5 ms·

Similar to how we have organizations which can certify whether produce is organic or not, we need organizations which can certify whether apps and websites are

Similar to how we have organizations which can certify whether produce is organic or not, we need organizations which can certify whether apps and websites are certified ad tracking free.

skylarchunk 7y ago
This is an interesting point. Either the government would then need businesses to disclose their "rating" (similar to movies) or businesses could opt in to show a seal (like Fairtrade bananas). The problem is, if there aren't enough (popular) sites with the seal, then the value of this declaration is lost.
- dwighttk 7y ago
  Yeah. For many people I interact with Facebook, and to a lesser extent Google, are the internet. So they’d never see the seal unless Google put the sites in their top three results and didn’t scrape the relevant info. Or someone posted a meme with the seal in it on Facebook.
  - somethoughts 7y ago
    For apps at least, you could add the branding seal to the Appstore metadata that you upload for your app to the Apple/Android App Store. For websites, agreed google would have to display it or it'd have to be after the initial page load which means you'd be tracked the first time you visited the site and you'd know not to visit a second time. Perhaps for websites, a browser add-on that checked a certified ad tracking free database registry could be used.
- somethoughts 7y ago
  Interesting - the movie ratings is a good analogy - as far as I know the MPAA handles it[1]. Maybe an existing organization in this space such as the eff.org with name recognization could come up with a certification methodology and branding seal for websites and apps. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association_of_America#Film_rating_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association_of_...
arielm 7y ago
We (Appfigures) are scanning apps for SDKs so we know which trackers, analytics, location trackers apps are using. We’re working on a way to make that data accessible to app developers so they can learn from competitors, but having a simple way to tell if an app tracks you that doesn’t require signing up or anything like that could be an interesting idea. Would you actually check an app before downloading/using it?
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  I am very shy of downloading apps because I expect most of them to stalk me or rat me out to Facebook and don't have the time to check for myself (by using Charles Proxy or Burp Suite). I would definitely appreciate it if there was a service that allows me to quickly check if an app is safe.
  - jjgreen 7y ago
    You should try my appcheckr app. Well yes, it does generate a bit of network traffic, it's, err, updating.
  - arielm 7y ago
    Noted!
  - tim1994 7y ago
    There is, Exodus Privacy (see my reply on the parent comment)
- somethoughts 7y ago
  Ideally the certification would be made visible by the app creator when the upload the app to Apple/Android App Store so people downloading it would be able see the designation.
  - arielm 7y ago
    The problem with that is that do you really believe the developer? It needs to be a 3rd party. Ideally the store itself, but there’s no incentive for the big stores to do that.
jedberg 7y ago
Ironically, those orgs have themselves been accused of being pay-to-play -- if you give them enough money they will certify you organic. Since it's industry run, there is no one checking that the organic certifiers are legit. It's turtles all the way down. The only legit solution is the government, because they are the only ones without a profit motive in the whole system (although they can be bribed, but that's a whole other can of worms).
- somethoughts 7y ago
  Yes its more in the absence of a government initiative. IIRC, what happened with organics is that it started as pay to play and then the USDA came along and took the best practices from the pay to play initiatives and introduced the USDA Organic.
- gpanders 7y ago
  They may be without a profit motive but individual bureaucrats and legislators certainly have a power motive which is often just as, if not more, insidious.
  - pcmaffey 7y ago
    Which is why campaign finance reform is essential.
- ibeckermayer 7y ago
  "The only legit solution is the government, because they are the only ones without a profit motive in the whole system" LOL. As you even parenthetically recognize, government doesn't magically solve humanity's capacity for wickedness. The true "legit" solution is institutional legitimacy, which is fundamentally founded in a devotion to rational integrity. Genuine legitimacy can only be earned by sustained integrity, its not minted with the legislator's pen. I agree that you're right to be concerned with the bad incentives of pay for play, but you appear to be missing the unintended consequences of imposing a regulatory monopoly.
- mnw21cam 7y ago
  > The only legit solution is the government... Which government? I mean, I'm certainly not going to be very impressed if the (for example) US government releases a statement saying "Yeah guys, app Foo is totally legit and doesn't track you or leak any of your private information".
dublinben 7y ago
Exodus Privacy will tell you what trackers are present in an Android app. They don't certify apps as "ad tracking free" but leave that decision up to you. The only certification of being ad-free is probably to be open source as well, in which case there's a large selection of apps in F-Droid which meet that requirement. https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/ https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/
- blacksmith_tb 7y ago
  Looks promising, though it doesn't seem to have caught the FB connection in Zoom[1] (though given that Zoom has the Internet Access permission I suppose it can really send data anywhere?) They do offer an on-device version, which is available via F-droid[2]. 1: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/us.zoom.videomeetings/latest/ https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/us.zoom.vid... 2: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.oF2pks.classyshark3xodus/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.oF2pks.classyshark3xodus...
- wideasleep1 7y ago
  1) Grab Netguard, 2) Donate to Marcel for key to get granularity 3) Turn off ALL apps, so when they launch they have no wan access. 4) Open each app one by one, noting what links and phoning home the app tries to perform 5) Watch in disgust as you begin to realize all of your efforts to secure your privacy up to this point has been in vain...antacids help. 6) Take control by granularly killing the links/calls in apps you decide to keep. Spotify calls FB, but you now can fix that. This is empowering but only a start. R/privacy will make you paranoid, but a good place to get an idea what you are up against. I read Anon, join to post, and after some time delete my content, been doing that for decades now.

Similar to how we have organizations which can certify whether produce is organic or not, we need organizations which can certify whether apps and websites are certified ad tracking free.

skylarchunk 7y ago

This is an interesting point. Either the government would then need businesses to disclose their "rating" (similar to movies) or businesses could opt in to show a seal (like Fairtrade bananas). The problem is, if there aren't enough (popular) sites with the seal, then the value of this declaration is lost.

dwighttk 7y ago
Yeah. For many people I interact with Facebook, and to a lesser extent Google, are the internet. So they’d never see the seal unless Google put the sites in their top three results and didn’t scrape the relevant info. Or someone posted a meme with the seal in it on Facebook.
- somethoughts 7y ago
  For apps at least, you could add the branding seal to the Appstore metadata that you upload for your app to the Apple/Android App Store. For websites, agreed google would have to display it or it'd have to be after the initial page load which means you'd be tracked the first time you visited the site and you'd know not to visit a second time. Perhaps for websites, a browser add-on that checked a certified ad tracking free database registry could be used.
somethoughts 7y ago
Interesting - the movie ratings is a good analogy - as far as I know the MPAA handles it[1]. Maybe an existing organization in this space such as the eff.org with name recognization could come up with a certification methodology and branding seal for websites and apps. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association_of_America#Film_rating_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association_of_...

arielm 7y ago

We (Appfigures) are scanning apps for SDKs so we know which trackers, analytics, location trackers apps are using. We’re working on a way to make that data accessible to app developers so they can learn from competitors, but having a simple way to tell if an app tracks you that doesn’t require signing up or anything like that could be an interesting idea. Would you actually check an app before downloading/using it?

Nextgrid 7y ago
I am very shy of downloading apps because I expect most of them to stalk me or rat me out to Facebook and don't have the time to check for myself (by using Charles Proxy or Burp Suite). I would definitely appreciate it if there was a service that allows me to quickly check if an app is safe.
- jjgreen 7y ago
  You should try my appcheckr app. Well yes, it does generate a bit of network traffic, it's, err, updating.
- arielm 7y ago
  Noted!
- tim1994 7y ago
  There is, Exodus Privacy (see my reply on the parent comment)
somethoughts 7y ago
Ideally the certification would be made visible by the app creator when the upload the app to Apple/Android App Store so people downloading it would be able see the designation.
- arielm 7y ago
  The problem with that is that do you really believe the developer? It needs to be a 3rd party. Ideally the store itself, but there’s no incentive for the big stores to do that.

jedberg 7y ago

Ironically, those orgs have themselves been accused of being pay-to-play -- if you give them enough money they will certify you organic. Since it's industry run, there is no one checking that the organic certifiers are legit. It's turtles all the way down. The only legit solution is the government, because they are the only ones without a profit motive in the whole system (although they can be bribed, but that's a whole other can of worms).

somethoughts 7y ago
Yes its more in the absence of a government initiative. IIRC, what happened with organics is that it started as pay to play and then the USDA came along and took the best practices from the pay to play initiatives and introduced the USDA Organic.
gpanders 7y ago
They may be without a profit motive but individual bureaucrats and legislators certainly have a power motive which is often just as, if not more, insidious.
- pcmaffey 7y ago
  Which is why campaign finance reform is essential.
ibeckermayer 7y ago
"The only legit solution is the government, because they are the only ones without a profit motive in the whole system" LOL. As you even parenthetically recognize, government doesn't magically solve humanity's capacity for wickedness. The true "legit" solution is institutional legitimacy, which is fundamentally founded in a devotion to rational integrity. Genuine legitimacy can only be earned by sustained integrity, its not minted with the legislator's pen. I agree that you're right to be concerned with the bad incentives of pay for play, but you appear to be missing the unintended consequences of imposing a regulatory monopoly.
mnw21cam 7y ago
> The only legit solution is the government... Which government? I mean, I'm certainly not going to be very impressed if the (for example) US government releases a statement saying "Yeah guys, app Foo is totally legit and doesn't track you or leak any of your private information".

dublinben 7y ago

Exodus Privacy will tell you what trackers are present in an Android app. They don't certify apps as "ad tracking free" but leave that decision up to you. The only certification of being ad-free is probably to be open source as well, in which case there's a large selection of apps in F-Droid which meet that requirement. https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/ https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/

blacksmith_tb 7y ago
Looks promising, though it doesn't seem to have caught the FB connection in Zoom[1] (though given that Zoom has the Internet Access permission I suppose it can really send data anywhere?) They do offer an on-device version, which is available via F-droid[2]. 1: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/us.zoom.videomeetings/latest/ https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/us.zoom.vid... 2: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.oF2pks.classyshark3xodus/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.oF2pks.classyshark3xodus...
wideasleep1 7y ago
1) Grab Netguard, 2) Donate to Marcel for key to get granularity 3) Turn off ALL apps, so when they launch they have no wan access. 4) Open each app one by one, noting what links and phoning home the app tries to perform 5) Watch in disgust as you begin to realize all of your efforts to secure your privacy up to this point has been in vain...antacids help. 6) Take control by granularly killing the links/calls in apps you decide to keep. Spotify calls FB, but you now can fix that. This is empowering but only a start. R/privacy will make you paranoid, but a good place to get an idea what you are up against. I read Anon, join to post, and after some time delete my content, been doing that for decades now.