91–100 of 347 posts
I thought the App Store review guidelines explicitly prohibit hidden features and using public APIs outside their intended purpose. Is audio-based fingerprinting just not something review can realistically catch?
The title of the article literally mentions "WebAudio", and the first paragraph states that the author is using a PC. The second paragraph mentions Chrome and Firefox.
Apple and the App Store have zero involvement here.
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Not sure if they still do, but a couple years ago prices in the app were lower than on the website. And they promoted installing it to save money.
> Not sure if they still do, but a couple years ago prices in app were lower than on the website. And they promoted installing it to save money. Translation: They are able to mine your personal data more completely with an app installed vs the website which they can sell for pure profit. They promoted installing it to extract more value from you.
But there is another, slightly less evil, explanation that I know at least some companies have pushed their apps because of: the thinking is that if you're on their website, there is less friction to open a new tab and search for a lower price from their competitors, than if you're in their app. Obviously it's hardly any different - opening a new app (the web browser) vs. opening a new tab in the app you're already in - but the theory is that there's a slight psychological difference.
Of course I'm not saying that trying to prevent your customers from searching for better deals is a nice thing to do. Just adding that data mining isn't the only reason for some companies to want people to use their apps.
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I cannot ever imagine installing something like AliExpress as an app.
Not sure if they still do, but a couple years ago prices in the app were lower than on the website. And they promoted installing it to save money.
At least Aliexpress doesn't have all the fake slot machine type games that temu has that always end in variations of "get $200 of discounts for your next order if you order x items from this list"
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I cannot ever imagine installing something like AliExpress as an app.
Not sure if they still do, but a couple years ago prices in the app were lower than on the website. And they promoted installing it to save money.
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It's great for shopping. But in the US you have amazon prime. We don't.
I don't have Amazon Prime (nor am I in the US) yet use Aliexpress perfectly fine on my mobile phone without using an app. Frankly, I don't understand how the two is related at all?
They are compared / contrasted. Nobody is saying one is concretely related to the other.
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Not sure if they still do, but a couple years ago prices in the app were lower than on the website. And they promoted installing it to save money.
And someone would install random apps to save $5 on $100 purchases?
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This is the way. It's prudent to treat apps with skepticism, it's unfortunate it's come to this. I study Apple's Privacy Nutrition Labels religiously every time I consider installing an app. I like the ones with "Data Not Collected".
I'm an app developer and all my apps have the "Data Not Collected" privacy nutrition label. I love the idea, but Apple's enforcement of it is very lackadaisical. I've reported dozens of apps that were blatantly lying on their privacy nutrition labels to Apple and I'm yet to see any such app's nutrition label change. Here's a good overview of the problem: https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.02658v3
Reminds me of meat processing regulations. I can sell my animals whole to buyers through a custom processing exemption, but they must go pick up their meat from the butcher. The law says I cannot pick up and deliver it, but it is trivial to find people advertising that extra service. Reporting them does not result in any obvious action.
In both of our cases, our honesty is a liability in the marketplace, because people are ignorant of such laws (or simply don’t care). Really, they simply want the product that they want, as conveniently as possible. We are then forced to compete in the marketplace with liars and cheats.
I am sure our peers here can find countless examples in other areas where this flavor of dishonesty prevails. Hell, I would love to hear some counter examples, because I cannot help but view this state of affairs as intentional at this point.
The purpose of system is what it does (or, in this case, does not do).
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On AliExpress I see things like 64 TB (no, not GB!) USB flash drives for less than 10 euro, obviously a scam. I also see less spectacular products but still good looking deals, but without a brand name so you can't search the web for reviews. On Amazon I never see products like that. That's why I prefer Amazon (and Coolblue and bol.com in Belgium).
Few years back, Amazon had a rampant "fake USB storage" problem too. Then, one day, all the fakes were gone, just like that.