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Is Apple Banning Free Analytics SDKs?

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Re: Is Apple Banning Free Analytics SDKs?

#11

Post by graftak »

stationfrocks wrote: post #3

The question is: will it be possible to use facebook and firebase sdk's without the opt-in consent, provided that no use of the idfa is made? My understanding is that as long as the opt-in popup isn't shown, the device won't allow access to the idfa, and as such the sdk you're using does not matter. Both facebook and firebase's sdks seem to have fallbacks in place for when the idfa is not available. This is to be tak…

Yes it will technically be possible but at the same be a violation of the App Store guidelines, meaning it will likely lead to a ban.

Re: Is Apple Banning Free Analytics SDKs?

#12

Post by Reason077 »

ohreallysteve wrote: post #10

From my understanding, the iOS permission to track prompt is only if your app uses user device data for the purpose of targeted advertising by accessing the IDFA. There shouldn't be a problem if you disable the collection of IDFA and you can configure exactly that via Firebase Google Analytics [1]. I don't see a whole sale banning of free analytics SDKs but I do see a positive shift in forcing developers to have more…

> "There shouldn't be a problem if you disable the collection of IDFA"

Exactly. I hope this is true as this is exactly what I'm planning to do.

Re: Is Apple Banning Free Analytics SDKs?

#13

Post by kruuuder »

Reason077 wrote: post #12
ohreallysteve wrote: post #10

From my understanding, the iOS permission to track prompt is only if your app uses user device data for the purpose of targeted advertising by accessing the IDFA. There shouldn't be a problem if you disable the collection of IDFA and you can configure exactly that via Firebase Google Analytics [1]. I don't see a whole sale banning of free analytics SDKs but I do see a positive shift in forcing developers to have more…

> "There shouldn't be a problem if you disable the collection of IDFA" Exactly. I hope this is true as this is exactly what I'm planning to do.

Apple says "you’ll need to receive the user’s permission through the AppTrackingTransparency framework to track them or access their device’s advertising identifier". So if the SDK uses any information at all (e.g. the IP address) to track the user, you need the user's permission.

Do you think Google will do some kind of tracking with the user's IP address? I'd bet on "Yes".

Re: Is Apple Banning Free Analytics SDKs?

#14

Post by simonh »

akmarinov wrote: post #8
maccard wrote: post #2

This is a bit of a stretch - the gist is that Apple is requiring opt-in consent to 3rd party tracking, and will start failing review for people apps that don't provide an opt in. This isn't a ban on Free analyics SDKs at all.

It's not a ban, but since all these 3rd party tracking platforms use the user's data to power ads, you have to show the opt in, which of course people will say no to, leading to the SDKs being mostly useless in your binary. Compare that to Mixpanel for example, where they don't power ads, you can skip showing the opt in and have a useful analytics SDK. Effectively the free SDKs need the data to make money for their o…

It really isn’t a ban though, not in any sense. It’s simply a requirement to ask for opt-in. Apple is making no decision about the use of IDFA, they are simply allowing users to make that decision. The truth is users are against this behaviour, but Facebook, Google, and the author of that blog don’t like to face up to that fact, so they will assiduously blame Apple for this not the people actually making the decision to cut them out - users.

Re: Is Apple Banning Free Analytics SDKs?

#15

Post by tabs_masterrace »

For those who have the freedom to decide what to use, I recommend looking into rolling your own. Especially if you're writing back-end services for your app anyway. After Google shutdown Fabric.io, we asked ourselves why even rely on 3rd parties for analytics. All we really wanted to know is basic usage statistics, like uniques, sessions, events. Turns out to be just a few days of work for what amounts to a CRUD service with a worker. Small bootstrapped HTML page to view the stats, no pretty graphs or anything, just numbers. The client code is around 300 lines, basically a simple network request queue. For comparison the latest libGoogleAnalyticsServices.a comes in at ~35mb (wtf?).

Re: Is Apple Banning Free Analytics SDKs?

#16

Post by Nextgrid »

m_eiman wrote: post #6
stationfrocks wrote: post #3

The question is: will it be possible to use facebook and firebase sdk's without the opt-in consent, provided that no use of the idfa is made? My understanding is that as long as the opt-in popup isn't shown, the device won't allow access to the idfa, and as such the sdk you're using does not matter. Both facebook and firebase's sdks seem to have fallbacks in place for when the idfa is not available. This is to be tak…

I suppose it's not just the idfa, it's any personal information you share with third parties.

Something as simple as an IP address is considered personal data in Europe, and something that can uniquely identify a user with a reasonable degree of accuracy (device fingerprint, which Facebook does collect) would also be included.

Re: Is Apple Banning Free Analytics SDKs?

#17

Post by ppetty »

This really seems like an OSS opportunity for someone or some organization to create an ad-free analytics SDK for “in app” usage & engagement. But I agree with other posts that Apple doesn’t seem to imply they’ll forbid any SDKs … they’re going to have an impact, though, on any information gathering & sharing that involves PII.

Re: Is Apple Banning Free Analytics SDKs?

#18

Post by Pet_Ant »

akmarinov wrote: post #8
maccard wrote: post #2

This is a bit of a stretch - the gist is that Apple is requiring opt-in consent to 3rd party tracking, and will start failing review for people apps that don't provide an opt in. This isn't a ban on Free analyics SDKs at all.

It's not a ban, but since all these 3rd party tracking platforms use the user's data to power ads, you have to show the opt in, which of course people will say no to, leading to the SDKs being mostly useless in your binary. Compare that to Mixpanel for example, where they don't power ads, you can skip showing the opt in and have a useful analytics SDK. Effectively the free SDKs need the data to make money for their o…

> Effectively the free SDKs need the data to make money for their owners, the opt in kills that and it might as well be a ban.

It's not a ban on the usage of SDKs, what it is, is a "ban" on their business model, and if you don't provide enough value to users for them to pay for then it's a "ban" on your business model. Basically, it just means that your service is asking too high a price (the user's privacy) for the market bear. This is only giving user's agency and insight and after that the market functioning as intended.

Re: Is Apple Banning Free Analytics SDKs?

#19

Post by e2021 »

tabs_masterrace wrote: post #15

For those who have the freedom to decide what to use, I recommend looking into rolling your own. Especially if you're writing back-end services for your app anyway. After Google shutdown Fabric.io, we asked ourselves why even rely on 3rd parties for analytics. All we really wanted to know is basic usage statistics, like uniques, sessions, events. Turns out to be just a few days of work for what amounts to a CRUD serv…

collecting the data isn't the problem, its the analysis thats annoying. ie. this only gets you so far:

> Small bootstrapped HTML page to view the stats, no pretty graphs or anything, just numbers.

Maybe I want to see the number of some custom event per week, ok, now show me number per session, then break it down by country etc etc. I guess you could export the data to some BI tool and create a bunch of reports, but that is a bit of a hassle, especially since in anything but a very small company the people who most want to do this analysis are going to be non-technical. Are you going to assign engineering resources to sit around making reports full time? Much easier to just use google which 1) has all this built in 2) people already know how to use

Re: Is Apple Banning Free Analytics SDKs?

#20

Post by simonh »

_qulr wrote: post #7
random5634 wrote: post #4

Always the same apple bashing for doing what their users would or will probably like

Where do you see Apple bashing in the article? It was an article targeted at app developers, offering them advice on how to adapt to the new rules.

The Apple bashing is in the title and in the text, calling this a "def-facto ban" by Apple. No it's not, it's giving the option to the users. The fact that users generally abhor and detest this sort of tracking and want nothing to do with it is hardly Apple's fault.
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