Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 162 posts

Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#111

Post by paxys »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #17
oefrha wrote: post #10

The Reuters report on this is much more detailed: https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-slams-metas-numerou... And yes, Meta isn’t denying requesting everything under the sun. Their only retort is Apple’s privacy concerns are anticompetitive excuses. Two things can be true: Apple is only protecting their own interests, and Meta is a terrible would-be guardian of all the data they’re requesting.

Also Apple's own apps request permissions the same way third party apps do

No they don't. It is literally impossible to create competitors for Apple's native apps and companion devices/accessories no matter how many permission prompts the user approves. That is what this entire complaint is about.

Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#112

Post by axkdev »

dvdkon wrote: post #73
gruez wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple routinely rejects apps that try tactics like this. This is going to be irrelevant in the EU once sideloading gets popular.

Thankfully the EU also has legislation that makes "share data to use" tactics illegal, so this shouldn't be a problem.

Citation? I think this is not true. The EU law seems to just require explicit consent. So websites and apps can ask whether user wants to share data to keep using them for free or pay a subscription fee.

Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#113

Post by oefrha »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #109
oefrha wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to contact someone in Europe so I started using WhatsApp. It does work without granting access to contacts, but it seems I can't even assign a name to a number without the contacts permission, so thousands of messages later the contact is still a bare number. Really scummy behavior. I probably would have caved if I had a number of contacts. And no iPad app, wtf.

Can you initiate a conversation? My experience with WhatsApp is that if I don't give it access to contacts, other people have to initiate conversation. I cannot just tell it to start a chat with phone 123 456 7890 (this is on Android). I guess it's debatable whether that's categorized as "it works" :>

I can “enter a phone number to start a new chat” on iOS, with a big warning about contacts on top.

Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#114

Post by LexGray »

notpushkin wrote: post #91
gruez wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different threat model. You're thinking of big tech companies like Meta, who are big enough to warrant regulatory attention. I'm thinking of fly-by-night shady app developers that make flashlight/weather/"security"/IoT/game apps, that fly under the radar because they're too small.

Not really the kind of apps people would sideload?

Exactly the type of apps people would sideload. Little things that somehow violate App Store rules abusing APIs, lying about app capability, just being ethically dubious.

Use flash to create seizures, nudity people realtime, hack your ex, damage the device, cheat at games, spam your enemies, etc.

There is an infinite use case for tiny malicious apps finding malicious or gullible users and with side loading there are going to be stores created to appear very legitimate when their intentions are actually illegal.

I think the EU has very noble intentions while completely failing to understand that society is a wreck and a lot of money is made through extortion and fraud. Their apparent fix is to make the OS developers still responsible for what is installed while taking away funding for it. I am guessing the end game is more taxes and government intrusion on private devices to fix the problems they are purposely creating.

Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#115

Post by toast0 »

gruez wrote: post #80
silvestrov wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook likes getting some of that sweet money from EU advertisers. EU can block payments from EU to Facebook.

Different threat model. You're thinking of big tech companies like Meta, who are big enough to warrant regulatory attention. I'm thinking of fly-by-night shady app developers that make flashlight/weather/"security"/IoT/game apps, that fly under the radar because they're too small.

To a first approximation, the small apps don't matter because they're small.

If that doesn't work, set up a deposit requirement like Apple wanted for the 3rd party stores and then walked back. Do something wrong, lose the deposit and the entitlements.

Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#116

Post by alex1138 »

I dunno, I'm sure people have beef with Apple but Zuck's always taken other people's projects and acted dishonestly and their violating the terms with Whatsapp should be cause for breakup, and something like Apple is absolutely necessary (fine grained permissions) to stop the slurp-all-your-contacts parade that Zuckerberg loves

Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#117

Post by mulmen »

crest wrote: post #37
oefrha wrote: post #10

The Reuters report on this is much more detailed: https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-slams-metas-numerou... And yes, Meta isn’t denying requesting everything under the sun. Their only retort is Apple’s privacy concerns are anticompetitive excuses. Two things can be true: Apple is only protecting their own interests, and Meta is a terrible would-be guardian of all the data they’re requesting.

Apple shouldn't be allowed to lock down APIs between system components to give themselves a competitive advantage, but that doesn't mean Meta should be allowed decide if they're getting that access. Let Apple offer users the option: allow once, allow permanently, refuse, or fake empty responses without telling the app.

> or fake empty responses without telling the app.

I thought the value proposition of the walled garden was that no app was malicious so this is a non-issue.

Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#118

Post by nox101 »

inetknght wrote: post #89
riversflow wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trying to outsource those decisions to corporations and government simply isn't working I don’t follow. What is wrong with the status quo?

> What is wrong with the status quo? Businesses are deciding who lives and who dies, instead of people being allowed to have their own choice in the matter. These businesses make decisions based on data stolen from users. If the data were on paper in a person's home, it would be considered private and inaccessible. Why should a company decide that they should have access to your every move and every data, just becaus…

It's funny, you're first sentence "Businesses are deciding who lives and who dies, instead of people being allowed to have their own choice in the matter" to me meant "Apple deciding who can and can not do business with users of iPhones"

The status quo is that Apple has this power on top of the power to collect 30% for all digital transactions (or be denied on the store) and the power to force Apple Pay support to be required (or be denied on the store). Apple also has the power to collect all the data but deny it to others.

That's the status quo that the EU is addressing.

Note: I don't want FB to have my data. I also don't want Apple to have those powers enumerated above.

Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#119

Post by Bobbyddxxd »

gruez wrote: post #70
twoodfin wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple routinely rejects apps that try tactics like this. Otherwise it'd be an easy way around the "Ask App Not To Track" prompt.

>Apple routinely rejects apps that try tactics like this. This is going to be irrelevant in the EU once sideloading gets popular.

For the people who choose to sideload, yes. How's that an issue?

Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#120

Post by Bobbyddxxd »

ben_w wrote: post #101
notpushkin wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really the kind of apps people would sideload?

The reason I would rather we'd kept walled gardens (plural is fine, given that monopolies are also bad) is that I expect such apps will quickly become sideloaded soon after it becomes possible. We shall see — that may simply be a security mindset paranoia on my part.

Anti free choice mindset.
Post reply on HN