I still want a phone with an open software ecosystem, so I'm excited that the Pinephone and Librem 5 exist. But I'm glad that Apple has been able to at least make privacy a selling point of their products. That's the way it should be.
Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone
191–200 of 403 posts
Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Catastrophic privacy” is quite a huge claim - do you have any actual examples? My perspective is that iphone privacy protections have actually gotten better and more sophisticated over time, and I’m much more comfortable having older non-techie relatives on iOS for that reason. When it comes to providing them tech support ios has always been less finicky than android.
>Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) on iPhones Nuff said.
But when you follow history of how IDFA was introduced (a replacement for more privacy-invasive identifiers which were available), IDFA makes sense. At least it's completely fair and honest - it is an identifier for advertisers, that user's have control over.
Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) on iPhones Nuff said.
Identifier for Advertisers was opt-out, and will soon be opt-in [1], so that seems like an example of Apple's privacy protections getting better over time. 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/09/03/idfa-st...
Yes, but "better" is a qualitative term not a quantitative. That this thing even exists in the first place and was either mandatory or opt-out is still concerning to me.
This change moved Apple a little closer to the "good guys" column, but not really into it.
Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, did you read Mozilla's blog post or aware of what IDFA is and it's history? Apple released IDFA to improve consumer privacy, to avoid advertisers being able to fingerprint iOS devices using Unique Device ID (UDID). Access to UDID was deprecated in iOS 5 (that's 2011). It has also given control to consumers since then to opt-out of providing IDFA by default. In 2019, Mozilla asked Apple to take rotate the IDFA…
actually... I did wrong quote so joke on me! The quote that I wanted is this one > That’s where you come in: We need a massive outpouring of support for Apple’s decision to help strengthen its resolve to protect consumer privacy. Why mozilla needs people like me and you in order for apple to fulfil their promises for consumer privacy? As apple says “Privacy. That’s iPhone”, why it needs user attention for apple actio…
I think you misunderstood Mozilla.
Apple is still going ahead with this regardless. My understanding the rollout was delayed because of ongoing financial hardship on everyone in the world because of COVID (and to give more time to advertisers, developers and others to prepare).
Mozilla is also asking everyone to publicly support Apple's decision because it's good for consumers, which in result would also force others to also adopt it (Android), but also because on the other end of this decision are advertisers, game developers and Facebook that are publicly telling everyone it's a bad thing since it'll hit their wallets.
Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone
#195Say what you want about Apple but they are by far the most privacy focused big company. Their income is from selling physical devices. Typical megacorps in 2020 are leveraging economies of scale to sell their users' attention. Apple has a unique value add in that when their users benefit they benefit. Sent from my Thinkpad.
IMO Pine64 is more privacy respecting than Apple. I don't have to send them an email address to install software and I don't have to send them my drivers license to be allowed to compile it.
> I don't have to send them my drivers license to be allowed to compile it
You do not need to send Apple your drivers license to compile software for Apple hardware.
Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ad fraud... How exactly is this my problem as a consumer? This sounds pretty much like a "you" (ad networks and advertisers) problem... So why should you be allowed to spy on me - who never defrauded any advertisers - to fix your problem?
Because it makes advertising more expensive, which in turn makes the products and services you use more expensive.
I would be thrilled if online advertising became unviable as a business model. Most of what makes the web suck today (megabytes of javascript on every page; clickbait articles; outrage-driven social media; warehouses of PII waiting to be bought/sold/stolen) is because of advertising. Yes, I do want to pay for the services I use.
Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
Although for what its worth, I wonder if it's possible for a cell to throw telcos off by broadcasting at higher power and connecting randomly between more and less distant antennas. This is probably one of the dumber ideas I've come up with given that I have no idea how the different protocols for handshakes between cells and towers work. Looking to be educated on it here in the comments.
The client handset's location is not determined by the power. It's determined by timing. Higher power would only give more basestations ability to receive your signal and add greater resolution to their position solution.
Add lag and randomize timing.
Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ad fraud... How exactly is this my problem as a consumer? This sounds pretty much like a "you" (ad networks and advertisers) problem... So why should you be allowed to spy on me - who never defrauded any advertisers - to fix your problem?
Because it makes advertising more expensive, which in turn makes the products and services you use more expensive.
If consumers are desensitized to targeted advertising it could make products cheaper as they'd seek out other sources of information that don't require paying Google a hefty tax.
I don't really think that the students are the ones being "helped" when google gets paid $90 a click on student loan refinancing queries. They end up paying that $$ in the end.
Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know why you use a big word such as "fraud" when you mean "we want to be able to know which accounts are owned by the same person".
That isn't what "fraud" means in this context. Ad fraud is when you have something other than a real user loading or clicking on ads. For example, I could stand up a headless browser to click on the ads on my site. This would get me more of a payout from my advertisers, but would also be fraud. A stable identifier makes identifying this sort of behavior much easier. (Disclosure: I work on ads at Google, speaking only…
hopefully the top tier talent at these companies can figure something out
Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone
#200If this feature is going to be well-known and too easy to discover - it is already doomed. As soon as too many ordinary users start using it, advertisers will invest in workarounds. Ad blocking only worked well as long as the majority of people didn't care to use it. Ad blocking and privacy-enhancing features should be off by default, requiring you to dive deep into config dialogs to turn on so only those who actuall…
Apple has a unique power here. They just add a line to their ToS stating that workarounds are a violation and your app will be removed.
Facebook does that too. How can they police secretly selling spy data?