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Nice way to bury an innocuous "iOS Advertiser ID" in the middle of the list. What "iOS Advertiser ID" means is, to a very good degree of approximation, your dea

Nice way to bury an innocuous "iOS Advertiser ID" in the middle of the list. What "iOS Advertiser ID" means is, to a very good degree of approximation, your deanonimized identity. Also, that just linking the SDK in your app deanonimzes the user to Facebook is very, very clear in its documentation. It's not like Zoom didn't notice until someone told them. They made a decision, and now they're changing it because they were called out.

enitihas 7y ago
They are changing because right now they are growing like crazy without the need to do much on user acquisition, and a bad PR is just too costly right now. But good to see them doing it.
- lultimouomo 7y ago
  Sure, good they are changing. And Zoom is definitely not alone in this. Facebook SDK usage is widespread and it's a horrible thing. And even then, the fault ultimately resides with Apple and Google that provide cross-application unique identifiers.
  - enitihas 7y ago
    Yup, cross application unique identifiers are such a bad idea that it is hard to believe they exist. Maybe for Google I understand, since their entire business is advertising and android is more like a live billboard to display ads from their POV, but Apple, the company crying privacy, still provides an advertising id is shocking.
envy2 7y ago
The list is in alphabetical order. It's not malicious...
- lultimouomo 7y ago
  Alphabetical order is neither mandated by any rule, nor deterministic since you can choose how to call things. "Application Bundle Identifier" made it to the top of the list, but if it was "iOS Application Bundle Identifier" it would be below the Advertiser ID. Do you really think they prepared a PR statement to respond to harsh criticism and just decided to toss in there the list of information sent without crafting the order of the items?
  - zapzupnz 7y ago
    > Do you really think they prepared a PR statement to respond to harsh criticism and just decided to toss in there the list of information sent without crafting the order of the items? Yes, because it's in alphabetical order. You don't have to craft anything for it to be in alphabetical order. You just put it in alphabetical order. The sorts of people who are going to read that list and understand any of it are the sorts of people for whom the order doesn't matter one iota — they will see the information. For the majority of people, putting it at the top of the list would, equally, not matter one iota — they won't know what it means.
    - lultimouomo 7y ago
      > Yes, because it's in alphabetical order. > You don't have to craft anything for it to be in alphabetical order. > You just put it in alphabetical order. Again, if you get to choose the names, you get to choose the order.
      - Twirrim 7y ago
        Whatever happened to occam's razor? Seriously, what is more likely, someone decided to nefariously re-order the list, possibly while laughing maniacally, or the list was just pulled and presented in alphabetical order? HN commenters are just determined to turn everyone in to evil not-so-geniuses, refusing to recognise that almost everyone involved in this at Zoom are just like everyone else on HN. They found a thing that did what they needed, an official SDK no less, and used it. They found out (in zoom's case via public crucifixion) that it was doing something nefarious they didn't like, and stopped using it. But no, if HN is to be believed, they were collaborating with Facebook in some evil diabolical plan to take over the world via advertising.
andreasley 7y ago
The Advertising Identifier is app-specific, and if Limit Ad Tracking is enabled, it is set to all zeros. So it's not accurate to say that it's "your deanonimized identity".
- monocularvision 7y ago
  You are correct that users can disable it but incorrect to say it is app specific: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/adsupport/asidentifiermanager/1614151-advertisingidentifier https://developer.apple.com/documentation/adsupport/asidenti... You are thinking of “identifierForVendor”: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uidevice/1620059-identifierforvendor https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uidevice/162...

enitihas 7y ago

They are changing because right now they are growing like crazy without the need to do much on user acquisition, and a bad PR is just too costly right now. But good to see them doing it.

lultimouomo 7y ago
Sure, good they are changing. And Zoom is definitely not alone in this. Facebook SDK usage is widespread and it's a horrible thing. And even then, the fault ultimately resides with Apple and Google that provide cross-application unique identifiers.
- enitihas 7y ago
  Yup, cross application unique identifiers are such a bad idea that it is hard to believe they exist. Maybe for Google I understand, since their entire business is advertising and android is more like a live billboard to display ads from their POV, but Apple, the company crying privacy, still provides an advertising id is shocking.

envy2 7y ago

The list is in alphabetical order. It's not malicious...

lultimouomo 7y ago
Alphabetical order is neither mandated by any rule, nor deterministic since you can choose how to call things. "Application Bundle Identifier" made it to the top of the list, but if it was "iOS Application Bundle Identifier" it would be below the Advertiser ID. Do you really think they prepared a PR statement to respond to harsh criticism and just decided to toss in there the list of information sent without crafting the order of the items?
- zapzupnz 7y ago
  > Do you really think they prepared a PR statement to respond to harsh criticism and just decided to toss in there the list of information sent without crafting the order of the items? Yes, because it's in alphabetical order. You don't have to craft anything for it to be in alphabetical order. You just put it in alphabetical order. The sorts of people who are going to read that list and understand any of it are the sorts of people for whom the order doesn't matter one iota — they will see the information. For the majority of people, putting it at the top of the list would, equally, not matter one iota — they won't know what it means.
  - lultimouomo 7y ago
    > Yes, because it's in alphabetical order. > You don't have to craft anything for it to be in alphabetical order. > You just put it in alphabetical order. Again, if you get to choose the names, you get to choose the order.
    - Twirrim 7y ago
      Whatever happened to occam's razor? Seriously, what is more likely, someone decided to nefariously re-order the list, possibly while laughing maniacally, or the list was just pulled and presented in alphabetical order? HN commenters are just determined to turn everyone in to evil not-so-geniuses, refusing to recognise that almost everyone involved in this at Zoom are just like everyone else on HN. They found a thing that did what they needed, an official SDK no less, and used it. They found out (in zoom's case via public crucifixion) that it was doing something nefarious they didn't like, and stopped using it. But no, if HN is to be believed, they were collaborating with Facebook in some evil diabolical plan to take over the world via advertising.

andreasley 7y ago

The Advertising Identifier is app-specific, and if Limit Ad Tracking is enabled, it is set to all zeros. So it's not accurate to say that it's "your deanonimized identity".

monocularvision 7y ago
You are correct that users can disable it but incorrect to say it is app specific: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/adsupport/asidentifiermanager/1614151-advertisingidentifier https://developer.apple.com/documentation/adsupport/asidenti... You are thinking of “identifierForVendor”: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uidevice/1620059-identifierforvendor https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uidevice/162...