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Most of it is coming not from the cell phone companies, but from third party aggregators that pay app developers to install tracking code in their app. They try
by thesausageking 6y ago
Most of it is coming not from the cell phone companies, but from third party aggregators that pay app developers to install tracking code in their app. They try to get into as many apps as they can and send back data whenever any of their instrumented apps are able to. Ads don't pay much at all so this is another way for free apps to monetize. The identifier is normally a collection of parameters (device type, home zip code, etc.). The military is likely buying data from these aggregators and combining it with other sources they have.
- tppiotrowski 6y agoInteresting. So this is not cell phone tower data coming from ATT, T-Mobile, Verizon. Does iOS grant apps access to your phone number or do these third party aggregators need another mechanism to link devices to phone numbers?
- diebeforei485 6y ago> Does iOS grant apps access to your phone number No - unless you grant access to Contacts.
- thesausageking 6y agoThey don't need phone numbers. If the code is running inside an app, it can snap location data and send it to a server. Along with that, they pull in whatever other data they can link. This includes things like what model device, current battery level, home zip code, Facebook id, etc. With these data columns, you can match users pretty easily.
- diebeforei485 6y agoThis also implies that device-side firewall rules (if Apple allowed them to exist) could cut off the data brokers' business model.