Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

https://growth.design/case-studies/apple-privacy-policy

by Summershard • 3 years ago

393 347 3 years ago

growth.design

m3kw9• 3 years ago

Apple does enough for privacy, but Meta is the real a*hole here

paulryanrogers5• 3 years ago

Enough for some, clearly not all, hence this ... visual tour

jacobwilliamroy• 3 years ago

What's an "a*hole"? Some kind of graph traversal algorithm?

toastal7• 3 years ago

Was the Kool-Aid tasty? But seriously, all of these megacorps are bad for our privacy on absolute terms & doesn’t matter if one is relatively a little better or keeping your data from another corporation since they’re hoarding it for their own advertising.

boesboes• 3 years ago

Fuck me that’s the worst UX I’ve seen in ages

jsnell• 3 years ago

Threads or the site?

XMasterrrr• 3 years ago

Both.

KineticLensman• 3 years ago

First it told me ‘pro-tip’ that I was holding my phone wrong and when I did rotate to landscape mode, it ignored the rotation. I applied some ‘critical ignoring’ at that point, as per a peer article

flanbiscuit• 3 years ago

I had the opposite reaction, but I'm on my laptop. It looks like they are using RevealJS (https://revealjs.com/). I mention that because I originally went in thinking of this as an "article" with an alternative UX, but in reality it's just a slide show.

I did just try it on my mobile (Firefox, Android) and this format definitely doesn't translate well. I put it in landscape and it just shrink down the desktop site to fit. I feel like they should either encourage people to read on desktop or have an alternative mobile version.

nicce5• 3 years ago

On desktop it was very good. On mobile... well I had to switch to desktop.

taneq• 3 years ago

"Use your KEYBOARD ARROWS to view the story" reminds me of the way Minecraft Legends pops up a hint saying "Press [left mouse button graphic] to start" when you click or press space or escape or literally any other commonly used "ok that's nice, please proceed" key.

If you understand my intent well enough to post a passive-aggressive note telling me how I should ask to move to the next part, you understand me well enough to just skip to the next fkn part.

Edit: Just launched Minecraft Legends to confirm details and that it still does this. Apparently it's changed a bit but still pops up "Press [left mouse button] to start" on the splash screen and, if you hit space, changes to "Press [picture of enter key] to start" so I feel my point stands.

Edit2: Oh and when a cinematic starts... if you hit Esc it pops up a similar tip saying "Press ␣ to continue." WHAT DID YOU THINK I WANT- ugh I'm over it.

lost_tourist5• 3 years ago

It's super simple, left/right keys for 95% of it, why is that a bad UX?

slipshady• 3 years ago

I could barely read or navigate on mobile despite being prompted to ‘flip to landscape’. I gave up on the page.

phailhaus2• 3 years ago

There's no "ransom" being held for deleting your data from Threads. The point is that Threads is built on top of Instagram, which means that if you want to delete your data, Threads doesn't have it. Instagram does.

M4v3R• 3 years ago

That's just tech-speak. To the end user these are two separate apps. And Meta definitely has a way of telling which bits of data came from Threads and which from Instragram. They just chose not to make it easy for the user to delete only Threads data.

phailhaus2• 3 years ago

The point is that your Threads account is your Instagram account. They're not separate.

jklinger410• 3 years ago

To the end user these are two separate apps

You literally use your Instagram login to create a Threads account.

yard20102• 3 years ago

How convenient.

black_puppydog• 3 years ago

That's a pretty neat way of making a "blog post". Reveal.js I guess?

troupo3• 3 years ago

Threads isn't banned in the EU.

The rumour is that Threads couldn't launch in the EU due to upcoming Digital Markets App. Which is also a good thing: https://ia.net/topics/unraveling-the-digital-markets-act

landyrev• 3 years ago

It's funny they ask me to subscribe to their newsletter using my email in the end without any explanation on how they're going to use it :)

deutschepost• 3 years ago

Or you could just log in with the embedded „Log in with Google“ Button. Which ironically probably tracks you too without even clicking it.

lost_tourist5• 3 years ago

It probably notes the timing, position of click, acceleration of mouse.

daft_pink2• 3 years ago

I think it's unfair to compare Facebook actively screwing us to Apple not adopting your proposed metric on their product and passively allowing a very popular app in their app store.

Not a huge fan of Apple, but they aren't Facebook.

JKCalhoun2• 3 years ago

Agree. But the point of the post appears to be to push Apple toward disclosing these bad actors and dark patterns.

Shaming Apple might work. (I think we already know that shaming Meta will have no effect.)

giancarlostoro3• 3 years ago

You mean... like this?

https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/

https://www.apple.com/privacy/government-information-request...

giancarlostoro3• 3 years ago

I was going to say, nobody believes in any privacy Meta alleges. Even when they do E2EE they still collect anything else about you that they can.

GeekyBear7• 3 years ago

Nobody believes anything Meta or Google have to say about privacy.

Google is currently trying to sell additional ways to spy on users built into the newest version of Chrome as a "privacy sandbox".

all of Google's documentation about this feature feels like it was written on opposite day, with Google calling the browser-based advertising platform "a significant step on the path towards a fundamentally more private web."

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/09/googles-widely-oppos...

TrainedMonkey• 3 years ago

That is because of business models - Apple sells you stuff, Meta collects all the info about you and sells that to other people... It's very hard to have privacy when your paycheck depends on selling data.

bugglebeetle2• 3 years ago

I also don’t believe any privacy that Apple alleges, given their actions in China, attempts at iCloud scanning, etc. Post-Snowden, it would seem naive to believe in any such assertions, beyond the level of “this might protect me okay against average criminals, assuming I install all the latest updates and use features like lockdown mode.”

josefresco• 3 years ago

Apple is allowing nefarious actors into their "walled garden". See the "security theater guy" referenced in the article. If you want the benefit of having a "walled garden" to extort developers (30%) and control customers (offloading not allowed), you need to take responsibility when someone you admit into your walled garden harms users.

ksec• 3 years ago

Not a huge fan of Apple, but they aren't Facebook.

Not a Fan of Facebook, but Facebook never claimed to be the defender of Fundamental Human Right or the Guardian of Privacy.

Some people like to label them as evil or the less of evil. I like to label them as evil and hypocrite.

tobr• 3 years ago

Facebook never claimed to be the defender of Fundamental Human Right

“Our Commitment to Human Rights” https://about.fb.com/news/2021/03/our-commitment-to-human-ri...

or the Guardian of Privacy.

“Upholding Our Commitment to Protecting Your Privacy” https://about.fb.com/news/2023/05/upholding-our-commitment-t...

goalieca• 3 years ago

Apple does not have a tracking pixel on half the popular web. Apple's main source of income is through luxury hardware and subscription services. Facebook sells your information and attention to willing buyers.

nicce5• 3 years ago

Apple's ad business, however, is growing all the time. And in significant margins.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/apple-is-an-ad-company-now

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1330127/apple-ad-revenue...

Timber-65396• 3 years ago

What the difference between Meta's tracking pixel and Apple's IDFA?

dazc• 3 years ago

'Apple's main source of income is through luxury hardware and subscription services.'

So why not keep it that way? I understand the temptation of veering from the path of 'do no evil' but Apple are not exactly short of revenue?

Apple, Google and Meta are currently all three sides of the same coin. Take your pick but don't claim any virtue for doing so.

makeitdouble• 3 years ago

Looking at Apple's latest reports, their services and App Store revenue has become the main vector of growth. Considering this includes App Store ads, gambling apps and the bulk of it is in-app purchases, I don't see Apple having a moral high ground.

tomcar2882• 3 years ago

I don't understand why people are so against Advertisers targetting people based on their data? what are people so afraid of?

the way i see it, the worst case scenario is you get an Ad for something you might actually like...

heavyset_go6• 3 years ago

If we're going to get technical, Facebook doesn't sell your information, it sells access to its ad network. Apple has an ad network it sells access to, too.

go_prodev• 3 years ago

I'm not an Apple device user so I could be mistaken, but Apple devices must be collecting all of this information about their users if Facebook is able to access it.

wodenokoto• 3 years ago

They are already tracking all users across the highest grossing App Store and all text entered into the search bar of the 2nd most used browser flows through their servers.

So tracking might not be their business but they can very easily start a big business.

cscurmudgeon3• 3 years ago

This is an AOL-level understanding of how digital ads work.

xbmcuser• 3 years ago

Apple does not need a tracking pixel as it has better information on 50+% of Americans then facebook. Where they live where they eat who they hang out what they spend on all the info is with apple.

atarian• 3 years ago

Agreed, it’s an apples to oranges comparison.

carimura3• 3 years ago

To be fair they aren't. They are demonstrating how Apple is a willing participant obfuscating the actual privacy monstrosities happening by Meta.

xtanx• 3 years ago

I think it's unfair to compare Facebook actively screwing us to Apple not adopting your proposed metric

I don't think they were comparing. They were basically saying that Apple is complicit to what Facebook (and others) are doing with regard to data collection.

factorialboy2• 3 years ago

Incorrect. Apple actively screws us. Just a couple of years ago, launching apps became incredibly slow for some time. Diagnosis: Apple's telemetry web service was having hiccups: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-apps-not-opening-or...

vore2• 3 years ago

I would be hard pressed to call a transient operational issue of their service "actively screwing" you.

threeseed3• 3 years ago

That wasn't a telemetry service.

It was the service that validates the application certificates which is fundamental to the security of the platform.

fmajid2• 3 years ago

If anything the article gives Apple unjustifiable benefit of doubt. Apple exempts itself fron the IDFA transparency requirements it imposes on third-party app developers, and has drawn legal scrutiny in France and the EU, among others:

https://gizmodo.com/apple-iphone-analytics-tracking-even-whe...

Then there is their scanning of iCloud backups for CSAM without being forced to do so by law, something Meta hasn't done with WhatsApp, and obviously not Signal either. CSAM today, messages critical of the powers that be tomorrow, they breached a fundamental ethical line in end-to-end encryption and they are thus now completely untrustworthy on encryption.

Apple's marketing is very effective, but the idea that they are any better than the other Big Tech firms on privacy is just that, marketing fluff without substance if you dig but a little. None of them can be trusted. At this point the only way to really protect your privacy is to connect to the Internet using a MiFI or similar router running open-source software and implementing an outbound firewall blocklist like Jordan Geoghegan's unbound-adblock:

https://geoghegan.ca//unbound-adblock.html

fh93022• 3 years ago

Can you show a source for your iCloud backup CSAM scanning claim? These days iCloud supports E2EE so they have no ability to scan once you enable it.

Signal does not support any cloud backups and WhatsApp uses iCloud so this seems like a flawed comparison.

KaiserPro2• 3 years ago

And yet apple make so much noise about privacy, but don't activly block access to personal information.

Like why do they allow access to the health data stored in the phone?

It's almost like they need facebook to be the devil so they can say how good they are.

lost_tourist5• 3 years ago

You have to opt in to that tho? Some apps do need your health info because they're a health/activity app.

divbzero• 3 years ago

OP is not saying that Apple and Meta are comparable, but rather that Apple should actively protect us to live up to their pro-privacy stance.

godelski2• 3 years ago

I think it's unfair to compare Facebook ... to Apple

They aren't?

They're saying Meta is screwing us and that Apple could do more to protect us. That they spend a lot of time and money talking the talk but they don't so much walk the walk. They sure do a bit, but they could do a lot more. Article definitely isn't saying Apple is as bad as Meta and Meta is 100% the "bad guy" in the story. It's just that our castle walls (Apple) are shiny but not strong. The Great Wall isn't so great if it isn't keeping the Mongolians out and you definitely shouldn't be advertising it as such when it doesn't.

envy2• 3 years ago

Yes, ad-supported social apps collect a ton of data. But the Apple privacy widget list is just a catch-all since people can post anything and Meta uses post content for ad targeting.

Have you gone through Apple's onboarding flow recently? The process of creating an Apple ID and setting up an iPhone is pretty similar, and has similar click-wrap terms to allow endless data use, including [1], [2], [3], [4], and [5].

Apple has done a very good job of marketing privacy. But they engage in pretty much all of the same practices they call others out for.

Also, Threads didn't launch in Europe because of DMA data separation requirements between products. It has nothing to do with the invasiveness of the data collected per se as is implied here [6].

[1] https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/pdfs/apple-privacy-polic... [2] https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-id/ [3] https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/iOS16_iPadOS16.pdf [4] https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/ [5] https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/icloud/

[6] https://www.theverge.com/23789754/threads-meta-twitter-eu-dm...

endisneigh3• 3 years ago

If you want privacy guarantees do not install or use anything connected to the internet. Even HN - with stylometry and a motivated actor it's easy to correlate your username here with any other publicly written text. An even more motivated actor could do this with privately written text (you know, all of those data breaches).

Stay offline for your safety.

This is obviously unrealistic for many in the modern era. So now the question is - regardless of how much or what is collected, which companies are least likely to sell you out, by any means? By pretty much any criteria Apple is near the top of that list. Though, they're not the very, very top. Companies like Mullvad offer services in a way such that nothing is collected at all, and since you can pay cash in theory no way to come back to you.

Personally, for me - it's more important to think about whether or not you trust the organization you're dealing with, than whether or not they're collecting stuff or not. Of the big tech companies I'd say I trust Apple the most from their track record, but I am not under any illusion that I have absolute privacy while using Apple products, and neither should you.

appplication• 3 years ago

Unless you’re a public figure with troves of available text to your name, I don’t really buy the idea that stylometry could be used to identify normal folks or even link accounts between platforms. I would need to see some reality compelling evidence. Especially because character limits and different use patterns for different platforms could throw a wrench in things.

renewiltord• 3 years ago

The HN stylometry site (now dead) was actually pretty effective.

LoganDark• 3 years ago

There are probably plenty of people on here with easily identifiable writing styles, either due to neurodivergence (like me) or whatever else. Though, it wouldn't be necessary for me because my username is just my real name and I already use it everywhere anyway.

airstrike• 3 years ago

you can easily solve stylometry by just passing all your comments through an LLM that rewrites them in a different style or by creating throwaway accounts for each thread (not hard to automate either)

e93849• 3 years ago

Apple collects your data for the same reason Google & Meta do: to sell ads. The only thing Apple is better at is PR.

Scoring69312• 3 years ago

Unless you're Chinese, right? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-ce...

JohnFen4• 3 years ago

Personally, I literally cannot think of a tech company that I trust even a little bit.

Dig1t• 3 years ago

Really well done, this same narrative would also make a good Youtube video.

fh93022• 3 years ago

This article seems to conflate Apple for Meta's privacy violations. Yes, the OS can always make it more difficult to do fingerprinting and the app store could add even more "privacy warnings", but in the end if you use a privacy violating third party app they will always find ways to slurp up all your data. Using this as some kind of argument that Apple doesn't care about privacy is dishonest.

wredue2• 3 years ago

And uh. Let be honest with ourselves here.

Our alternative is currently android.

So instead of meta slurping up all your shit, google vacuums it all up and then some, and lets even more of it trickle in to meta.

toastal7• 3 years ago

Unless you go the custom ROM + microG option that 98% of folks would never do… or you embrace the Linux phone OS which has no ‘apps’ (like that banking app that banned you for rooting your other Linux (Android) phone) & the telephony barely works if it even does.

This duopoly sucks.

jkubicek2• 3 years ago

You can also just not use any Meta apps. It won't completely prevent Meta from building a shadow profile on you, but it'll help.

hospitalJail4• 3 years ago

Don't you need to use Google on Android for them to even have your data? I've seen this propagated, but I havent experienced it.

Anyway, in the decade of using android, I am not sure what privacy has compromised. I havent received any custom ads from just using my phone.

If I search stuff on the official google search, yes I do, but if I use incognito, I do not. (For instance, I like seeing sports scores occasionally, but if I search it with google, I'm bombarded about sports).

Google search isnt Android though.

TheMode• 3 years ago

The OS is the layer below applications. They obviously can control what data is being sent.

Now perhaps that our software model doesn't make it very convenient, but blaming Apple is completely honest and understandable.

We should stop seeing our computers as uncontrollable machines that must leak data, they are human made

dwaite9• 3 years ago

Could you propose a way to do this? Looking for anything that resembles PII on-screen and cutting off network access, perhaps?

kaba08• 3 years ago

How exactly does that work, similarly to this self-driving algorithm?

  if (gonna_hit_another_car()) {
    dont()
  }

raspyberr• 3 years ago

Privacy blog post. vercel-insights.com, www.google.com, 'Sign up with Google', Join 132,793 people from companies like: Microsoft, Amazon, facebook, Google, Disney

"There it is again. That funny feeling."

daneel_w5• 3 years ago

Ironic, isn't it. And the author apparently has nothing at all to say about Android and Google.

nirvdrum5• 3 years ago

The article is about Apple because Apple is the one billing itself as the vanguard of privacy and as the privacy-preserving opponent of Android. It's also quite possible the author doesn't have or use an Android device. If you've invested in a platform for reasons related to privacy, I think it's quite okay to be concerned when that platform falls short on some pretty big privacy invasions.

wiseowise• 3 years ago

Why should they? They compare Meta and Apple, aren’t they?

advisedwang• 3 years ago

I count 3 articles about or comparing Google products on their site: https://growth.design/case-studies

otterley• 3 years ago

"Gotcha! I am very intelligent."

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/259/257/342...

hatefulmoron• 3 years ago

"the XYZ corp is bad!"
please stop supporting them
"https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/259/257/342..."

SushiHippie• 3 years ago

Well..., he says in the comic:

"...there's nothing wrong with a bit of data collection."

dm319• 3 years ago

You don't expect your health data, financial data and purchase history (does that include anything paid for by Apple pay?) to be shared with Meta just because you are trying out Threads.

hospitalJail4• 3 years ago

This kind of blew my mind.

People get soo invested in Apple's Walled Ecosystem. Imagine in 10 years, they flip on a dime and start selling your info.

1 company has health, finance, search/URL history, emails, all pictures ever, etc...

Yikes times 100.

dwaite9• 3 years ago

How is that untrue for nearly any computing platform?

rubberband• 3 years ago

Agreed on "yikes" for sure...

What I'd be interested in is, if [Evil Company] (not necessarily Apple or Google or whomever) got a hold of all the data that was vacuumed up in the process... how is that going to translate into them being able to do disturbing things?

I'm not saying they can't or won't... they record and store this firehose of arbitrary data in arbitrary formats... how they make sense of it. It's not like when you open Threads, it goes "ooh there's pictures of his dog... INSERT INTO Dog SELECT 12345, 'great-dane', {base64}"... They collect all this data... But it's not well formatted or understood.

Don't get me wrong, there's an ocean of money for whomever figures out the most evil stuff to do. I'm simply curious how.

I guess the HN crowd could... disrupt privacy /s

dwaite9• 3 years ago

Indeed, and you aren't consenting to Apple sharing such data by installing/using Threads.

The privacy label he showed is something Apple requires apps to do to indicate what data they may collect and what they share. Meta has basically decided that people can type in anything in a text box, the servers save the posts, other people view the posts, so every checkbox has to be checked.

lemper• 3 years ago

sorry, bud. your site has 'design' as tld but it seems you don't put any mind into content readability on mobile.

screye2• 3 years ago

Apple's core incentives are misaligned with stealing your data. And that's why they are more trustworthy than facebook. It's that simple.

Apple is first and foremost a lifestyle company, then a b2b platform company, then a hardware company.

The lifestyle company ensures customer acquisition and the 'unreasonable' pricing . The platform company is the revenue, the moat and the golden handcuffs for every 3rd party company who works with Apple. The Hardware company ensures that Apple stays ahead, so no one can be the next Apple.

Apple could be an ads company too.

But ads companies bleed trust. That weakens the value of both Apple the lifestyle company and Apple the hardware company. Apple already skims 30% of your app revenue. They don't need to make money from ads, when they can make money from those who make money from ads. Apple being an ads company would spook the partners of Apple the platform company.

I trust Apple not because they're good. But because selling your data hurts their bottomline. Trust capitalistic incentives and teack records, everything else is virtue signalling.

zeroonetwothree• 3 years ago

No corporation has strong incentives not to “steal” your data. It’s just not something 99% of consumers care about so if they can make more money doing it they will.

troupo3• 3 years ago

It’s just not something 99% of consumers care about

Consumers definitely care about this. That's why there are so many dark patterns to tric consumers into providing their data. Also: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/05/07/most-iphone-users-app-t...

kstrauser• 3 years ago

I trust Apple not because they're good. But because selling your data hurts their bottomline. Trust capitalistic incentives and teack records, everything else is virtue signalling.

Nailed it. I trust Apple (as much as I’d trust any giant corp, and there are none more giant) because they have a profit motive to sell me privacy-respecting products. They have a few trillion dollars to lose by burning their customers.

If Apple were good about privacy because Tim Cook is a nice guy who believed in it even if it were a financial loss, that would be one CEO change away from disappearing. That’s not the case. Their stockholders are raking in cash from it. And if there’s one thing I trust in capitalism, it’s that a smart company will do things that make it more money.

hospitalJail4• 3 years ago

I trust Apple not because they're good. But because selling your data hurts their bottomline. Trust capitalistic incentives and teack records, everything else is virtue signalling.

For this same reason I don't trust Apple.

They cut corners on quality and people literally died because of it(Pegasus).

I'd have a hard time trusting Apple since they have literally a black box only they have the key to. At least with a FOSS OS, you can look at the code.

But really, I can't buy iPhones because I hold a secret on my phone that is too valuable.

nologic01• 3 years ago

Another year passes by, their revenue sources dry up (or dont meet expectations) and everybody is scrambling for a new stream. They look at their massive data trove, they double check with the lawyers and your nice little trust framework is up in flames. Thats how capitalism works.

This is all wrong. Conditioning on goldilocks and accepting least bad solutions is not how the digital society should be built. And make no mistake this is no "lifestyle" issue. Its pretty clear that 99% of life will be controlled by some digital artifact or another and there is no opt out.

Tech should be developed and provided on a data sovereign basis by law. People should be prohibited from collecting personal data and applying algorithms that affect people except under strict regulation.

Relying on "markets" and "capitalism" to shape such vital aspects of society is political malfunction for the history books.

giantrobot3• 3 years ago

They look at their massive data trove

I can tell you from first hand experience their data trove isn't the most valuable for farming out for AdTech. They take in a lot of opt-in telemetry and bend over backwards to anonymize it. There's also very clear demarcation of PII and if you even work around something considered PII you as an engineer need to sign all sorts of extra paperwork.

Even if any individual manager or director decided they wanted to leverage PII they'd quickly run afoul of Apple's extremely legally conservative legal department. Because of this data is sanitized and anonymized before it's collected and then further after it's collected.

jonhohle2• 3 years ago

I wonder what it will take for people to finally get fed up with creepy advertising companies.

I received a letter from Target that by default they’ll sell my information to unaffiliated third parties and I have to call or write a letter to opt-out. I’m sure I agreed to that at some point (and anyone signing up for a loyalty program that doesn’t cost anything should realize that’s what they are agreeing to, even if they are not explicitly told that), but perhaps they should be required to explicitly list the actual costs to the customer along side the benefits.

Last week I was picking up a prescription at CVS. In between confirming name and address and signing for payment or receipt of Rx they slipped a marketing agreement that I stupidly agreed to before realizing that it wasn’t an agreement related to the prescription purchase. So in someone’s compromised medical state (assuming), when you just want to get medicine to get back to normal they hide an agreement to sell information.

None of this improves my life. I just want to transact money for items and end the relationship until it happens again. I don’t need every advertiser knowing every one of or even habitual purchase I make.

If you work in ad-tech or are responsible for these front-end schemes to collect more information:

1: screw you

2: it’s super creepy and even if you’re not creepy, the stuff you’re working on and the people you are working for are

3: seriously, it’s really disgusting, immoral, and deceptive to find all manor of ways to trick people into agreeing to sell personal information that they assume (rightly) is private (even when done in public)

4: start leaking information on schemes, tricks, & loopholes so something can be done to destroy invasive ad tech

endisneigh3• 3 years ago

I wonder what it will take for people to finally get fed up with creepy advertising companies.

As long as people get "free stuff" people won't get fed up.

ryandrake• 3 years ago

What "free stuff" is OP getting from Target and CVS in exchange for the data they are collecting and sharing? Nothing. We're already not getting free stuff and people still aren't fed up.

spandrew• 3 years ago

It doesn't matter whether it's free or you're paying either — your consumer data from the grocery store and other retail purchasers is already tied to the ad grid too. If you buy a can of cat food you'll get cat toy ads on Instagram.

The harsh reality, despite what privacy pundits might say, is that people... just don't really care. And that's fine? It's great Apple lets me tell an app not to track me. But if they didn't? It doesn't make material difference to me. Okay I bought cat food and now I see cat toys Instagram ads that I may or may not buy... okay?

It's not like insurance companies are able to use the data to deny you health coverage or something (yet, anyway). It's just used to support more consumerism atm. When that bridge is crossed then people might care, until then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Matumio• 3 years ago

I went to a routine check-up at the ophthalmologist. Later I got an email with the PDF bill. Except the PDF wasn't in the email.

I had to visit the site of whatever service provider they use. I had to login with 2FA and accept their terms. The terms allow third parties to send me targeted advertisement based on my medical history. (They are very explicit about that. I guess that's progress... This is in Europe.)

So the stuff I get "for free" when I sell my medical history is the right to view my own medical bills. If I don't agree, I just get charged some random amount via my health insurance. I could bother them to share their copy, but by default they don't.

MikusR2• 3 years ago

I wonder what it will take for people to finally get fed up with creepy advertising companies.

As long as they continue to make shiny new i devices - nothing.

heavyset_go6• 3 years ago

None of this improves my life.

Now you'll get some ads that recommender systems think they should show you, based on your shopping experience at CVS, that could be potentially embarrassing if you have anyone over, or have someone else using your devices.

I was able to guess a family member's previously private medical condition based on the ads they got while I was at their place.

ianlevesque• 3 years ago

And you validated this with them? Deity help whoever tries to diagnose me based on my ads.

draugadrotten• 3 years ago

You know, I hate privacy-intrusive ads...but if a business would present me with an honest option to click on - "Show me your best guess what you think I want to buy!" - I would enjoy clicking on it. When I want. Because I do want to shop, and I do want to buy. I just hate being monitored in secret and nudged in secret to influence my behaviour against my own will. Let me shop - be transparent about your AI recommendations, and I might even buy the suggestion. Just stay away from the shady stuff.

JohnFen4• 3 years ago

wonder what it will take for people to finally get fed up with creepy advertising companies.

I wonder this every day. I got fed up years ago. Now, I'm simply enraged by it all. And, worse, it's an impotent rage since there's nothing I can do about it.

I already block as much tracking as possible, avoid giving money to companies that engage in these practices (or that make use of the services of companies that engage in these practices), pay in cash in physical stores, avoid online shopping as much as possible, etc.

And none of it is enough. Ad companies are at war with people, and are winning.

godelski2• 3 years ago

FYI, most loyalty programs you can sign up for without giving any information if you're willing to use a card. If you aren't, usually they accept invalid or random phone numbers.

Of course this isn't a solution and we should resolve the issue, but it is at least a partial stop gap.

Guvante2• 3 years ago

I don't know why everyone points to taking pictures and audio as scary on social media apps.

The ability to record and post a video is effectively baseline functionality and requires those permissions.

Certainly Meta is doing shady things here but not all of the permissions are necessarily sketchy. (I would agree that much like position data more specificity would be good for permissions)

lost_tourist5• 3 years ago

Not for us passive social media users. I just flip through friends stuff or news /blogs that I follow, no need for pictures/audio from me. Definitely something to be opted into manually.

jhugg2• 3 years ago

You do, in fact, opt into this manually on an iPhone.

Guvante2• 3 years ago

Both Android and iOS opt in manually to those things.

They also list them on the app store to avoid being surprised that the flashlight app records audio.

baxuz• 3 years ago

Wish this could have a normal article format instead of the cheap meme-worthy avatar generator.

jonathankoren• 3 years ago

I knew it was going to be bad when it asked me to turn my phone. The whole thing gave me mandated HR training course vibes.

lost_tourist5• 3 years ago

I don't think this was meant for the HN crowd, to be honest. We'll just have to deal with the cutesy controls. I thought it was fun, I don't think everything has to be straight text and static images.

sfc32• 3 years ago

That was a fun little presentation, nothing super-new there but it did have a good idea about showing the trust level of the application with a badge.

All credibility was then swept away by "Sign up with Google" to the mailing list on the last page. Hilarious.

monetus• 3 years ago

It is crazy how disingenuous this comic is. I get that it was fun to make, but damn I wish that it informed rather than propagandized.

shreddit• 3 years ago

Oh the irony:

warkdarrior2• 3 years ago

But it's ethical, it says so in the name!

jkubicek2• 3 years ago

There's nothing wrong with a bit of data collection

I would argue that there is something wrong with a bit of data collection. Just take credit score for example, there's never an ethical reason for a social network to ever ask for or know my credit score.

edit: the author implies that collecting this kind of stuff is OK as long as companies are transparent about what they're doing and why. I don't think there's any level of transparency that makes collecting this user data OK.

stringsandchars• 3 years ago

Ironic that the last screen wants you to 'drop a comment' on LinkedIn... or even signup for the mailing list 'with Google'.

I guess this guy thought knocking Apple for Meta's unscrupulous methods would just guarantee some nerd-kudos, but didn't feel any need to follow his own advice in practice.

daneel_w5• 3 years ago

I don't understand why the author insists on throwing cheap jabs at Apple by mixing them up with Meta's privacy violations. I think Apple's new privacy/integrity lists for apps is a commendable favor. The Google "sponsorship" at the end doesn't aid the credibility either.

rubyfan• 3 years ago

I find it ironic that at the end he asks for my email address.

felipetrz• 3 years ago

Ironic that the last slide asks me to subscribe to a newsletter with my Google account.

srg0• 3 years ago

Awesome slides, but then I tried to subscribe to growth.design newsletter using a Firefox Relay email, but mozmail email masks are rejected. So much for privacy.

throwawa86753• 3 years ago

preface: i don't have any receipts to physically prove this.

i worked at a large health co. that had a partnership with apple to publish an app (which apple wrote the code for, designed, etc.) under health co.'s name. the purpose of the partnership was to promote use of HealthKit on apple devices and increase sales/adoption.

much later, i took over technical ownership of the partnership and while i was getting up to speed, the value of the partnership didn't make much sense to me from apple's perspective -- it seemed to be incredibly beneficial to health co. and ostensibly not very much so for apple, health co. got a free, polished health app for its customers and apple got… not much of anything? a small boost in sales at most. yet, it was clear it was a priority for apple based on how they managed the partnership (very responsive, helpful, etc.).

suddenly, a few months after i got up to speed, apple informed health co. that they were terminating the relationship on a near future date (a couple months at most). this was surprising given the seeming importance of the partnership to apple in the past, and we weren't able to get convincing reasons as to why apple's attitude had changed.

but then, once it came time for apple to transfer ownership of the app to use, things got a bit odd.

* at first, they told us they'd be fine with handing over non-sensitive code and assets (e.g. removing apple internal libraries, etc.).

* then, they said instead of handing over code they'd do a technical overview of the architecture and the code but couldn't give us the physical code.

* then finally, they reversed course entirely and informed us it was impossible to de-instrument their sensitive "telemetry" from the code and couldn't share any information about the code with us at all (mind you, this was an app that was published by US that we were legally responsible for).

this led me to suppose that their code was doing something they didn't want us to see. given the purpose of the app, the most valuable, nefarious thing you could do was vacuum up massive amounts of user health data about all of health co.'s users -- not only that, but being able to do it at one step removed, not legally AS apple (not their app, after all).

this speculation was reinforced when i realized the date of termination of our partnership was one day prior to the change to the App Store's privacy disclosure guidelines -- they made one final update to the App Store (probably removing the telemetry, etc.) and didn't have to make a disclosure about data usage. any subsequent updates would have had to have made this disclosure.

lefixx• 3 years ago

Apple's crime is not doing enough even though it's one of the biggest tech giants and not collecting data is against their interests. Cataloging and informing users of all the possible info going into the apps is a really good tool against data harvesting. In an "Apple vs Meta", apple is defo the winner.

Still apple is not your friend and is actively working against your interests in all kinds of ways.

joemaller12• 3 years ago

Pro tip: Use landscape mode!

No.

joemaller12• 3 years ago

Wait, this whole confusing click-through mess of a rant about privacy and protecting our data ended with a Google sign-up form and a post on LinkedIn? Seriously?

jp57• 3 years ago

The "Sign-up with Google" button at the end is the punch line.

goenning• 3 years ago

Signing in with Google is your choice, the author is not putting the article behind a login wall. I see nothing wrong with it.

dwaite9• 3 years ago

It is weird that the Apple angle in the article is basically "Apple isn't changing store rules immediately and retroactively to block a company who we don't like"

hedora3• 3 years ago

I love the irony of the “sign up with google” button at the end of the slideshow.

rapht• 3 years ago

At this point, I don't really care who is to blame between Apple allowing Meta's intrusivity, and Meta or any others just being intrusive.

There is no solution other than "regulate the personal data market out of existence" - meaning going one step further than GDPR and just forbid any use of my personal data except in the context of fulfilling an actual purchase or specific request by me and for communicating with me to the extent I allow it. All other uses are banned.

atomaltera• 3 years ago

Does that mean that Threads has access to my geolocation even if I did not grand such permission to the app in ios settings? Same question for browsing history and other items.

legel• 3 years ago

Wow, just shows how powerful a brilliant UX design + passionate intelligent activism can be. I love where it lands, with concrete proposals to visualize privacy scores. +1

gaucheries2• 3 years ago

The author’s point about Threads’ privacy/data usage seems moot. Presumably they already use Instagram, and that app’s “Data Linked to You” section in the iOS App Store is comparable to Threads.

I thought that they made a good point about how the Threads screen that links to the privacy policies doesn’t highlight the links very well. But it seems to me that the average social media user probably doesn’t care and would gloss over it anyway.

I liked their suggestion that the App Store use a “privacy rating” feature.

gaucheries2• 3 years ago

The person who downvoted my comment should reply.

snoack• 3 years ago

Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

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