Google-backed Groups Criticize Apple's New Warnings on User Tracking (reuters.com) 46
A group of European digital advertising associations on Friday criticized Apple's plans to require apps to seek additional permission from users before tracking them across other apps and websites. From a report: Apple last week disclosed features in its forthcoming operating system for iPhones and iPads that will require apps to show a pop-up screen before they enable a form of tracking commonly needed to show personalized ads. Sixteen marketing associations, some of which are backed by Facebook and Google, faulted Apple for not adhering to an ad-industry system for seeking user consent under European privacy rules. Apps will now need to ask for permission twice, increasing the risk users will refuse, the associations argued. Facebook and Google are the largest among thousands of companies that track online consumers to pick up on their habits and interests and serve them relevant ads. Apple said the new feature was aimed at giving users greater transparency over how their information is being used. In training sessions at a developer conference last week, Apple showed that developers can present any number of additional screens beforehand to explain why permission is needed before triggering its pop-up.
Google and pals don't like us stopping tracking (Score:5, Insightful)
Good. Well done Apple. Keep it up. Google is Big Brother in disguse.
Heck, I hate all advertising and being tracked is even worse. What I do, where I go and how I live my life is my business and nothing to do with Google and Facebook and anyone else. Bog Off.
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Yep. This is is a big reason I prefer Apple products.
Re: Google and pals don't like us stopping trackin (Score:2)
Yep. This is is a big reason I prefer Apple products.
Just wait; the thread is young.
The Apple Haters will soon take over the thread; inventing all sorts of ways that Apple is Teh Evilz for doing this
Re: Google and pals don't like us stopping tracki (Score:2)
No doubt. Itâ(TM)s is a pity as there is no reason to be so black and white about things. I simply prefer to acquire my operating system from a hardware company rather than an ad network. When it comes to privacy, follow the money.
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Yep. This is is a big reason I prefer Apple products.
Just wait; the thread is young.
The Apple Haters will soon take over the thread; inventing all sorts of ways that Apple is Teh Evilz for doing this
I love the ones that call Apple names like "authoritarian" and "totalitarian" for having a phone that doesn't let them side-load apps that will slow their phones down to a crawl as they track their every move. Of course, they will also include some jabs at Apple users, calling us hipsters and more worried about fashion than function.
Meanwhile, my iPhone 6S is still chugging along nicely and I'm typing this on a 2009 MacBook Pro I bought brand new and the only thing I've had to replace was the battery.
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You can side load anything you want on an iPhone. Just sign up for a free developer account and go to town.
Apple makes it inconvenient to put shady shit on your phone, not impossible.
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Now you did it. Apple Haters are all going to pounce on how the battery is not replaceable and you must've bought a new MacBook. .(Yes, I know the battery is replaceable, it's just you need a screwdriver and a bit or intelligence now to do it, but it's been possible for ages).
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The Late 2008-Early 2009 MacBook Pros have an honest-to-bog tool-free replaceable battery, with a latch and panel that pops off the bottom of the laptop. I believe this was the last model to feature this capability.
Wrong strategy (Score:3)
Re: Wrong strategy (Score:1)
These are great technical solutions but eventually the advertisers will find a way around these, too.
I propose a more simple and direct solution: kill the advertisers who track us all. Just find and kill them. They can't be that hard to find. After the first few online ad agencies vanish because they're all dead, the others will voluntarily find more productive use for their time.
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Instead, what we need to do is poison the well. Let advertisers gather data on you, but fill it with so much garbage that it becomes useless. e.g. Create a browser extension which every 10-15 seconds clicks on a random link and loads that page in a background tab (and continues clicking on a random link in that tab). Basically turn the tables and do unto advertisers what they've been doing to us with spam. Flood them with so much fake browsing data that it becomes economically unfeasible for them to try to sort out the real data from the spam of fake data.
You can already do this easily, there are numerous browser extensions for firefox that do this. I have one that adds random noise to the canvas fingerprint, one that rotates the user-agent randomly between 20 or so variants every minute, one that spoofs the system timezone and rotates it randomly, ad-blockers that click on random ads as they are being blocked etc etc. Most of which isn't really needed, this kind of tracking is nearly always done by a third party script which is easily blocked. The problem
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Poor show mentioning the extension without telling us which one it is.
I'm aware of AdNauseum. What other decent ones exist?
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Re: Wrong strategy (Score:2)
a random link and loads that page in a background tab (and continues clicking on a random link in that tab).
Sounds like a great idea; that is, until it starts blindly-following links into something not-so-innocent, and the Federal Bureau of Incineration busts down your door and hauls you and you computers away!
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Good. Well done Apple. Keep it up. Google is Big Brother in disguse.
Heck, I hate all advertising and being tracked is even worse. What I do, where I go and how I live my life is my business and nothing to do with Google and Facebook and anyone else. Bog Off.
Exactly.
You can bet what Google and "marketing associations" complained about, would be a good thing for user privacy and bad for advertisers and dataminers.
Apple isn't going far enough (Score:2)
Even Apple isn't providing the level of granularity I want for approving tracking.
I want to be prompted to approve each and every single piece of data collected about me at the moment it is collected. I also want to be prompted to approve each and every time a piece of data about me is used, and also be given the opportunity to permanently delete that data.
For example:
* Facebook.com wants to store your visit to "Google-backed Groups Criticize Apple" at slashdot.com on Jul-03: Yes / No
* Facebook.com wants t
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Little Snitch for the Mac is great for this. I wish it was possible to have it for iDevices.
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Pretty much the only legitimate reason to jailbreak these days - because IPFirewall is the best. It's effectively an outgoing firewall like Little Snitch and pops up a prompt asking if you want to allow/deny a connection.
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Also check out the uBlock Matrix browser extension. Control what gets loaded on a per-resource and per-domain basis.
Re: Apple isn't going far enough (Score:2)
ublock origin
for all your personalised advert needs.
Permission needs to time-out (Score:1)
Right now if you accidentally give permission to an app it is permanent (unless you go digging through settings). It would be better if this permission only lasted 7 days or so and then had to be re-approved.
Cry me a river of crocodile tears (Score:2)
So people who offer their "free" services by monetizing your ass off don't like if Apple makes it easier to escape "a personalized experience", or in plain speak a more invasive one.
Where's that dude with his picture of the world's smallest violin when you need him?
Better headline (Score:3, Funny)
"Greedy, nosy, money-grabbing cunts burst into tears and fly into a rage, throw their toys out the pram, and lash out at a company telling them to get permission."
Re:Better headline (Score:5, Insightful)
Greedy, nosy, money-grabbing cunts burst into tears and fly into a rage, throw their toys out the pram, and lash out at a company telling them to get permission."
Personally, I call them "privacy rapists". [urbandictionary.com]
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And I prefer to reserve the word "rape" for those who commit acts of sexual violence against unconsenting people.
Re:Better headline (Score:4, Informative)
So it fits just fine in the use I made above; yes, it's a harsh word, but don't get offended just because I still used it properly.
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The word "rape" was used correctly. Your attempt to narrow its definition is both ignorant and foolish. People whose command of English is superior to yours might suggest that your attempt to rape the language by "dumbing it down" to your pathetic standard is unacceptable.
Let me put it this way: your vocabulary is mean and impoverished, but more than adequate to express your thoughts.
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Did I ask you to lash out at me?
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To answer your question, yes. By being such a proudly-ignorant jackass, you pretty much mailed out a gold-plated RSVP.
I was happy to oblige.
Now please go off somewhere and bring your English up to a standard that will allow you to sit in the adult area without embarrassing yourself.
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And I prefer to reserve the word "rape" for those who commit acts of sexual violence against unconsenting people.
Which is fine and all, but you missed the last few meetings to redefine the word, each by a few hundred years late.
Etymology
The term rape originates from the Latin rapere (supine stem raptum), "to snatch, to grab, to carry off". Since the 14th century, the term has come to mean "to seize and take away by force". In Roman law, the carrying off of a woman by force, with or without intercourse, constituted "raptus".In Medieval English law the same term could refer to either kidnapping or rape in the modern s
You used the word 'cunts' (Score:1)
LOL (Score:3)
"criticized Apple's plans to require apps to seek additional permission from users before tracking them across other apps and websites."
Hello, I'm your stalker and I would like to follow you and watch everything you do, forever, is that OK?
Marketing People (Score:2)
Marketing majors are the ones who try to major in finance, economics, etc. with their eyes on an MBA but they can't even hack their bachelor's program so their advisor recommends they change their major to marketing. At my university there was this big finance test and after the test about a third of the finance majors suddenly became marketing majors.
A marketing major is basically, "I want to go into business but I can't do math." Unfortunately, they're able to hire data scientists. Otherwise, their inepti
Well duh (Score:2)
Apps will now need to ask for permission twice, increasing the risk users will refuse, the associations argued.
That's the point. Thanks for confirming you believe it will work.
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The point is not to "increase the chance the user will say no". Maybe that's the point only if you're Apple.
The point should be to let the user make an informed decision. For that to happen, 1 informed confirmation is enough.
Well done Apple (Score:3)
Change where they're spending (Score:2)
Seriously, if Google et al put half the money they spend on dishonest activities like this, bribing^W "lobbying" senators, etc, into actually improving their services then maybe they wouldn't constantly be at the center of the privacy storm in the first place.
Apple is pretty much the only company that is both in a position to try to slow these abuses down AND willing to do so. So, yet again, though it pains me to say it, "gj Apple!".
What's most interesting though are the recent studies showing that targeted
Fuck Google (Score:3)
This is why I buy Apple products.
Whenever the tracking is off (Score:2)
Show more ads from Apple's competitions.