Spotify windows app. I wonder what it gets to spy on.
Three quarters of Android apps track users with third party tools
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Re: Three quarters of Android apps track users with third party tools
#42To help mitigate this situation, users can and should start to use blockers just like we do on browsers. The best and less invasive I've found so far is Blokada[1].
It works as a fake VPN giving you the power use blocklists to filter all your connections.
Downside is that I believe in doesn't work if you already use a VPN.
So far it has helped me block 80.921 ads and trackers. As a bonus it saved me 242.79MB.
By default it whitelists Google Analytics, so if you don't want that you should disable the whitelist or configure it.
Re: Three quarters of Android apps track users with third party tools
#43Am I the only person who doesn't mind being tracked? I don't use an ad-blocker or VPN and allow all cookies. I see it as a fair trade for reading articles, watching videos, playing games, etc. without paying any money out of my own pocket. EDIT: Why the down votes with no replies on this?
Why do you think it's a fair trade? Your personal information, privacy and security is worth so much more than a few measly videos or games.
Re: Three quarters of Android apps track users with third party tools
#44The surprising part to me is that it's only 3/4. I assume the rest are not doing any real analytics. Of course they are using 3rd party tools, because the software and infrastructure required to do meaningful analytics on a large user base is way beyond what any startup or independent developer can afford to invest. There aren't even decent Open Source options - Google Analytics long ago sucked the air out of Open So…
Exactly this. We're constantly told not to "roll our own X", making paid offerings like Azure App Insights, which is more robust than any hand-rolled solution we could ever develop, so appealing. We're not trying to sell the user, or their data. We just want to know which features are being used and whether or not it's meeting our performance criteria, thus doing the user a favor by meeting those criteria.
The problem is not informing the user that you use SDKs from third party providers, although using them for login services (Facebook, Google+, twitter) or tracking (Crashlytics, Microsoft App Insights). The other problem is not knowing exactly what these SDKs can collect. They basically have the same permissions as the apps that include them. Crashlytics will collect and send location data alongside bug reports if the crashed app has this permission. (Source: Study on the most popular 200 apps in Germany done on real network traffic. We don't know if the study will be available for the public.)
We are currently pushing for legislation changes in Europe. Users should be informed about SDKs and data destination. Europe has 3 main data sinkholes, Ireland (EU data centres for US companies), Netherlands (Akamai) and Germany (probably selection bias). Nobody knows where the data ends up afterwards and under which legislation it falls.
Re: Three quarters of Android apps track users with third party tools
#45This is a bit alarmist. I develop a popular app that has no advertising but I still ship mixpanel and crashlytics. I do that because I need to know how people are using the app in order to make the app better. That's it. If the app crashes and I don't know about it then I can't fix it and my users would hate me. Without these tools the apps would be worse.
Yep, I agree completely. I work on a relatively well known app, and we use Crashlytics to monitor crashes (duh), and other tracking software to reduce friction in the app. We don't care who tapped button A instead of button B, we just want to know how many people tapped button A instead of button B.
You don't care, but we can be reasonable sure that Crashlytics has access to that data.
Even if they don't use it that with ill intent themselves (there's really no way to know one way or the other), we can also be reasonably sure that it won't stay secure with them forever.
Re: Three quarters of Android apps track users with third party tools
#46I wish I could edit the hosts file of Android devices without root. Barring that, I wish I could force a DNS server for both wi-fi and mobile data links, which I believe also requires root. Either one of these options would allow the use of DNS blackholing for adware/malware domains. Without it, protecting yourself on mobile is that much more difficult.
I've long thought about setting up a service that people can connect to with their mobiles or other devices (who don't want or can't root) that basically sanitizes their connection: strips out ads, beacons, tracking cookies, etc.
Or, set up virtual desktops that people can connect to that also use VPNs that could allow people to originate their traffic from a given region.
I'm primarily interested in created a sanitized stream more than anything. People have a right to surf without being tracked.
Re: Three quarters of Android apps track users with third party tools
#47Am I the only person who doesn't mind being tracked? I don't use an ad-blocker or VPN and allow all cookies. I see it as a fair trade for reading articles, watching videos, playing games, etc. without paying any money out of my own pocket. EDIT: Why the down votes with no replies on this?
Why do you think it's a fair trade? Your personal information, privacy and security is worth so much more than a few measly videos or games.
If the two parties engaged in a transaction know all of the information about the transaction and the transactions consequences and still agree, then by definition, it must be a "fair" trade, where "fair" means fair to both parties engaging in the transaction.
Re: Three quarters of Android apps track users with third party tools
#48"Many of these trackers are also available in the Apple iOS app store, though technical and legal barriers limit privacy and security analysis ." https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/isp-privacy-lab-publishe... And from https://boingboing.net/2017/11/25/la-la-la-cant-hear-you.htm... : "As Exodus and Yale note, these trackers are almost certainly also present in iOS: the companies that make them advertise their iOS com…
In four years of developing iOS apps I can't think of a single client that didn't want some kind of third party analytics service installed. This is SOP for pretty much anybody trying to drive user growth on mobile and isn't specific to one platform or the other.
Re: Three quarters of Android apps track users with third party tools
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you think it's a fair trade? Your personal information, privacy and security is worth so much more than a few measly videos or games.
If the two parties engaged in a transaction know all of the information about the transaction and the transactions consequences and still agree, then by definition, it must be a "fair" trade, where "fair" means fair to both parties engaging in the transaction.
Only if both parties have perfect and complete information about the true costs. In this example, he's selling himself way short, his entire online privacy for a few silly videos.
Re: Three quarters of Android apps track users with third party tools
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
How so? Everybody screams bloody murder whenever the topic of telemetry is brought up and this is telemetry on a massive scale.
You're right, but I guess it seems to be a non-story to developers because the first thing you do prior to launch is add telemetry for user behavior and app performance.
Exactly. Every website and every mobile app, android and iOS, where the devs and/or product management are competent at all, are tracking your behaviors. That is how they know whether each and every feature is working well or not. The articles on this recently are just making a stink over nothing.
Imagine trying to run any kind of business without being able to observe how your customers are interacting with your product? I get that it is surprising and creepy but people just need to get over it because it isn't going anywhere and it is actually very valuable and good. If there is anything to be upset about here it is that that tracked information is frequently sold to 3rd parties without user consent which I'm all for legal restrictions on.