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Facebook and Snapchat iOS Apps Still Tracking Users Despite Opt-Out
- corobo 5y agoI've found switching to the web version of social apps to be better anyway. Stops me visiting them as frequently if nothing else. I'm actively deciding to visit now rather than mindlessly opening the apps in order Feelin kinda smug right now
- lrvick 5y agoI started out dealing with my social media addiction by doing this. Then I just started logging out most of the time. In the end I just closed all my accounts but Twitter where I unfollowed everyone and set it up as a dumb mastodon relay for reach. Feeling extra smug right now.
- rumblerock 5y agoI've done a mild version of this with some success, putting the apps in a separate homescreen, or deleting them from the homescreen altogether so I'm forced to go into the app drawer. Unfortunately my mind still finds itself swiping down the iOS search bar to hunt for them. It really is a compulsive addiction of sorts.
- trts 5y agoIt's been surprising how much I stopped thinking about social media entirely since doing this. Not to mention that the mobile web experience is often purposely crippled to try and funnel you back into native. Add in the need to get my timeboxed 2FA code to login and I'll begin to realize how little there is to gain relative to the trouble of actually logging in.
- beefield 5y ago> timeboxed 2FA code Would you mind sharing implementation details?
- rPlayer6554 5y agohttps://hackernoon.com/how-to-implement-google-authenticator-two-factor-auth-in-javascript-091wy3vh3 https://hackernoon.com/how-to-implement-google-authenticator... I haven't read through this in complete detail but it generally looks like the correct algorithm.
- HaloZero 5y agoThey also don't update the features a lot which has some perks. The calendar on events on facebook mobile website is a simple calendar that shows your events that you are invited to. The desktop and mobile app make it a pain to see just your friend events since they're pushing event discovery too.
- warning26 5y agoThis! For this reason, Facebook Marketplace for mobile web is better than the app version, because it doesn't have the useless "ship to me" option that no one wants and no one will ever use (yet Facebook makes the default and resets after every search).
- jaywalk 5y agoNo option to do that with Snapchat. So if you want to be involved with Snapchat in any way, the app is your only choice.
- hvgk 5y agoAt which point you are a winner anyway!
- corobo 5y agoHonestly the only time I've seen Snapchat in the past 5 years someone was using it to buy cocaine
- DrBenCarson 5y agoYou must not be a teenager
- corobo 5y agoThat is an accurate assessment doc, getting dangerously close to mid thirties
- jaywalk 5y agoSnapchat? How unprofessional, everyone knows that's what Signal is for.
- corobo 5y agoI thought it was pretty opsec-poor myself but I wasn't going to get involved haha
- jraby3 5y agoTry doing it only in a private window so you need to login every time. Even better.
- throwuxiytayq 5y agoHow are the apps still not removed?
- classified 5y agoCan't let the addicts go cold turkey.
- bastardoperator 5y agoI don't know why you're being downvoted. The sooner these apps die the better off society as a whole will be.
- comeonseriously 5y agoApple is allowing this.
- BbzzbB 5y agoApple fighting it on a technical level or playing tough in private negotiations is one thing, but do you truly expect Apple's customers would be pleased if Tim decides in their stead that Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are off-limits? They have their own profit motives and you can be damn sure they will not hurt them in the name of a privacy crusade. Walling out small time apps with marginal use from your garden is a safe play, doing so with apps used by a crushing majority of your users is a whole different story.
- antihero 5y agoThey don't have to take down the apps, just refuse to publish updates with the privacy violating features. This puts the ball in Facebook's court.
- DrBenCarson 5y agoExactly! 1. No updates released 2. No revenue released 3. An alert warning the user that the app is noncompliant and it’s use could result in data theft (ie think self-signed SSL in the browser) 4. Restrict all network activity from those apps to the first-party domain
- tanelpoder 5y agoMacRumors summary of the paywalled FT article: https://www.ft.com/content/69396795-f6e1-4624-95d8-121e4e5d7839 https://www.ft.com/content/69396795-f6e1-4624-95d8-121e4e5d7...
- ItsYourBoi 5y agoI am in no way surprised, but yet still disappointed. Come on lizard man, you have to do better than this
- celeduc 5y agoSounds like Zucker and Tim Apple made a deal.
- comeonseriously 5y agoNot a deal, per se, but Apple is allowing this.
- celeduc 5y agoIt would be weird if it "just happened" for no particular reason. They weren't forced to do so. It's a bait and switch and it's a sellout, which is pretty hilarious: a scam and a betrayal. And why not?
- swiley 5y agoDo not run closed consumer software ever.
- Nextgrid 5y agoThe elephant in the room here is the GDPR. None of this is compliant (has never been) and yet is allowed to continue out in the open despite the regulation going into effect almost 4 years ago now. In fact, an argument could be made that Apple is complicit. Apple has a history of removing/rejecting apps that are used for illegal activities such as copyright infringement or even just breaking some company's ToS. Yet, they do nothing for apps that brazenly breach the GDPR.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jdvab 5y agoWell, at least we have cookie banners.
- Nextgrid 5y agoJust FYI, these are not compliant either, but the same problem above is the reason they're still around. A compliant cookie banner (or rather consent flow, as the GDPR covers more than just cookies) should not be annoying - it should be as easy to decline as it is to accept and dark patterns aren't allowed.
- outside1234 5y agoBut they are allowed by the regulators.
- lmkg 5y agoFacebook is incorporated in Ireland for tax purposes, as are many other US tech companies. This means that Facebook's GDPR violations are enforced by the Irish DPA. This is a conflict of interest for the Irish government: if they are not hospitable to US tech giants, they may lose their status as a favored tax haven. The Irish DPA has given all indications that it is compromised, and this is a sore point for the regulators in other major EU countries, notably France and Germany.
- sneak 5y agoOf course they are. If you don't want to be tracked by Facebook, stop running their code on your device. Apple provides you with the app privacy labels in the App Store. Read them and use them.
- iRobbery 5y agoWithout the apps they will track you too, no worries.
- celeduc 5y ago"Hello, Verizon sales department for deep packet inspection, header manipulation, and active surveillance, how can I help you?"
- DrBenCarson 5y agoIf I don’t want Facebook code to run on my device, I literally can’t use anything outside of stock OS offline. The Facebook and Google ads SDKs are in absolutely everything…it’s how everyone makes money online.
- AlexandrB 5y agoThe "if you don't like it, don't user their product" crowd seems to be unaware of tracking pixels, shadows profiles, "like" widgets, reCaptcha, etc. Basically the last 20 years of adware "innovation". I'd love to be able to tell Facebook to DIAF and never run their code again, but for some reason they're not keen on respecting my wishes.
- sneak 5y agoThey're not in everything, just most large and popular things.
- brundolf 5y agoSo does this mainly come down to fingerprinting, as a replacement for traditional ad IDs (which should be blocked at a system level when you opt out)? If so, it seems solvable by Apple (through a combination of introducing noise/imprecision, and gating more things behind user-controllable app permissions)
- literallyaduck 5y agoSevere fines starting with 25% of gross and making them pay for mandatory audits, coupled with jail for executives would mitigate this.
- DrBenCarson 5y agoHow much of FB revenue flows through the App Store though? Are you suggesting the US government would levy a fine?
- literallyaduck 5y agoUsers indicated they didn't want to be tracked. Wiretapping, and other stalking laws can be used for this, it isn't Facebook's first brush with the law so the fines should reflect that.
- malermeister 5y agoAt the very least this is a direct violation of the GDPR in Europe, which could be fined with up to 4% of the annual global turnover.
- arrozconcosas 5y agoJail for executives haha. Has this ever happened for anything?
- toomuchtodo 5y agoChina. Lots to take issue with, but when they want policy followed, they back it with force (Jack Ma, delisting Didi, forcing Evergrandes’ founder to liquidate his wealth to make at risk stakeholders on shore whole).
- dfxm12 5y agoEnron. I guess the SEC takes things more seriously than, well, I'm not totally sure what government agency is responsible for protecting their constituency's private data...
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- jsnell 5y agoThe title seems inaccurate, and the outrage seems based on the title rather than the actual content. The article text explicitly says that the data is "anonymized and aggregated". How is that tracking?
- lilsoso 5y agoBecause it turns out that advertising networks and data brokers can de-anonymize the data with good success. How is that not tracking?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
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- rchaud 5y agoWhere's this 'outrage' that you speak of?
- fauigerzigerk 5y agoWhat the FT article claims is that Apple has shifted towards a much more lenient interpretation of App Store rules when it comes to user tracking. The original title is "Apple reaches quiet truce over iPhone privacy changes". What Apple means by tracking is linking data from individual app users to third party data [1]. So in my view, it would indeed be a shift in Apple's position if they now accept that apps can link an individual's data to third party data as long as they somehow aggregate the result (e.g by creating cohorts) before actually targeting ads. But it's unclear to me whether they do in fact accept that. I think merely mentioning aggregation is not enough to determine whether or not Apple has changed its position on this. [1] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/app-privacy-details/#user-tracking https://developer.apple.com/app-store/app-privacy-details/#u...
- nijave 5y agoIt seems in modern language any time data is uploaded from a device it's "tracking"
- rchaud 5y agoSwitching to the mobile web version of Instagram on a UBO-enabled browser has been a gift of sorts. Because the website can't run in the background like an app, it can't preload anything. Launching takes a few moments to show posts, and videos don't autoplay. Any time the mobile website shows you a prompt to use the app for "an improved experience", they really just mean "for better tracking and personalized ads".
- chaircher 5y agoHow long have you been doing this and has it caused you to get locked out your account at all? I used to use instagram on desktop only but the account kept getting suspended, which stopped happening once I reverted back to using the mobile app. Anecdotally heard this was happening with other people too. Would be useful if mobile web was a work around?
- Implicated 5y agoHow did you go about getting it unlocked? Mine has been locked and now I suspect this is why, but I can’t get any sort of response from Instagram in any way.
- chaircher 5y agoI was trapped by a 'bug' that meant the verification code system was broke. After a couple weeks of no luck I coincidentally set up pi-hole on my laptop and it seemed to de-bug the page or do something to otherwise break the loop that had me stuck, which resulted in me getting my account back. At the moment I'm using insta on mobile again as I'm not convinced I can repeat the fix a second time but am keen to move my business off there and somewhere else
- throwaway946513 5y agoNot parent, but I've been using the mobile web variant for a while and have had no issues with my account being locked. In the past I have used the desktop browser on rare occasions, but a majority of the account activities are done through the WebKit Firefox (iOS).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- comeonseriously 5y agoRelated: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/12/apple-reaches-quiet-truce-over-iphone-privacy-changes/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/12/apple-reaches-quiet-... > Lockdown Privacy, an app that blocks ad trackers, has called Apple’s policy “functionally useless in stopping third-party tracking.” It performed a variety of tests on top apps and observed that personal data and device information is still “being sent to trackers in almost all cases.”
- elzbardico 5y agoIs people still using Facebook? I’ve been using it less and less for the last year, and save one or two hyper engaged friends, most of my friends seem to have moved on from FB