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TikTok unlawfully tracks shopping habits and use of dating apps?
- grugagag 11mo agoVery likely all other social media are doing it. Not to dimish the harm done by Tiktok but sadly it’s an industry wide phenomenon. Shouln’t forget about surveilance, misinformation, election rigginng and so on.
- hekkle 11mo agoIf you want to find which apps are the worst at this use GrapheneOS. Amazon flat out REFUSES to work unless it has unfettered access to everything.
- gerdesj 11mo agoI (UK based) have pfblocker-ng running at the perimeter with quite a lot of blocking. My browser FF has uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger too. Amazon works fine. I suspect they work along the rather practical lines of: if we can snag your data we will but if you want to block our efforts at predation but want to spend out, we are fine with that too. Amazon absolutely will not refuse your money and they are jolly good at extracting it.
- hekkle 11mo agoFair enough, it does make sense that they will maximise their profits where they can, I'm just saying that it (the app not the website) refuses to work unless you provide it a full scope of literally every permission available. Maybe it has more to do with attestation, and verifying that you are not a scammer, than stealing and selling data?
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- aembleton 11mo agoWhat does the app give you that the website doesn't? I've never tried it as the website works just fine.
- hekkle 11mo agoJust ease of use on a small screen really. I don't use it too much anymore anyway, I'm in Australia, so Amazon's not as big here as it is in the US. We mainly use Ali-Express or Temu, because those apps deliver from China, which is close and more convenient for here, relative to the US.
- gerdesj 11mo agoAhh, my time to apologise for my assumptions. I'm browser on PC/laptop first and rarely use a phone and never for Amazon. I also rock Linux on everything that I can, so my experience will obviously be different on "PC" too. It really is not about attestation etc, I'm afraid. Its all about maximising profitability. If you use a walled garden friendly device then you will be frisked inappropriately at every opportunity.
- bri3d 11mo agoThis isn’t likely to be a good indicator. Essentially only the network permission and any fingerprint is necessary for the tracking in this accusation; the idea is not that TikTok were spying on Grindr on the device, but that a device fingerprinting firm who broker both TikTok and Grindr data were able to correlate the user.
- quesera 11mo agoThe only websites that are allowed to run apps on my phone are financial institutions. All other websites are just websites.
- august125 11mo agoThis was Steve Jobs' original vision for the iPhone, before he relented and launched the App Store. Maybe it was the correct one.
- quesera 11mo agoNot exactly. The iPhone launched with no App Store at all. No exceptions for financial institutions. I allow financial institution apps on my phone because I believe that the security guarantees on iOS are stronger than on my desktop OS, and also that the customer relationship with the banks/etc are more valuable (to the bank) when their apps are not infected with tracking and ads, etc. And of course, the bank knows a lot about me anyway due to transaction history, and they're well-regulated, understand privacy, etc. Also, I have trouble believing that the App Store and public SDKs went from "not on the roadmap" to "released" in one year. I know it's the popular narrative, but I feel like there must be more to the story. It's plausible that they were being worked on but a final management decision hadn't been made to launch them?
- gruez 11mo agoDoesn't grapheneos have the same permission model as stock android? The only thing it adds is internet access and sensors (eg. gyroscope) access. What extra stuff is amazon asking for?
- hekkle 11mo agoNo, the permissions are very granular compared to Stock Android. I can't remember all of them from scratch, but by way of example Graphene allows for 'contact scopes', which sets permissions for which contacts you will share with each app, rather than a blanket "you can access all of my contacts" that Android has. I know when I tried it last (this was more than a year ago mind you so it might have changed), if you didn't give Amazon access to all contacts it somehow knew and refused to work.
- vjvjvjvjghv 11mo agoThe whole permission thing is broken. They are too broad and nobody understands what they really mean. I would also like to see a log of when and how an app uses granted permissions.
- Aurornis 11mo agoThe headline is misleading. The TikTok app isn’t doing the tracking. The dating app providers are selling their user’s data. TikTok is one of the companies buying it. Technical protections on your phone aren’t going to stop anything if you’re using apps that sell your data from their servers out the back door.
- asdff 11mo agoIronically amazon.com works perfectly with javascript disabled. One of the few major sites that still do in my experience.
- mr_toad 11mo agoCall me an old fashion capitalist but I have a certain respect for businesses still willing to engage in a simple exchange of money for goods and services.
- cheschire 11mo agohttps://docs.pi-hole.net/docker/ https://docs.pi-hole.net/docker/
- tkel 11mo agoHighly recommend people check out this simple alternative. It's like a better, modern dnsmasq. https://github.com/AdguardTeam/dnsproxy https://github.com/AdguardTeam/dnsproxy
- cheschire 11mo agoSetting up a whole-home adblocking solution takes a few minutes with pi hole, and it's got a very functional web interface for actions such as unblocking specific sites for specific systems on your network. That dns proxy looks intriguing but looks like quite a bit different from the simplicity of pi hole.
- OptionOfT 11mo agoPi-Hole only works when the tracking / ad scripts are hosted from different domains than the actual content.
- cheschire 11mo agoDon't worry, when you blackhole the entire tiktok domain, you'll still be able to use grindr. Or did you still want to be able to view tiktok? Sorry. Can't help you there. Or can I? https://www.torproject.org/download/ https://www.torproject.org/download/ or https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/proton-vpn-fast-secure/jplgfhpmjnbigmhklmmbgecoobifkmpa https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/proton-vpn-fast-sec...
- telchior 11mo agoI assume TikTok and similar apps are always doing this stuff. The thing I'm curious about is whether the GDPR / DSB complaints are likely to have any result. Is that likely to just result in some cost of business fines and TikTok goes on with life? Or could those complaints bring about substantial repercussions?
- Nextgrid 11mo agoThe expected result is that the complaints will rot in the queue for years and eventually either closed on a technicality or result in a token fine. That's the reality of GDPR "enforcement".
- thisisthenewme 11mo agoI guess it's pretty much impossible to stop these companies from gathering data, there's too much money in it, it's too easy to implement, and there's no cohesive force to stop them. I'm wondering whether a crowdfunded effort to feed fake data into these systems would work so we overwhelm them and make their plans a bit more difficult.
- mc3301 11mo ago"The only winning move is not to play." If you look at these systems that same way some people look at casinos - places specifically designed to take your money - you realize there isn't a way to change them nor improve your overall experience with them. You just don't go inside. I'm kinda hoping that it becomes the trend in the next few decades to completely abandon these algorithm-driven data-hoarding attention-stealing apps. I've been calling it "digital hygiene", personally.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- banana_sandwich 11mo agoI used to be highly addicted to scrolling. Tiktok, reddit, instagram, everything. It nearly cost me my relationship and I swore it off ever since. I’ve been offline those apps for a few months now, and have never felt better. Cant believe what i was allowing to happen to my attention!
- fragmede 11mo agoHow'd you do it?
- mc3301 11mo agoYoutube: There are a few long-form creators I watch, maybe 4 hours a month of content. Besides that, viewing history is off, no apps, browser extensions block mostly everything (comments, suggestions, etc.) Instagram: I have a 15 minute daily timer, because I sometimes post, and I sometimes receive DMs. Reddit: Fully blocked, I think I ublocked everything. Tiktok: I won't even download it ever again. It has an algorithm like no other for sucking me in. Dangerously addictive. Facebook? Deleted it completely around 2013, so no idea what's going on there.
- tkel 11mo agoPretty sure TikTok and Instagram are sharing data somehow as well. My feeds are near identical.
- slg 11mo agoI don't know, maybe they are colluding, but it is funny to default to that assumption over both platforms just delivering you the same content because you have the same behavior across both apps.
- witnesprotect67 11mo agoNot so laughable after working in big tech
- bflesch 11mo agoSo where is your book? You gotta spill the beans.
- tkel 11mo agoNotably, this started happening the day that I made my TikTok account public. My Instagram feed began to be a copy of my TikTok feed. The exact same videos. Even after changing my Tiktok back to private and deleting all of my followers, the feeds are still identical, every single day. My behavior is not. On Instagram, I follow and interact with very different accounts than on TikTok. It seems to me that Instagram is buying or accessing TikTok's data, and it is not through advertising providers, because the identical content is coming directly from Instagram/TikTok and not promoted ads.
- fragmede 11mo agoThere are three possibilities though. One is Instagram copying TikTok, without their knowledge, the other is Instagram copying your TikTok feed with their knowledge but not their blessing, and finally Instagram copying your TikTok feed with TikTok's knowledge and their blessing. If we take a look at http://TikTok.com/robots.txt http://TikTok.com/robots.txt, it seems if you make your TikTok public, TikTok is happy to let Instagram take a look at it (but not a number of AI crawlers). What Instagram does with it is up to them, but it's in robots.txt.
- newZWhoDis 11mo agoI'll post some inside baseball: Almost everyone in ecom is running every ad network integration they can, no matter the source of traffic. So if you click a Facebook ad, load a website, enter your information/checkout ALL of your information goes to every other network they integrate with. You might never use TikTok, you might have every Facebook domain blacklisted, but when you clicked on a Google search "result" (ad) and checked out everything about your order was sent to meta/tiktok/applovin/400 other "networks" via S2S APIs. Until this is made illegal, the incentive structure will ALWAYS push marketing departments to do this.
- MrFots 11mo agoI'm already low-consumption, but my personal boycott of any site using shopify, which straight up has all integrations in their js you can inspect, has lowered my consumption even further. I've been emailing stores asking them to switch to bigcommerce, or whatever, and stop sharing their customers' data. Never get answers, though I never expect any.
- fortzi 11mo agoSwitching over to another ecommerce provider is a massive undertaking. It’s like if someone asked you to move your residence because the smoke from your bbq hurts their lungs
- stefan_ 11mo agoIt is made illegal. As the post notes, you need to (1) give notice and (2) data collected needs to be made available in a user access request and (3) deleted irrevocably on request. You must have a legitimate reason to process and store this data (scattershot forwarding to everyone is a prima facie violation). Unless you comply with all of these, you are in violation.
- digitaltrees 11mo agoThat earnest congressional testimony by the CEO looks pretty bad at this point. Either he was lying or doesn’t know anything about how his company works.
- Simulacra 11mo agoI don't think any app or service can hold a candle to the data harvesting of dating apps. Social media knows your likes and dislikes, but dating apps knows your deepest desires and wants.
- exabrial 11mo agoSome state needs to pass an explicit consent law, since consent is too hard of a concept for Silicon Valley and other startups to understand.
- Vpsteroski 11mo agoCompanies always track data and major social media companies and online search engines ALWAYS keep track of user search history. That data is often sold or used to find out what you are searching about and what brands you like. I guess it IS impossible to stop these big brands :-)
- Legend2440 11mo ago> TikTok was only able to receive this information with the help of the Israeli data company AppsFlyer and Grindr itself. So basically, the TikTok app is not spying on your dating apps - your dating apps are willingly selling your information to them, through intermediaries. This means uninstalling tiktok won’t help. And worse, many other companies are getting your dating info too.
- Animats 11mo agoGrindr had a big data "leak" in 2024.[1] Not a "leak", really, just ordinary reselling of people's gay and HIV status. In 2025, a data broker who resold Grindr data also had a big breach. That wasn't Grindr-specific - it included Temple Run, Subway Surfers, Tinder, Grindr, MyFitnessPal, Candy Crush, Truecaller, 9GAG, Microsoft 365, and others. But not TikTok, because TikTok monetizes that info themselves. [1] https://thehill.com/business/4614940-grindr-sold-hiv-status-of-potentially-thousands-of-users-to-advertisers-lawsuit-says/ https://thehill.com/business/4614940-grindr-sold-hiv-status-... [2] https://www.pcmag.com/news/major-data-broker-leak-might-have-exposed-location-data-of-millions https://www.pcmag.com/news/major-data-broker-leak-might-have...
- charcircuit 11mo ago>Article 9.2 (d) processing is carried out in the course of its legitimate activities TikTok has a legitimate activity of personalizing the feed of users to make it as relevant as possible.
- ptrl600 11mo agoI wonder if that "fake permissions" Android sandboxing thing from like a decade ago still works. The right to lie to apps should be part of the new tech Magna Carta
- mac-attack 11mo agoI hate to sound like a those pesky Kagi supporters, but that is built into Graphene OS.
- gruez 11mo agoIt's not, though. If you deny location permissions the app will still know and pester you to enable. Same with other sensitive permissions with the exception of internet.
- ikekkdcjkfke 11mo agoThis has been a thing for rooted devices for a long time with faking senstive data on android Although i wouldnt root any sensitive devices nowadays
- aembleton 11mo agoThats a shame, I used to be able to pass fake location data through on an app by app basis using an Xposded module. That was probably 10 years ago though.
- mac-attack 11mo agoIsn't that a moot point with the graphene location proxy tool?
- gruez 11mo agoAre you talking about their network location provider? That doesn't do anything to spoof location. It just allows querying apple (optionally via graphenos proxy) for the location of nearby wifi networks, rather than going through google play services. Apps can still figure out whether you denied location permissions.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- ZuoCen_Liu 11mo agoThis seems to be the "original sin" of the current Internet "platform" paradigm.
- ajdude 11mo agoEarlier this year I downloaded TikTok once, I needed to access some very niche videos and couldn't watch them without getting an account. I never added anybody, and I never associated with any other socials, but somehow I started getting emails from TikTok that one of my NEIGHBORS were viewing my profile! Even used their full name. I deleted the account and uninstalled the app.
- sweca 11mo agoThis is because when you click a shared TikTok link, your account and the sharer's accounts are associated in a social graph. The sharer will see your account as a suggested friend and vice versa.
- oefrha 11mo agoNo sharing link needed. Before I deleted my Facebook account more than a decade ago, it was already suggesting random people I met once IRL and are at least two hops away in terms of existing FB relationships. I had very few friends (~20 IIRC).
- KellyCriterion 11mo agoId suggest FB & co also uses location tracking & proximity to expand their social graph continuosly? Most people just dont care about these privacy settings, and if you have a vast number of users, it doesnt matter if ther are 10% "techsavy people" because the mass is just big enough to create profiles on which you then easily can compute/guess other connections & joints in the social graph.
- oefrha 11mo agoYes, that’s my assumption, although IIRC I never gave FB location permissions, so it might be temporarily sharing an IP address by being on the same WiFi or something. Come to think of it they had access to WiFi SSIDs as well in the early days even when location permissions were off.
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- wkat4242 11mo agoGreat job from noyb. It's sad that the gdpr is now being watered down, especially the protection of these specially protected data points.
- nephihaha 11mo agoAnd probably much more than that.
- postepowanieadm 11mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- ulfw 11mo agoYes yes TikTok. Baaad baaad baaad. National Security risk for the great US of A! But... has been around and allowed for years. What's the latest anyway on the US steal of the app? (pardon me... I meant the forced sale due to 'national security reasons')