing that regularly appears in iOS to suggest that you might have changed your mind and would you like to disable location access for some app. This never pops up for Apple's apps. There's also another way they exempt themselves, by allowing you to disable microphone for third-party apps but not offering to disable microphone access for Voice Memos, Ca…

Yeah: I get this prompt over and over again for the Tile application, and it is ridiculously annoying; if/when Apple launches their own Tile competitor, obviously their app will not be subject to the same handicap, and people might very well choose Apple's version simply because they won't get nagged constantly "are you sure you like Tile?!". That's clear anti-competitive behavior, in the same space as "tying" and "bundling": when Apple builds products that can be built using their platform, they need to be forced to not take advantage of the fact that they are the developer of the platform to give themself preferential treatment vs. the products, as if you allow that then you essentially always annoint the platform providers as the winners in any battle they are want to enter... the result of which being that you always end up with an oligopoly of giant companies owning every important market (and if you want to compete you have to take them on as network effect platforms) instead of separate oligopolies (let's face it: economy of scale effects pretty much always cause oligopolies in free markets :/ the only time that doesn't happen is if you hold a market space no one considers important) for every major market built on that platform (and then as a cross-cutting concern of said platforms; like, the market for bluetooth location dongles and voice assistants and browsers shouldn't be exactly the same game as the market for mobile phones and computers).

Re: Apple’s ad network gets ‘preferential access to users’ data’ vs Facebook, Google

#69

Post by glitchc »

jeffbee wrote: post #2

Apple exempts all their iOS software from their own privacy scaremongering. iOS never pops up a scary dialog warning you that Camera has accessed your location twice in the last week, even though Camera accesses your location every time you start it. There is a completely separate iOS privacy regime for Apple's own apps.

This is hyperbolic and wrong. On my iPhone XS running iOS 13.6, there is an option inside Settings>Privacy>Location Services to turn off location access for the Camera app. You can turn off Location for other core Apple apps too, including HomeKit, Health, etc.

Re: Apple’s ad network gets ‘preferential access to users’ data’ vs Facebook, Google

#70

Post by zepto »

jeffbee wrote: post #53
iji40 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don’t, because they do. The entire thesis of the upstream argument is false. You’re arguing a falsehood. There are no special libraries to defeat privacy available to first party apps. They use the same exact methods externals do. The first party app documentation is literally the public site with very few exceptions.

I think you're being a little obtuse. How do you address the fact that I can disable microphone for any 3rd-party voice memo application but I cannot disable it for Apple's "Voice Memos". This is a clear double-standard regardless of how fondly you feel about your own contributions to Apple Maps.

You make the choice when you buy the app.

When you buy an iPhone, you are buying all of the Apps Apple supplies with it.

You even have a return period to take it back if you don’t like the behavior.

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