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The killer feature here is the anonymous email address forwarding. It shows Apple actively ceding an opportunity for exchanging marketing data in favour of user

The killer feature here is the anonymous email address forwarding. It shows Apple actively ceding an opportunity for exchanging marketing data in favour of user privacy. It does feel like Apple are taking privacy seriously and positioning it as more than just a marketing campaign. I am tired of seeing my email address popping up on leaks and I don't want to rely on spam filters any more. The best spam filter out there is built into gmail, but they are no longer interested in actually preventing spam, instead they want to control it. Now Google shows me ads that look exactly like emails in my inbox, inside the iOS app. I wasn't happy with this so I built https://idbloc.co https://idbloc.co, which is basically equivalent to the disposable email element of Sign in with Apple, now that Apple built it into their Sign In, I guess now it exists for users who don't want to or can't use Apple.

jsgo 7y ago
I'm a big fan of the feature, was quite thrilled to see it, but aren't they the provider of the redirect? So there is privacy to anyone but Apple: they'll know (if they wish to) that you signed up on Some Site with a burner email in a way they might not have if you used a regular burner email service. Personally, I'm fine with Apple having that kind of info as I generally trust them and also that my main concern is the same with your frustration of my email ending up in yet another leak seemingly frequently.
- thaumaturgy 7y ago
  > Personally, I'm fine with Apple having that kind of info as I generally trust them ...up until Apple decides to change their leadership, or their business model, or the mobile market implodes and they start looking for new revenue streams, or their relationship with the US government changes, or ... I get that as a practical matter we are forced to trust somebody somewhere eventually, but at best we should be saying that "Apple doesn't seem motivated to abuse this information for now."
  - olliej 7y ago
    Which is why Apple protects your data in a way they can't access it - in the event that they change into Google and Facebook in future they have no access to the current information.
    - lucasmullens 7y ago
      I don't think it's valid to say Apple can't access your data. Maybe I'm understanding it wrong, but wouldn't that mean all your data would have to be encrypted with a private key that only you have? All I use to access my Apple data is a password, which I can reset at anytime.
      - olliej 7y ago
        Correct, all your data on apple's services are encrypted such that apple can't access them. The final fallback for account recovery is the "iCloud key vault" which is covered in documentation they published. Those are essentially HSMs gated by your account password and passcode, and a counter that triggers recovery key erasure. I think the primary security white paper describes exactly how it works, but essentially there's a set of shared symmetric keys that are encrypted to public keys for each of your devices. Outside of the key vault path, the way a new device gets access to those keys is one of your other 2fa devices encrypt a decryption key to the new device when you approve it. The basic result is that there is no point in which the key material is transmitted unencrypted off a device.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        aboodman 7y ago
        I mean, Apple can push a software update that changes how this works. But what you describe is still a lot better than nothing.
        saagarjha 7y ago
        > all your data on apple's services are encrypted such that apple can't access them This is only true for certain services.
- olliej 7y ago
  That's answered in the video: They don't record app usage, they don't record or monitor email that goes over the cloaked address. The problem with burner address servers: * They don't protect against fake addresses (which is why many services actually block them) * They are much harder for regular users to use * They're annoying to use, and fundamentally require providing your email address to yet another third party Apple Sign-In clearly make the use of cloaking addresses much easier. Again this still only applies to "social" logins, you're welcome to have your own login system.
  - jsgo 7y ago
    Not knocking the system, quite thrilled by it personally: the other option is Google or Facebook at this point and if I got off OAuth and email with Google (leaning towards buying a personal domain and going with proton mail or similar, may wait until this built in burner option is available), I could probably rid myself of them (Facebook is more of a mental break I’d need to make, honestly). I’d love this. I’ve personally tried personal burner email addresses for forums sign ups but the thing I found is that it is a maintenance (if that’s the correct word) nightmare. If you go with the ones that last for a brief period of time, you better guard the credentials because there’s no clicking forget password. I’m hopeful of the feature, but even if it proves to not be that great, I’d still rather they be my identity provider over Facebook or Google so it’ll still feel like a net win.
- buboard 7y ago
  Conceivably they could theoretically even spy on your emails with the companies you 've signed up with, including apple's competitors. It could even lead to potential legal issues for apple. At least plain email is considered distributed and does not rely on gatekeepers.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    As opposed to Google and Facebook that convinced users to install apps that went around the App Store so they could record everything that you do with your phone or Facebook buying Onava (a VPN provider) with the express purpose of spying on you? Apple could in the future become evil after 40+ years. The other two companies are actively evil.
    - buboard 7y ago
      iirc they actually paid those users. And i don't think any company should be trusted. Apple was part of prism and is known to strong-arm their users to stay locked in their ecosystem. This sign in is a good step for security, but i don't think there can be such a thing as corporate-owned privacy.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        “strong arm their users”? Do jack booted thugs come to my door to force me not to buy an Android device? Do you really think most users were aware that they were giving up their privacy? Even if you assume they do, Google broke a contract with Apple by using a developer certification.
        buboard 7y ago
        Ur arguments are extreme. Apple does lock-in users and developers more than anyone else by enforcing rules and taking away/not implementing features, that's trivial for anyone who has an ios device to see. Agreed though, facebook and google also lock-in users by providing enough free services to users that they don't want to leave. That's a different level of coercion though.
xg15 7y ago
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I believe Apple still absolutely has your real data as well as the ability to link it to all the anonymous throwaway addresses. They just chose not to give away that data for free to every app that is asking nicely. I agree, this is some win for privacy against random rogue apps, but I don't see how Apple would secede anything. Could you elaborate?
- olliej 7y ago
  If you watch the video or read the transcript they explicitly state that they do not record any of the information. They obviously have a mapping of cloak address -> real address, but there's no requirement for them to have any record of which apps got which addresses.
  - larkost 7y ago
    The do mention that they allow users to disable individual aliases at any time. Which would indicate that they do at least mark that for the user.
  - megous 7y ago
    This is not hard to determine. E-mail messages have headers, and the app will send registration e-mail to the cloaked address. So all it takes is scanning the e-mail headers of stored mail.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Psst…you probably meant “cede” instead of “secede”.
  - xg15 7y ago
    Ah, right. Thanks!
jahewson 7y ago
Yep, this is a strong signal from Apple. Nitpick: seceding = leaving a group, ceding = giving up something.
- albertgoeswoof 7y ago
  fixed :)
- olliej 7y ago
  Hilariously because I read this my brain got into the "wait, what was the other option? which one should I be using?" state and I had to double check myself. Thank you very much :p
jadbox 7y ago
It also gives Apple far more control over the ecosystem. By not providing 3rd parties access to email, Apple makes themselves not only the controllers of the physical devices and also over the full identity of their users. My viewpoint is one of decentralization, and I don't see this move as being a long term beneficial one. It's not a stretch of an imagination that Apple might cut a developer out of the app store for some abstract-defined violation of terms (as they do now) and now ALSO cut that developer from the identity/contact with their users. In total, this is almost the ultimate kill switch to push companies to adhere to their policies or risk a total shutout. This scenario might be considered overblown, if it wasn't that Apple already exercises pushy monopoly(esk) control on their ecosystem. The new identity system expands that control to now outside the Apple hardware ecosystem, possibly affecting platforms like Android. I'm ranting here a little, but I think we should be cautious of accepting privacy as the sole reason Apple wants to enforce all app authentication to use.
- ddebernardy 7y ago
  > By not providing 3rd parties access to email, Apple makes themselves not only the controllers of the physical devices and also over the full identity of their users. No they're not. They're preventing third parties from accessing your data. You can communicate with your customers just fine; it's just that if you sell their data (or get hacked) the email you get is useless.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    The commenter is saying that Apple controls the email address and forwarding too, so you cant actually communicate with your customer if they don't want you to.
    - ddebernardy 7y ago
      Yes, and that's simply not true (if you want to be communicated with). You can communicate with the address just fine if you configure your email properly. The only "issue" is that there's a shortlist of valid from emails that you as a company need to configure before sending me an email. Dunno about you but insofar as I'm concerned: please f'ing sign me up for the same everywhere else! And just for clarity in case anyone reading thinks I'm some privacy concerned lunatic: I'm a marketer.
notatoad 7y ago
>It shows Apple actively seceding an opportunity for exchanging marketing data in favour of user privacy. Apple isn't ceding anything here. They still have your email address, they have the record of your activity on the site you're accessing. They are withholding your email address from the site you're accessing, which is good for your privacy. But you make it sound like they've sacrificed something in doing that. If google had done this, everybody would be up in arms about how google was further overreaching in their goal to gain complete control of the internet and are preventing poor little mom and pop websites from being able to meet their marketing goals.
- olliej 7y ago
  So I take it that you didn't watch the video or read the transcript where they state explicitly that they don't record or track that information. Just because you believe the FB/G nonsense that the internet is only possible by gross violations of user privacy doesn't mean everyone else buys into it.
  - xg15 7y ago
    They have to store the information, if for nothing else than to correctly forward emails to your real address.
    - tobib 7y ago
      The mapping but not necessarily the user's activity.
    - olliej 7y ago
      All they have to record is alias->real in a giant table. They don't need to record what app or service got the alias address, and they explicitly state that they do not record any details about interaction with your service, or any emails that go through the alias. It's an explicit statement in the linked talk.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
bxio 7y ago
Pretty useless, as steam and other websites have already blacklisted the idbloc.co domain as disposable, preventing user sign ups.
jrockway 7y ago
Why do we think Apple is not going to start reading this forwarded email and then using it to target ads? Sign-in with Apple makes them gmail... but without having to provide a web interface for reading email. I do like the layer of indirection, but I have to imagine that someday the shareholders are going to ask "why not target ads like Google is doing" and they're not going to have a good answer.
- MBCook 7y ago
  Because the moment they do that they lose the whole reputation they’ve spent years and years building as the ‘privacy focused tech company’. User trust goes out the window.
  - jrockway 7y ago
    Wasn't Google the "don't be evil" tech company that all the "influencers" suggested their friends switch to over to when Altavista was being shady? You guys trust companies wayyyy too much.
- olliej 7y ago
  Because (if you watched the talk or read the transcript) they already explicitly stated that they will not? They've also explicitly stated that they will not record any information about interaction with a service. Based on Apple's general approach to data security, I suspect that there is no "company A got alias address Y" table. In principle all that they need is a table of alias->real. On the other hand maybe it would be useful to have such a table in the case a site gets compromised/starts selling information? But they have stated explicitly in a public video that they will not record interactions or emails you send, so I'm sure it would be lawsuit city if the reneged on that.
  - dwaite 7y ago
    The piece which requires state is the 'user consented to sharing data X with app Y' bit so that the user can change that consent in the future. The email relay address could feasibly be just a reference to that state.
vngzs 7y ago
Is it unreasonable to believe that companies will block disposable Apple email addresses, just as they do, e.g., mailinator.com emails - often for authwalls intended purely for tracking users?
- olliej 7y ago
  I'm sure they will, but I'd take that as evidence that they do intend to sell it or spam me. Which would be even more reason not to sign in at all. That said I'm sure that whenever the official guidelines come out there will be something explicit about not doing so (although of course that would only apply to apps)
- mithr 7y ago
  I think it's somewhat unreasonable to believe that, in the sense that Apple is pretty explicitly using their clout to make it much harder for companies to do this. When a company blocks Mailinator, they're giving up a pretty small number of users -- those who know about Mailinator, use it, and refuse to sign up for a service that blocks it. Since Sign In with Apple is required for any iOS app that supports 3rd-party login, any company (with an app, which is mostly what this is all about anyway) that decides to block this new type of authentication will be forced to either give up all 3rd-party login options (costing them existing users who sign in this way and increasing the cost to acquire new ones), or give up their iOS app -- in either case, this probably means giving up a large number of users.
- sjwright 7y ago
  If Apple doesn’t place some guarantees around the emails, then yes, I’ll be blocking the relay domain. I don’t care to know a user’s true identity, I just want to ensure that the same person can’t use the system to trivially create unlimited new anonymous accounts on my system. I’d like to see these: 1. Restricted to people who have associated a physical Apple device, and 2. No ability for the user to re-scramble the anonymous identifier once it is assigned to a service. If these two criteria are met, I won’t consider it a throwaway email service.
  - scarface74 7y ago
buboard 7y ago
Don't most people already use a secondary email for signups to sites that they don't wish to hear from? I believe it's a solved problem, even for average users.
judge2020 7y ago
A little trick I've found out is having a GSuite account added to the Gmail app and generally always using the "all inboxes" view, I've seen no ads with this setup.
GeekyBear 7y ago
>It shows Apple actively ceding an opportunity for exchanging marketing data in favour of user privacy. This is not a new thing. For example, when the iPad launched and digital versions of magazines began to be available, Apple allowed a subscriber to provide the magazine publishing house with their email address, but also required that they be allowed to refuse to provide it. The new thing here is to give the user a way to shut off abusive spamming of an email address they have chosen to provide.
hlau 7y ago
#ad
tolmasky 7y ago
I wish it allowed you to supply an email “formula” (for example “apple-sign-ups-${supplied-unique-id}@my-domain”). I understand this is a particularly “pro” request, but I’d still like it. Again, from a customer angle I’m not 100% sold on this. I don’t want to miss an email because Apple servers are down, and if Apple decides to kill an app I don’t like, I also want the ability to disagree. Separately, I want something that wouldn’t be a pain to use on non-Apple devices.
- eridius 7y ago
  That "formula" allows the service to identify you the user because it's your domain (or group you into a subset of users if you share the domain with other people). Apple's relay service right now gives the application zero new information about you.
ynx 7y ago
Facebook has had anonymous email redirects for years. Developers hated it, and circumvented it; it hands control over the communication channel from the developer to Facebook, and not to the user. The same will be true with Apple login. There's obvious pros and cons to the developer owning that communication channel, or to a middleman owning that communication channel. What Apple is doing here is using their total control of the application distribution channel on iOS to hold apps hostage to add an option to sell users on handing Apple control, or possibly reduce their growth by forcing them to remove the other login options. It's mildly pro-consumer, but I think it's anywhere from mildly to very developer hostile. I'm not positive it will have a sustained effect, as developers may do what they did with Facebook and detect the proxied email and ask for the real one in its place.
- dwaite 7y ago
  > as developers may do what they did with Facebook and detect the proxied email and ask for the real one in its place. And Apple may very well outlaw this practice.
  - ynx 7y ago
    Developers can in turn allow those user accounts to log in but only enable some features unless a real email is used. Sure, Apple could add even more complexity to their review process (delaying approval), or give stiff penalties to developers for working around it. Apple's recourse to remedy a situation where a developer does not want to allow Apple to forcefully insert itself as a middle-man is primarily punitive. Thus, as stated, this is mildly to very developer hostile.
deleted 7y ago
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deleted 7y ago
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MKinley 7y ago
I don't comment often on here, but just wanted to say thank you for this tool. I will be thoroughly checking out https://idbloc.co https://idbloc.co and making good use of it! It looks like it will be simpler than using disposable emails, and definitely better than creating random emails!
- albertgoeswoof 7y ago
  thanks for the kind words :-) I hope you get as much use out of the product as I already do!

jsgo 7y ago

I'm a big fan of the feature, was quite thrilled to see it, but aren't they the provider of the redirect? So there is privacy to anyone but Apple: they'll know (if they wish to) that you signed up on Some Site with a burner email in a way they might not have if you used a regular burner email service. Personally, I'm fine with Apple having that kind of info as I generally trust them and also that my main concern is the same with your frustration of my email ending up in yet another leak seemingly frequently.

thaumaturgy 7y ago
> Personally, I'm fine with Apple having that kind of info as I generally trust them ...up until Apple decides to change their leadership, or their business model, or the mobile market implodes and they start looking for new revenue streams, or their relationship with the US government changes, or ... I get that as a practical matter we are forced to trust somebody somewhere eventually, but at best we should be saying that "Apple doesn't seem motivated to abuse this information for now."
- olliej 7y ago
  Which is why Apple protects your data in a way they can't access it - in the event that they change into Google and Facebook in future they have no access to the current information.
  - lucasmullens 7y ago
    I don't think it's valid to say Apple can't access your data. Maybe I'm understanding it wrong, but wouldn't that mean all your data would have to be encrypted with a private key that only you have? All I use to access my Apple data is a password, which I can reset at anytime.
    - olliej 7y ago
      Correct, all your data on apple's services are encrypted such that apple can't access them. The final fallback for account recovery is the "iCloud key vault" which is covered in documentation they published. Those are essentially HSMs gated by your account password and passcode, and a counter that triggers recovery key erasure. I think the primary security white paper describes exactly how it works, but essentially there's a set of shared symmetric keys that are encrypted to public keys for each of your devices. Outside of the key vault path, the way a new device gets access to those keys is one of your other 2fa devices encrypt a decryption key to the new device when you approve it. The basic result is that there is no point in which the key material is transmitted unencrypted off a device.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - aboodman 7y ago
        I mean, Apple can push a software update that changes how this works. But what you describe is still a lot better than nothing.
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        > all your data on apple's services are encrypted such that apple can't access them This is only true for certain services.
olliej 7y ago
That's answered in the video: They don't record app usage, they don't record or monitor email that goes over the cloaked address. The problem with burner address servers: * They don't protect against fake addresses (which is why many services actually block them) * They are much harder for regular users to use * They're annoying to use, and fundamentally require providing your email address to yet another third party Apple Sign-In clearly make the use of cloaking addresses much easier. Again this still only applies to "social" logins, you're welcome to have your own login system.
- jsgo 7y ago
  Not knocking the system, quite thrilled by it personally: the other option is Google or Facebook at this point and if I got off OAuth and email with Google (leaning towards buying a personal domain and going with proton mail or similar, may wait until this built in burner option is available), I could probably rid myself of them (Facebook is more of a mental break I’d need to make, honestly). I’d love this. I’ve personally tried personal burner email addresses for forums sign ups but the thing I found is that it is a maintenance (if that’s the correct word) nightmare. If you go with the ones that last for a brief period of time, you better guard the credentials because there’s no clicking forget password. I’m hopeful of the feature, but even if it proves to not be that great, I’d still rather they be my identity provider over Facebook or Google so it’ll still feel like a net win.
buboard 7y ago
Conceivably they could theoretically even spy on your emails with the companies you 've signed up with, including apple's competitors. It could even lead to potential legal issues for apple. At least plain email is considered distributed and does not rely on gatekeepers.
- scarface74 7y ago
  As opposed to Google and Facebook that convinced users to install apps that went around the App Store so they could record everything that you do with your phone or Facebook buying Onava (a VPN provider) with the express purpose of spying on you? Apple could in the future become evil after 40+ years. The other two companies are actively evil.
  - buboard 7y ago
    iirc they actually paid those users. And i don't think any company should be trusted. Apple was part of prism and is known to strong-arm their users to stay locked in their ecosystem. This sign in is a good step for security, but i don't think there can be such a thing as corporate-owned privacy.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      “strong arm their users”? Do jack booted thugs come to my door to force me not to buy an Android device? Do you really think most users were aware that they were giving up their privacy? Even if you assume they do, Google broke a contract with Apple by using a developer certification.
      - buboard 7y ago
        Ur arguments are extreme. Apple does lock-in users and developers more than anyone else by enforcing rules and taking away/not implementing features, that's trivial for anyone who has an ios device to see. Agreed though, facebook and google also lock-in users by providing enough free services to users that they don't want to leave. That's a different level of coercion though.

xg15 7y ago

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I believe Apple still absolutely has your real data as well as the ability to link it to all the anonymous throwaway addresses. They just chose not to give away that data for free to every app that is asking nicely. I agree, this is some win for privacy against random rogue apps, but I don't see how Apple would secede anything. Could you elaborate?

olliej 7y ago
If you watch the video or read the transcript they explicitly state that they do not record any of the information. They obviously have a mapping of cloak address -> real address, but there's no requirement for them to have any record of which apps got which addresses.
- larkost 7y ago
  The do mention that they allow users to disable individual aliases at any time. Which would indicate that they do at least mark that for the user.
- megous 7y ago
  This is not hard to determine. E-mail messages have headers, and the app will send registration e-mail to the cloaked address. So all it takes is scanning the e-mail headers of stored mail.
saagarjha 7y ago
Psst…you probably meant “cede” instead of “secede”.
- xg15 7y ago
  Ah, right. Thanks!

jahewson 7y ago

Yep, this is a strong signal from Apple. Nitpick: seceding = leaving a group, ceding = giving up something.

albertgoeswoof 7y ago
fixed :)
olliej 7y ago
Hilariously because I read this my brain got into the "wait, what was the other option? which one should I be using?" state and I had to double check myself. Thank you very much :p

jadbox 7y ago

It also gives Apple far more control over the ecosystem. By not providing 3rd parties access to email, Apple makes themselves not only the controllers of the physical devices and also over the full identity of their users. My viewpoint is one of decentralization, and I don't see this move as being a long term beneficial one. It's not a stretch of an imagination that Apple might cut a developer out of the app store for some abstract-defined violation of terms (as they do now) and now ALSO cut that developer from the identity/contact with their users. In total, this is almost the ultimate kill switch to push companies to adhere to their policies or risk a total shutout. This scenario might be considered overblown, if it wasn't that Apple already exercises pushy monopoly(esk) control on their ecosystem. The new identity system expands that control to now outside the Apple hardware ecosystem, possibly affecting platforms like Android. I'm ranting here a little, but I think we should be cautious of accepting privacy as the sole reason Apple wants to enforce all app authentication to use.

ddebernardy 7y ago
> By not providing 3rd parties access to email, Apple makes themselves not only the controllers of the physical devices and also over the full identity of their users. No they're not. They're preventing third parties from accessing your data. You can communicate with your customers just fine; it's just that if you sell their data (or get hacked) the email you get is useless.
- manigandham 7y ago
  The commenter is saying that Apple controls the email address and forwarding too, so you cant actually communicate with your customer if they don't want you to.
  - ddebernardy 7y ago
    Yes, and that's simply not true (if you want to be communicated with). You can communicate with the address just fine if you configure your email properly. The only "issue" is that there's a shortlist of valid from emails that you as a company need to configure before sending me an email. Dunno about you but insofar as I'm concerned: please f'ing sign me up for the same everywhere else! And just for clarity in case anyone reading thinks I'm some privacy concerned lunatic: I'm a marketer.

notatoad 7y ago

>It shows Apple actively seceding an opportunity for exchanging marketing data in favour of user privacy. Apple isn't ceding anything here. They still have your email address, they have the record of your activity on the site you're accessing. They are withholding your email address from the site you're accessing, which is good for your privacy. But you make it sound like they've sacrificed something in doing that. If google had done this, everybody would be up in arms about how google was further overreaching in their goal to gain complete control of the internet and are preventing poor little mom and pop websites from being able to meet their marketing goals.

olliej 7y ago
So I take it that you didn't watch the video or read the transcript where they state explicitly that they don't record or track that information. Just because you believe the FB/G nonsense that the internet is only possible by gross violations of user privacy doesn't mean everyone else buys into it.
- xg15 7y ago
  They have to store the information, if for nothing else than to correctly forward emails to your real address.
  - tobib 7y ago
    The mapping but not necessarily the user's activity.
  - olliej 7y ago
    All they have to record is alias->real in a giant table. They don't need to record what app or service got the alias address, and they explicitly state that they do not record any details about interaction with your service, or any emails that go through the alias. It's an explicit statement in the linked talk.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]

bxio 7y ago

Pretty useless, as steam and other websites have already blacklisted the idbloc.co domain as disposable, preventing user sign ups.

jrockway 7y ago

Why do we think Apple is not going to start reading this forwarded email and then using it to target ads? Sign-in with Apple makes them gmail... but without having to provide a web interface for reading email. I do like the layer of indirection, but I have to imagine that someday the shareholders are going to ask "why not target ads like Google is doing" and they're not going to have a good answer.

MBCook 7y ago
Because the moment they do that they lose the whole reputation they’ve spent years and years building as the ‘privacy focused tech company’. User trust goes out the window.
- jrockway 7y ago
  Wasn't Google the "don't be evil" tech company that all the "influencers" suggested their friends switch to over to when Altavista was being shady? You guys trust companies wayyyy too much.
olliej 7y ago
Because (if you watched the talk or read the transcript) they already explicitly stated that they will not? They've also explicitly stated that they will not record any information about interaction with a service. Based on Apple's general approach to data security, I suspect that there is no "company A got alias address Y" table. In principle all that they need is a table of alias->real. On the other hand maybe it would be useful to have such a table in the case a site gets compromised/starts selling information? But they have stated explicitly in a public video that they will not record interactions or emails you send, so I'm sure it would be lawsuit city if the reneged on that.
- dwaite 7y ago
  The piece which requires state is the 'user consented to sharing data X with app Y' bit so that the user can change that consent in the future. The email relay address could feasibly be just a reference to that state.

vngzs 7y ago

Is it unreasonable to believe that companies will block disposable Apple email addresses, just as they do, e.g., mailinator.com emails - often for authwalls intended purely for tracking users?

olliej 7y ago
I'm sure they will, but I'd take that as evidence that they do intend to sell it or spam me. Which would be even more reason not to sign in at all. That said I'm sure that whenever the official guidelines come out there will be something explicit about not doing so (although of course that would only apply to apps)
mithr 7y ago
I think it's somewhat unreasonable to believe that, in the sense that Apple is pretty explicitly using their clout to make it much harder for companies to do this. When a company blocks Mailinator, they're giving up a pretty small number of users -- those who know about Mailinator, use it, and refuse to sign up for a service that blocks it. Since Sign In with Apple is required for any iOS app that supports 3rd-party login, any company (with an app, which is mostly what this is all about anyway) that decides to block this new type of authentication will be forced to either give up all 3rd-party login options (costing them existing users who sign in this way and increasing the cost to acquire new ones), or give up their iOS app -- in either case, this probably means giving up a large number of users.
sjwright 7y ago
If Apple doesn’t place some guarantees around the emails, then yes, I’ll be blocking the relay domain. I don’t care to know a user’s true identity, I just want to ensure that the same person can’t use the system to trivially create unlimited new anonymous accounts on my system. I’d like to see these: 1. Restricted to people who have associated a physical Apple device, and 2. No ability for the user to re-scramble the anonymous identifier once it is assigned to a service. If these two criteria are met, I won’t consider it a throwaway email service.
- scarface74 7y ago

buboard 7y ago

Don't most people already use a secondary email for signups to sites that they don't wish to hear from? I believe it's a solved problem, even for average users.

judge2020 7y ago

A little trick I've found out is having a GSuite account added to the Gmail app and generally always using the "all inboxes" view, I've seen no ads with this setup.

GeekyBear 7y ago

>It shows Apple actively ceding an opportunity for exchanging marketing data in favour of user privacy. This is not a new thing. For example, when the iPad launched and digital versions of magazines began to be available, Apple allowed a subscriber to provide the magazine publishing house with their email address, but also required that they be allowed to refuse to provide it. The new thing here is to give the user a way to shut off abusive spamming of an email address they have chosen to provide.

hlau 7y ago

#ad

tolmasky 7y ago

I wish it allowed you to supply an email “formula” (for example “apple-sign-ups-${supplied-unique-id}@my-domain”). I understand this is a particularly “pro” request, but I’d still like it. Again, from a customer angle I’m not 100% sold on this. I don’t want to miss an email because Apple servers are down, and if Apple decides to kill an app I don’t like, I also want the ability to disagree. Separately, I want something that wouldn’t be a pain to use on non-Apple devices.

eridius 7y ago
That "formula" allows the service to identify you the user because it's your domain (or group you into a subset of users if you share the domain with other people). Apple's relay service right now gives the application zero new information about you.

ynx 7y ago

Facebook has had anonymous email redirects for years. Developers hated it, and circumvented it; it hands control over the communication channel from the developer to Facebook, and not to the user. The same will be true with Apple login. There's obvious pros and cons to the developer owning that communication channel, or to a middleman owning that communication channel. What Apple is doing here is using their total control of the application distribution channel on iOS to hold apps hostage to add an option to sell users on handing Apple control, or possibly reduce their growth by forcing them to remove the other login options. It's mildly pro-consumer, but I think it's anywhere from mildly to very developer hostile. I'm not positive it will have a sustained effect, as developers may do what they did with Facebook and detect the proxied email and ask for the real one in its place.

dwaite 7y ago
> as developers may do what they did with Facebook and detect the proxied email and ask for the real one in its place. And Apple may very well outlaw this practice.
- ynx 7y ago
  Developers can in turn allow those user accounts to log in but only enable some features unless a real email is used. Sure, Apple could add even more complexity to their review process (delaying approval), or give stiff penalties to developers for working around it. Apple's recourse to remedy a situation where a developer does not want to allow Apple to forcefully insert itself as a middle-man is primarily punitive. Thus, as stated, this is mildly to very developer hostile.

deleted 7y ago

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MKinley 7y ago

I don't comment often on here, but just wanted to say thank you for this tool. I will be thoroughly checking out https://idbloc.co https://idbloc.co and making good use of it! It looks like it will be simpler than using disposable emails, and definitely better than creating random emails!

albertgoeswoof 7y ago
thanks for the kind words :-) I hope you get as much use out of the product as I already do!