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I don't have Facebook and I'm generally skeptical of Apple's pro-privacy messaging. However, seeing this response from Facebook has gotten me very excited for t

• buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
  For some reason I have a bad feeling about this update actually getting released. I'm worried that FB is going to convince some judge to tell Apple they can't do this, and delay it for months or years. Maybe (hopefully) this is an irrational worry, but you never know the extent to which people will go when billions of dollars are on the line.
  • move-on-by 6y ago
    I know nothing about legal system, but it seems like Apple could make an argument that they are helping their apps be GDPR and CCPA compliant? That could explain the strange wording "Ask app not to track" - apps can still track, just not as much as before, so perhaps more of a compliance permission. Just speculation.
    • Someone 6y ago
      I think they say “Ask app not to track” because, if they say “Make app not track you” or something similar, they open themselves to huge lawsuits if (much more likely when) any app turns out to keep tracking users.
    • newscracker 6y ago
      I don’t have the link handy, but Apple’s policies on this require apps not to track users across apps through other means if a user chooses “Ask App not to Track” at the prompt. The prompt text is just to show that Apple cannot technically prevent tracking even when a user tells the app they don’t want to be tracked across apps. There are a lot of shady practices being spread through common/popular SDKs used by apps.
  • rchaud 6y ago
    I think what's more likely than any kind of legal injunction is that FB and Apple will come to a "mutual understanding". Maybe Facebook will license Apple Maps (for a princely sum) and make some symbolic compromise on data collection that lets Apple water down the permission dialogs.
    • stingraycharles 6y ago
      I’d argue that Apple executives realize that privacy is one of the unique USPs of Apple compared to their main competitor, since the value exchange between Apple and their customers is simpler (customer pays Apple money, Apple delivers hardware/software). Now that so much news has spread about these privacy additions, Apple selling out will actively hurt this image they have spent a lot of time building. It’s going to have to be an extremely lucrative agreement between them and Facebook for it to be worth it.
      • rorykoehler 6y ago
        I thought that until I realised Apple also have a billion dollar ads business
        • sodality2 6y ago
          The problem is Apple relies on hardware sales. FB's entire business from the top down is ad money. And source for a billion dollar ad business? That sounds way higher than my initial impression. (And google paying to be the default SE is not advertising imo)
          • rorykoehler 6y ago
            https://9to5mac.com/2019/11/15/apple-ad-revenue/ https://9to5mac.com/2019/11/15/apple-ad-revenue/
            • whynaut 6y ago
              Well.. > Apple’s most recent earnings report revealed that it earned $12.51B from Services in calendar Q3/fiscal Q4, though there is no breakdown on how much of this comes from ad revenue. Notice the 'could's: > Samik Chatterjee argued the company could leverage the millions of users who search its App Store and Safari browser daily to generate the stellar growth seen by Facebook and Google in recent years. > he launch of Apple TV+, coupled with Apple Inc’s foray into digital services, could help the company increase its income from advertising by more than five fold to $11 billion annually This article is literally just speculation. Actually, it's quoting someone's speculation. > The report seems highly speculative…
  • balls187 6y ago
    What would be Facebook's legal argument in the US?
    • zonethundery 6y ago
      That Apple is unfairly privileging its own ads business. It's a tough cookie though; the offending behavior is simply Apple's truthful (if arguably hyperbolic) notice and consent popup.
      • kergonath 6y ago
        It could work if they demonstrate that Apple does track its user across apps for advertising purposes without showing consent dialogs. I am more than a bit skeptical, but you never know.
      • kml 6y ago
        iAds will definitely be privileged. If you read the documentation on what is available to Apple vs. others, you will see Apple's own ad business will definitely benefit from this.
        • zepto 6y ago
          iAds will definitely not be able to track user behavior within apps the way Facebook does. If there is some documentation you claim shows iAds being privileged, please post a link.
        • miskin 6y ago
          You mean iAd that was discontinued in 2016? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAd
        • j16sdiz 6y ago
          Wikipedia said iAd have been discontinued. Did I miss something?
      • Teever 6y ago
        Is that illegal though? Apple isn't a monopoly -- they're a walled garden. I'm all for regulations that force Apple to open up their hardware so that people can install different software on it, or to disable the walled-garden mode of their software platform akin to how you can install lineageOS or freedroid on android devices but I don't think it's reasonable to mandate that Apple must allow Facebook to do something with their software simply because Apple does it with theirs.
  • arrosenberg 6y ago
    Unless FB is preparing an incredibly ironic antitrust/market competition case against Apple, I'm not sure what they'd have standing on.
    • zonethundery 6y ago
      They are almost certainly doing this; question is whether they will file it. FB's noise around this feels very out of character, even for something that's devolved into a personal conflict. They may be truly scared of the update.
    • throwawayboise 6y ago
      FB undoubtedly knows enough about powerful judges and politicians to get what they want. J. Edgar Hoover's wildest dreams didn't contemplate what Facebook can do.
    • newscracker 6y ago
      Facebook has been reported as assisting Epic Games in its lawsuit and been preparing for months for lawsuits against Apple. For the kind of company it is, it might pull a “Peter Thiel on Gawker” move, though it won’t reflect well on its name. But not enough people seem to care much about Facebook’s practices or what it does. After the uproar over WhatsApp’s upcoming policy change on data sharing with Facebook, several people moved to other chat platforms. But I still see those people stuck with WhatsApp and also using Facebook and Instagram even while knowing that these are all part of the same company.
  • mr_toad 6y ago
    The more likely scenario in the long run is that Apple is forced to allow alternative App stores, which will probably be riddled with malware and spyware.
• jb775 6y ago
  I'm skeptical as well considering Apple selectively leaves gaping holes depending on levels of public knowledge (e.g. talk a big game on encryption, but don't encrypt iCloud backups while using dark patterns nudging users towards using iCloud backups). This is definitely good for privacy in the short term, but long term will depend on if Apple decides to monetize this data themselves.
  • zepto 6y ago
    The don’t collect this data. How could they monetize it?
    • jb775 6y ago
      iPhone users must login to use the phone. Those users need to provide valid identification info considering the phone is linked to their phone service account. Combine that with apple defining every single action the phone takes, they could easily flip a switch to start collecting "anonymized" data. Or they could simply update the data-sharing default to "Yes" and 75%+ would never disable it.
      • zepto 6y ago
        I said. > The don’t collect this data. How could they monetize it? Your answer is essentially - “in principle they could build tracking into all their software” You seem to be suggesting that their plan is to fein interest in privacy to undermine all the tracking companies first, and then reverse their stance and become a super-intrusive tracking company. That seems very far fetched and weirdly conspiracy like. Also obviously not true, given that they have been lobbying for privacy legislation.
  • j16sdiz 6y ago
    Most of iCloud backups are encrypted with your PIN — the one you unlock your phone. Some more sensitive data are backup only if you choose backup locally
• kml 6y ago
  It's one giant fighting another. Apple wants to destroy ad revenue and shift everyone to a paid App model because Apple can get its 30%. I bet you if Apple loses control of the AppStore for anti trust reasons, they would be all for ads.
  • dgreensp 6y ago
    This is Facebook’s narrative, but if Facebook makes a bit less money, how exactly does that “shift everyone to a paid App model”? Facebook’s annual net profit is an 11-digit number. Apple’s move is bad for Facebook’s stock price and good for users, and that’s probably all the noticeable impact. Even if Apple’s motives are somehow nefarious, Facebook is being scummy in the first place, so it’s a fair move for Apple to take advantage of that, IMO.
    • knodi 6y ago
      Yes, lets think about the role of Facebook in 2016 elections.
    • TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
      > how exactly does that “shift everyone to a paid App model You nailed it. Facebook wants to confuse and distract. There's absolutely no reason why Apple's push for user permission on tracking would cause the Facebook app to become subscription-based. WTF?
  • lstamour 6y ago
    That's Facebook's claim, yes. And when it comes to Apple News and even the App Store, Apple also serves advertising on behalf of its partners. It's also true that Apple themselves runs a lot of ads, and benefit from ad networks through the services they've integrated in the past. In fact, Apple justifies their 15-30% cut by suggesting that the App Store is itself a platform that promotes apps, and has featured apps in its own advertising on billboards and television. So it's hard to come to a conclusion that Apple hates ads. It's easier to say that Apple dislikes advertiser networks, since their own attempt at a generic network (iAds) failed miserably. It's not even clear to me that blocking tracking is going to kill ads as a revenue stream, all it will do is make ads more expensive because they're slightly less targeted on iOS? Also, Apple runs their own seemingly successful ad market within the App Store app — something I'm reminded of each time I search for an app and see a competitor's app I don't want at the top of my search results, filling my screen with the new design. So it's hard to say that Apple does this for the best user experience. Showing extra popups isn't great UX. And Apple likes free apps, it makes their phone and platform more valuable, so they can charge more for the hardware knowing folks can get great apps inexpensively or free. While I'm in favour of Apple losing its complete monopoly over App Stores and apps that compete with its own, I actually am in favour of Apple enforcing these policies on apps from its own App Store and platform. And while I would say that third-party stores could have different stances on permissions, the idea that a third-party app store could prevent a popup asking to share a phone's identifier, for example, is frankly a security bypass. The same is true if apps want to communicate with other apps without the operating system knowing. Personally, I'd love it if Apple went a step farther and used the network layer and code signing to identify which apps actively use which trackers and tracking networks the same way they currently identify apps that use the microphone and camera. It'd be fascinating to see an operating system feature that says 50% of my network traffic in Application X was telemetry being sent to Facebook, for example.
• ASalazarMX 6y ago
  > I'm generally skeptical of Apple's pro-privacy messaging That's a very healthy attitude towards Apple's claims. They developed all these APIs that allow app makers to spy on their users, and then blame the app makers for spying. For example, why does any app need to know which other apps I have installed, and how long I use them? This permission should very sparingly pass the review process, and only for apps in specific categories.
  • buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
    > why does any app need to know which other apps I have installed, and how long I use them What are you referring to? As far as I know, one app can't query the list and usage time of other installed apps on iOS. This stackoverflow question[1] seems to confirm this. But please enlighten me if I'm misunderstanding what you're referring to. [1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51634436/how-to-get-a-list-of-installed-apps-in-ios11-using-swift-4 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51634436/how-to-get-a-li...
  • ajsnigrutin 6y ago
    APIs are great.. i want an app to be able to list all the apps installed. I just don't want facebook app to do it, because it really doesn't need that data, and I don't want to give it to them. This should be done the same as with location and microphone access... ie. "ask the user". "Flashlight 2000 DX app wants to access list of apps installed - allow once, allow always, deny now, deny always". Facebook wants to track 50 different things? Well.. ask the user 50 different times and try to explain why you want access to their call history and calendar data (adding calendar entries could also be a write-only option, with optional unique ids to change/remove entries).... and give your UX team a headache. Also, "deny" should be the "bolded" default. Maybe even give the user a list of unchecked permission the app wants, with explanations why it needs them, and have the user check the ones they want to give to the app (default state is unchecked (deny)). Also granularity is key... giving location access for bluetooth connections, giving "manage calls" access to stop playing music when you get a call, etc. is just stupid.
    • unishark 6y ago
• TACIXAT 6y ago
  I was a long time Android user (and former Google employee) and this was the feature that got me to buy an iPhone.
• deleted 6y ago
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