141–150 of 327 posts
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Why does apple get to decide which app gets automatic access to my private data, on my device, without needing to ask me?
Probably because you asked them for permission to use their phone and software.
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Because the Chinese market is too important. For wechat you can maybe argue that it's a "super app" and probably also can be used to connect to wifi hotspots, but for alipay I fail to come up with an explanation..
Alipay is also pretty much an everything app (it also has its own ecosystem of mini-apps built on Alipay's platform). Except for the social aspect, it's nearly interchangeable with WeChat.
They're not tracking locations because they're not using GPS. They are checking the environment for stuff that might have known locations, which is different. You can do the same with bluetooth/BLE.
The user must be in control of whether their location is disclosed to an app.
Which popular apps use that? Is it possible to check this? Like most here, I don’t have Wechat or Alipay installed. But I’m interested in e.g. Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, Tiktok, Snapchat, Chrome, Firefox, Photoshop, Lightroom, etc.
I shouldn’t have to download and install the app just to see what kind of behaviors it is going to attempt.
The app stores know this information and it would be trivially easy to present it in the details of the app prior to down loading.
FYI, that API requires entitlements to be used, which are only available if you request them from Apple and justify their use. It's not a general-purpose API any app can use.
Well as long as it is just Apple that is deciding who can track me without my permission then that's okay I totally trust my corporate overlords for the wise and great Apple is incorruptible and without fault.
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That's like saying "because that's how locks work, the company who sold you the lock can just come open your door".
This is exactly correct, though you don't want to admit it's the case it seems. I mean, we just allowed Car Manufactures to pump as much contact data and location data as they can off your phones and sell it to whomever they'd like risk free and legally. We have laws against physical trespassing, but when it comes to 'data' trespassing on applications that you install or come with your phone we're still in the wild w…
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It's so hard to prioritize non-profits these days. EFF is huge and super relevant, but so are aid programs to Ukraine or I/P, and reproductive health orgs. There's a lot going on I want to contribute to.
I wonder if there is a service to automate small (or large) donations to multiple organizations on a regular basis similar to an investment service? Edit: I can only find services marketed towards the nonprofit, not for the donor. A service that aggregated and automated all the nonprofits I want to regularly donate small amounts to would be great. I think it would be important to not require the nonprofits direct inv…
Database of approved nonprofits, can set up arbitrary amounts as recurring payments, and automatic matching if you do the donations through their site.
It’s not quite “I got $500 this month to give back, scatter it amongst my chosen charities” but you could definitely use a service like that to set up baseline donations.
I don’t do scheduled donations; prefer to spool it up and make a splash when employer offers 2:1 match. Don’t think I’ve seen that in all of ‘23, though, so settling for 1:1 now.
Reading through the linked docs, this API seems to specifically be for apps created by owners of WiFi hotspots to help users connect to those hotspots ( https://developer.apple.com/documentation/networkextension/h... ). > NEHotspotHelper allows your app to participate in the process of authenticating with hotspot networks, that is, Wi-Fi networks where the user must interact with the network to gain access to the wid…
Because the Chinese market is too important. For wechat you can maybe argue that it's a "super app" and probably also can be used to connect to wifi hotspots, but for alipay I fail to come up with an explanation..
My most blocked domain in nextDNS (which runs on all my devices) is metrics.icloud.com. books-analytics-events.apple.com is in the top 5 as well.
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Because the Chinese market is too important. For wechat you can maybe argue that it's a "super app" and probably also can be used to connect to wifi hotspots, but for alipay I fail to come up with an explanation..
The sensible move would really be to break up these "everything" apps. Sure WeChat may have a wifi service, but if it is being used by 0.01% of the user base then why is everyone else forced to approve the permissions? Creating a separate "WeChat Wifi Connector" takes zero extra effort on their part.