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Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

timsh.org

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Re: Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

#411

Post by rixed »

maeil wrote: post #345
Aurornis wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (this is usually successful, but can backfire badly -- CashApp terminated my account for this shenanigans) When I was at a medium-sized consumer-facing company whose name you’d recognize if you’re in the tech space (intentionally vague) we had some customers try this. They’d find product managers or directors on LinkedIn then start trying to contact them with phone numbers found on the internet, personal email addr…

> So I can see why companies are quick to lock out customers who try these games. Most of the companies who customers try these "games" against are places like Google and Meta that literally do not provide a way for the average customer to reach a human. None. Those have got it coming for them, the megacorps' stance on this is despicable and far worse than the customers directly reaching execs who could instantly cha…

Regarding the evolution of the law:

Long ago when Google tried to launch its very first phone somewhere in Europe I can distinctly remember that it was initially not allowed to because of some regulation that mandated a company selling telephones to have a customer service.

Can't remember if they eventually found a loophole or if the regulations were changed.

Re: Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

#412

Post by idle_zealot »

andrepd wrote: post #214
Terretta wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, while Google sees roughly 85% of all American cardholder swipes and doesn't need to sell it since they're making the ad market...

How on earth is this legal

Things that aren't explicitly made illegal are legal. Who would invest the resources necessary to get a law banning this passed?

Re: Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

#413

Post by j16sdiz »

timsh wrote: post #291
sjtgraham wrote: post #286

> There's no "personal information" here, but honestly this amount of data shared with an arbitrary list of 3rd parties is scary. Why do they need to know my screen brightness, memory amount, current volume and if I'm wearing headphones? > I know the "right" answer - to help companies target their audience better! For example, if you're promoting a mobile app that is 1 GB of size, and the user only has 500 MB of spac…

The “right” answer is not the one I end up with but rather the version sold by the vendor. this is what Apple and Google would say.

I think they are pretty clear if you read the documentation. Accessing to the exact value of these always need some privacy-related privilege on ios and android.

Without those privilege, all you can get is an approximate.

Re: Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

#414

Post by conductr »

mickgardner wrote: post #269

I find it fascinating reading hacker news, full of IT folk who simultaneously build software that enables and profits from the advertising and personal information selling & tracking industry - are also the same people who complain the loudest about it. Unbelievable.

There’s no code of conduct or rule book that anyone should follow so ethics is determined at the individual level. That quickly turns to, either I build it for them or the next guy will. Resistance is futile type thing.

Most other types of engineering have published rules and standards and industry credentialing including ethics tied into it and loss of credentials for an ethics violation would be career ending in many cases.

Re: Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

#415

Post by otterley »

thatsbogus wrote: post #265
gruez wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or phrased less inflammatory manner: "Corporations can enter into contracts and engage in legal action just like people can". Even the much maligned Citizens United v. FEC basically boils down to "groups of people (corporations or labor unions) don't lose first amendment protections just because they decided to group up".

Except not everyone in a corporation has the right to speech. I'm prohibited by my employer to say anything on the company's behalf, but the C-suite and board are able to speak on my behalf. So, the company's leadership has a right to free speech, I don't.

You still have that right; you simply entered into a voluntary agreement with your employer not to exercise it in exchange for money. Happens all the time.

Re: Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

#417

Post by jcul »

gruez wrote: post #177
qingcharles wrote: post #156

One big privacy issue is that there is no sane way to protect your contact details from being sold, regardless of what you do. As soon as your cousin clicks "Yes, I would like to share the entire contents of my contacts with you" when they launch TikTok your name, phone number, email etc are all in the crowd. And I buy this stuff. Every time I need customer service and I'm getting stonewalled I just go onto a marketp…

>One big privacy issue is that there is no sane way to protect your contact details from being sold, regardless of what you do. >As soon as your cousin clicks "Yes, I would like to share the entire contents of my contacts with you" when they launch TikTok your name, phone number, email etc are all in the crowd. Fortunately this is changing with iOS 18 with "limited contacts" sharing. https://mobiledevmemo.com/wp-cont…

On android you can choose whether to grant access to contacts. And most apps work fine without.

GrapheneOS, which I use, also has contact scopes, so troublesome apps that refuse to work without access will think they have full access. You can allow them to see no contacts or a small subset.

There's also multiple user profiles, a "private space", and a work profile (shelter) that you can install an app into, which can be completely isolated from your main profile, so no contacts.

It surprises me how far behind iOS is with this stuff. Recently I wanted to install a second instance of an app on my wife's iPhone so she could use multiple logins simultaneously, there didn't really seem to be a way to do it.

Re: Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads

#419

Post by pojzon »

gruez wrote: post #177
qingcharles wrote: post #156

One big privacy issue is that there is no sane way to protect your contact details from being sold, regardless of what you do. As soon as your cousin clicks "Yes, I would like to share the entire contents of my contacts with you" when they launch TikTok your name, phone number, email etc are all in the crowd. And I buy this stuff. Every time I need customer service and I'm getting stonewalled I just go onto a marketp…

>One big privacy issue is that there is no sane way to protect your contact details from being sold, regardless of what you do. >As soon as your cousin clicks "Yes, I would like to share the entire contents of my contacts with you" when they launch TikTok your name, phone number, email etc are all in the crowd. Fortunately this is changing with iOS 18 with "limited contacts" sharing. https://mobiledevmemo.com/wp-cont…

Interesting thing is that security practices mention that you should always grant the minimal set of permissions.

So in case Apple allowed for “share all” it means that they did it by design and are changing it now only because of backlash.

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