261–270 of 356 posts
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Why not? How is this different than, say, location access, or microphone access? I want to be able to configure this per web site, and a permission prompt is a better interface than having an allow/deny list hidden in settings.
Because users understand what “microphone access” entails. “Use WebRTC?” means nothing to the average user.
I wish we could just ban advertising and tracking on the internet. I feel like so much crap these days has come out of it, all so that CEOs can afford an extra yacht
The majority of internet users are either unwilling or unable to pay for content, and so far advertising has been the best business model to allow these users to access content without paying. Do you have a better suggestion?
- Paying for services is very visible, whereas the payment for advertising is so indirect that you do not feel like you are paying for it.
- The payments for advertising are not uniformly distributed, people with more disposable income most likely pay more of overall advertising. But subscriptions cannot make distinctions between income.
- People with disposable income are typically the most willing to pay for services. However, they are also the most interesting to advertisers. For this reason, payment in place of ads is often not an option at all, because it is not attractive to websites/services.
I think banning advertising would be good. But I think a first step towards that would be completely banning tracking. That would make advertisements less effective (and consequently less valuable) and would pose services to look for other streams of income. Plus it would solve the privacy issue of advertising.
Probably hard to do for many but the solution seems be not to have their apps installed. It’s crazy to me that people tolerate FB et al on their devices where you have absolutely no control over what they’re doing.
I assume that's why those companies try to actively degrade the experience on the website.
I wish we could just ban advertising and tracking on the internet. I feel like so much crap these days has come out of it, all so that CEOs can afford an extra yacht
If it could pay for network TV there's no reason it can't pay for a website.
(You could still do audience-level tracking, e.g. "Facbebook and NCIS are both for old people, so advertise cruises and geriatric health services on those properties")
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I am not sure which Meta apps open ports, but e.g. Samsung phones come with a bunch of Meta apps pre-shipped. IIRC just removing the Facebook app is is not enough, there is another service installed that is not visible as an app (com.facebook.services etc.), which you can only uninstall from the data partition with something like ADB/UAD. Or buy an iPhone or a Pixel.
I remember a few years ago analyzing a modern Samsung phone's web traffic. It had by far the most ad-related and monetizing connections out of any other phone I've ever seen. And they were part of "necessary" functions, so you couldn't just block that traffic. Samsung has great tech, but I avoid because it's so bloated and abusive.
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So main application for WebRTC is de-anonymisation of users (for example getting their local IP address). Why it is not hidden behind permission I don't understand.
This is not unique to WebRTC. The same result could be achieved by sending a http request to localhost. The only difference in this case is that using WebRTC doesn't log a http request
All apps + the web browser being able to communicate freely over a shared localhost interface is such a glaring security hole that I'm surprised both iOS and Android allow it. What even is a legitimate use case for an app starting a local web server?
> What even is a legitimate use case for an app starting a local web server? There are apps on iOS that act as shared drives that you can attach via WebDAV. This requires listening on a port for inbound WebDAV (HTTP) requests.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So main application for WebRTC is de-anonymisation of users (for example getting their local IP address). Why it is not hidden behind permission I don't understand.
The main application for WebRTC is peer to peer data transfer. I think you can make the argument that it should be behind a permission prompt these days but it's difficult. What would the permission prompt actually say, in easy to understand layman's terms? "This web site would like to transfer data from your computer to another computer in a way that could potentially identify you"? How many users are going to be ab…
On many threads here regarding EU fines, I see the sentiment "The EU only fines US tech to make a quick buck!". It could be an idea to, you know, stop doing these things. Would be great to see another few $billion fine for this one.
The us could fine US tech too. I bet that most Americans would be ok with that, more privacy, more money for the state and less to the greedy bastards. EU doesn’t have to be the cop of US technology, in fact it’s a bit pathetic to have another country policy your industry.