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A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

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Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#171

Post by ComodoHacker »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #154
o8r3oFTZPE wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Progress. What would be neat is to see how much data Apple is collecting about its customers after purchase. Why wouldnt we want to know this. Could Apple provide option to hide true email address, tell app do not track and give visibility into data being sniffed without also collecting vast amounts of user data itself. We cannot answer that question until we see the data they collect. I used to be of the mind that A…

A big difference is that Apple makes money by selling me devices. Google and Facebook make money by manipulating me into buying their customer's products. Incentives matter.

Incentives indeed matter, and incentives could change quickly once volume and value of Apple's collected data reach a critical point. But no one will be able to take their data back.

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#172

Post by o8r3oFTZPE »

csomar wrote: post #170
johnchristopher wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it not entirely out of reason to wonder if Apple could also want to monetize their user data ?

They already are by selling privacy as a "feature".

As the ad tech person interviewed in the article called it, "privacywashing" (as in "greenwashing" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_washing).

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#173

Post by breakfastduck »

fartcannon wrote: post #99
lumost wrote: post #48

I used to be of the mind that ad tech et. al. weren’t really hurting anyone, and that the more extreme examples of privacy offenses were simple edge cases. That is until I switched to iOS and was given the option to hide my true email address, tell an app not to track me, and otherwise get visibility into just how much my data is getting sniffed for stupid reasons that have nothing to do with the service I’m using.

Well, good, but you traded one bad apple for another. Apple is in the process of locking down freedom. And while you might not be tracked by Google, your quality of life in a closed ecosystem is just as bad in other ways. How many people have to contend with iCloud endlessly begging for money because they took a few photos of their child? Isn't iCloud data backed up on Chinese servers? I'm pretty sure that means you'…

Where on earth are you pulling the 'begging for money' from? I've never seen that happen before.

You are ultimately arguing that a business protecting my data, while also using it themselves to sell me their own products, is just as bad in other ways as a company taking my data and using it to manipulate election results, to sell to shady companies and to market the shit out of me.

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#174

Post by tialaramex »

antattack wrote: post #165

I recently bought my first Android device and found Google Play infested with apps that want my location, access to network, list all my apps AND send adverts. Google is assisting them by adding extra steps to find out what permissions app requests. Also, it appears, that Android is opting you in, unless permissions are configured before starting the app. Because of that, there are apps with sole purpose of tricking…

> want my location

Location access attempts result in a prompt, asking whether you want the app to have access to your location. You can give it access once, only when it's active, or even in the background (the latter might make sense for a fitness app/ mileage tracking app/ that sort of thing). It's your choice.

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#175

Post by antattack »

tialaramex wrote: post #174
antattack wrote: post #165

I recently bought my first Android device and found Google Play infested with apps that want my location, access to network, list all my apps AND send adverts. Google is assisting them by adding extra steps to find out what permissions app requests. Also, it appears, that Android is opting you in, unless permissions are configured before starting the app. Because of that, there are apps with sole purpose of tricking…

> want my location Location access attempts result in a prompt, asking whether you want the app to have access to your location. You can give it access once, only when it's active, or even in the background (the latter might make sense for a fitness app/ mileage tracking app/ that sort of thing). It's your choice.

I had an app (that did not need location to function) that refused to continue if location was not enabled fully.

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#176

Post by Farow »

IX-103 wrote: post #56
pentagrama wrote: post #46

> One of Google's proposed standards — Federated Learning of Cohorts, or FLoC for short — would eliminate the ability for advertisers to track specific users' web behavior with cookies. No, Floc will not "eliminate the ability for advertisers to track specific users with cookies", the phase out of third party cookies on Chrome will do that, Google needs something to replace the current tracking method for his ad busi…

What do you call it when a company makes a change to its product in one market where it has large market share that drives its competitors in another market out if business? Or put another way, do you really think Google could get rid of third party cookies tomorrow and not get sued out existence? IANAL, but even I can see that making changes to Chrome that impact advertising is risky even if you ignore Google's own…

> do you really think Google could get rid of third party cookies tomorrow and not get sued out existence?

Considering that ad blocking extensions still exist, yes. The browser (user agent) is supposed to act on the behalf of the user, not the remote server. It's not required to use cookies, display ads or run malicious code.

On what grounds would an ad company sue Google for a change in Chromium that enhances the user's privacy, while they can still display ads (just not track the users as much)?

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#177

Post by cromwellian »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #109
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #36

Funny how there is no (meaningful) user representation at W3C. Perhaps Wendy Seltzer is the closest to a user representative. A lawyer who is a Perl programmer, according to her Wikipedia profile. The arguments against Big Tech the smaller ad tech folks are raising sound legit, but obviously they are not being made in good faith. Big Tech has no more respect for user privacy than companies like Rosewell's. They are a…

s/browser fingerprinting/device fingerprinting/ s/device fingerprinting/device detection/ s/defence against browser fingerprinting/control over "UI" selection/ A simple example of where Google uses device detection is Gmail. However the process is non-transparent as Google does not share the list of user-agent strings utilised, like the sample list provided by 51degrees. I was sloppy with the terminology in the origi…

What do you mean by device detection? You mean web browser detection? Because lots of WebUIs do user-agent detection to work around browser specific bugs, the most classic being serving up different implementations for IE8/10/etc

I used to work on GWT and we baked user agent detection into the very framework and compiler itself so that each application is compiled into multiple optimized permutations.

This has nothing to do with ads or fingerprinting, it’s purely about writing code that works on legacy vs newer browsers.

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#178

Post by Terretta »

o8r3oFTZPE wrote: post #168
benhurmarcel wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big difference is that Apple makes money by selling me devices. Google and Facebook make money by manipulating me into buying their customer's products. Incentives matter.

Locked down devices. Then making more money from selling subscriptions, developer certificates, running "app stores", advertising services, etc. To get the full functionality from the device, it is difficult to avoid obtaining an "AppleID". There is an "incentive" for users to sacrifice privacy and control to Apple. That appears to be intentional. Then the after purchase data collection and storage begins. I am glad…

You cannot use 90% of the capabilities of most software-running appliances w/o agreeing to be individual-consumer-behavior tracked and resold to third party marketers. Try to turn on a new Samsung, LG, Sony, read the fine print. This model is not in Apple’s agreements.

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#179

Post by Terretta »

duhast wrote: post #164
benhurmarcel wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big difference is that Apple makes money by selling me devices. Google and Facebook make money by manipulating me into buying their customer's products. Incentives matter.

Apple finds it increasingly difficult to convince people to upgrade their phones each and every year. I expect that hardware revenue will be declining over time and will be replaced with revenue generated from services like AppStore, Music subscriptions, iCloud, TV, games and more. You can see this trend quite clearly already: in 2012 Apple generated only 6% of its revenue from services while in 2020 it was 20%. Serv…

Your thesis is 1/2 wrong, the hardware slice isn’t declining, they’re baking a bigger pie.

iPhone 12 was biggest super cycle since iPhone 7. It’s not that hardware revenue is declining so much as the flywheel is spun up for the ecosystem.

… [2021] a record-breaking year for Apple, beating the previous full-year record of 231 million units sold in 2015.

Apple is also benefiting from a higher average selling price, with ASPs said to be trending "higher on a positive mix" for the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/03/22/iphone-12-supercy...

Re: A privacy war is raging inside the W3C

#180

Post by Terretta »

deadmutex wrote: post #133
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Apple is a for profit company. On the side they are collecting your data for themselves and blocking others from getting it. Their profits come from products and services. Google is a for profit company. On the side the offer products and services. Their profits come from selling your data to others. Yes, I personally trust one over the other in this case. Although I don’t know what “for profit” has to do with a…

> Their profits come from selling your data to others It is a common misconception that FB and Google sell user data. E.g. see https://www.facebook.com/help/152637448140583 "Google has also played a leadership role in creating industry standards for transparency and data protection. More than a dozen privacy employees at Google spoke to WIRED about how they make sense of the paradox of their work, insisting that ther…

They absolutely sell the multi-feature profile of you from that data, and the data merchants absolutely tie it together then resell it to everyone. In turn, a bank can make or break your ability to buy a home with it. Fintechs helping make credit decisions get that from both, directly and indirectly, and even better when doing a bit of correlation for the bank. Microsoft and Amazon no real help, Apple even less.

Note: Those products by and large all permit and enrich surveillance aggregation of the picture of you, and use with/for third parties/ads. It’s creepy how fast and accurate the multidimensional take has become.

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