Eh, they can’t be honest about wanting you to use the app to be able to collect your data better.
My favorite non sense is with Reddit, if I browse an NSFW page in incognito on mobile, a popup appears : browse anonymously download the app. Right
old.reddit to browse NSFW pages.
To be fair, they didn’t say who it was better for.
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You will also love all the notifications
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I just went thru this w/ Progressive. They basically demanded that I install the app to make a claim. I have a DOD phone and I can’t install anything on it. Whats a shit show…
McDonald’s: Are you using our app today?
Me: Why the fuck would I do that???
Because they charge you 50% more if you don’t use their app.
Which means the extra data they can grab via their mobile app is worth at least that much to them, if not more.
The app doesn’t capture anything that you don’t specifically agree to when it pops up and asks if you want to give it access to it. I’ve been using the app for months and I simply said “no” when it asked the “request to track” question. I can literally see that it has zero access to any of my data on my phone.
It’s not actually that simple. Maybe you click no and don’t give the app access to your contact, but your friends who have you on their contact list might click yes, and now they have your contact info despite you clicking no. I imagine they’ll have similar tricks for gathering other type of data as well.
Can’t collect as much data on web platform due to all those pesky ad blockers…
But as a mobile app:
I would get slapped with a restraining order for stalking if I’d do this IRL. But companies successfully convinced themselves that targetted ads are effective, completely ignoring the reality that everybody is just fed up by them. Browsing the web without an adblocker is atrocious and it feels like they are trying to bully you into buying their nonsense.
I think that all started in the 90s when the focus on brand recognition was insane and actually resonated with society for reasons unbeknownst to me. The shit that’s happening now is just the resulting endgame. We 90s kids really fucked up, I’m sorry.
Which is exactly why Reddit went after alternate clients and their mobile website is so crippled. They need to sell that sweet sweet user metadata to advertisers
If this kind of data collection in-app happened in the 90s and 00s it would be classified as a malware🤣
Then block it? Idk. My android phone doesn’t give any permission until the app explicitly asks it to perform a task, and I can then just say no. The app works just fine.
Yep, same with iOS. This is blatant fear mongering. On iOS the app has never even requested access to my contacts, as shown here:
This is very misleading. I’ve got the app on iOS. It basically has no permission to access any of that data, and I’m pretty sure it has never even requested it - which it has to do if it wants it.
You can literally go in to settings on your iPhone and click those categories and see which apps have requested the info and which you’ve given permission to. LinkedIn hasn’t even requested 95% of those - the only one it has access to on my phone is my photos because I uploaded one once. I can revoke that access at will.
I’m pretty sure when putting the app on the App Store they’ve just gone “tick all the boxes saying we may request access to this” without even looking at it.
“We can datamine you better on the app”
Right, they didn’t say who it’s better for. It’s better for them on the app.
They actually can’t unless you specifically choose to let them.
On iOS the only thing from the entire list on the app store that LinkedIn has access to is my photos, and I’m pretty sure it was just the single photo that I uploaded (as iOS gives you the option to do a per photo permission). Contacts? Nope, can’t access them - and the app hasn’t even requested to access them. Location? Nope. Search History? Nope.
It’s actually easier to stop their datamining on mobile than it is on the web.
They absolutely can, though. So many apps are secretly sending anything and everything you do in the app to 3rd parties without your knowledge. Use a firewall app that has logging and you’ll see what I mean. NetGuard is a good one for Android. (Don’t know of any for iOS cause I don’t own any Apple products, but I’m sure they’re out there.) Most major apps are selling you off to Facebook, for example. (Spotify does it.)
At least with with a browser, you can increase your privacy settings to block trackers, and use addons like UBlock Origin and NoScript. With an app they can do whatever they want with your data without you even knowing it.
So many apps are secretly sending anything and everything you do in the app to 3rd parties without your knowledge
This is no different to websites via browsers though, so it’s a moot point.
With an app they can do whatever they want with your data without you even knowing it.
No, they can’t, because they don’t have access to “your data”. All they can get is usage data, which they’re entitled to because you’re using their product.
The information available to a installed app is greater then that of a website in a browser. Full stop. You can argue till your blue in the face about what permissions you grant in iOS, but you are relying on iOS to not leak data (they do), and what they consider “tracking” - which may differ from what you consider tracking. Browsers provide much higher barriers to system information.
There is no reason a website shouldn’t work on a phone, many cell phones today are more powerful then laptops 5-10 years ago. A progressive web app (hi Voyager!) is a excellent way to minimize development time, and provide a consistent experience across platforms (desktop, android, iOS), and it doesn’t require yet another app.
The benefits of having a app on a device are LEGION! You get more telemetry, you get to push notifications, you get to push updates, you get access to logged in accounts on the device. You can correlate location data (by ip tracking if nothing else) even when the app isn’t in use. Depending on the operating system permissions, you can get lots of data and feed it into some analytics framework that is much greater then people realize.
TLDR: Apps should be optional, any site that uses dark patterns to push a application install is user-hostile and doesn’t have your best interest at heart. (See Reddit).
“The app can still get your contacts even if the OS never gives it permission to and clearly shows that it doesn’t have access to them. Trust me bro”
Yeaaaaaaah nah.
Your quoting me but I didn’t say that. Your argument style is disingenuous.
But happily you don’t have to believe anyone, you can test.
References that are illustrating here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28819318
First link:
This is before the introduction of Apple’s new opt-in mechanism for tracking in 2021. Our dataset therefore reflects privacy in the app ecosystem shortly before this policy change.
Cool, so the data is completely irrelevant.
Trackers are not the same as having access to your personal data that is on your device. No amount of trackers on an iOS app can make an app have access to your contacts without you literally clicking allow access to your contacts when it requests it.
Trackers track what you’re doing, they don’t datamine your phone.
Can’t serve as many ads on the website because of ad blockers tho.
Apps also provide the developer with way more data collection as websites only get a sliver of access that apps get. Mostly, LI wants your contacts.
There’s a reason we have an ongoing class action suit stretching back decades against LI and their invasive practices.
They have always been one of the worst social media companies probably scummier than Fb.
Can’t track your location and other things you do, too
ad blockers work even better in apps thou?
since due to play store limitations all ads are coming from a single, easily blockable domainNot everyone has a PiHole (but everyone should!)
I deleted the Twitter app recently and replaced it on my phone with a launcher bookmark to the website. Loss of functionality was minimal. I lose notifications but on the flipside my browser strips out all the ads and I have 250MB less bloat on my phone. So I’d say I’m on the winning side. Probably true to for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit and any other app which is just a thin wrapper over some HTML.
Psst, that’s web 2.0. Web 3.0 is stuff like Mastodon, Lemmy, IPFS, cryptocurrencies (unfortunately), Kbin…
this is web 3.0? looks more like web 1.0. not that i’m complaining, i like it
Yeah, that’s the idea. Web 3.0, in some places, looks a lot like Web 1.0, which is amazing!
Megathreads of links are so web 1.0. You’d be crying in joy if you found curated five hundred links in a geocities page. Masterlist of five thousand? swoon
Users scattered all over different instances? You sign visitor logs everywhere with your email and sites and basic description so people can find you. Especially if you’re on personal servers, and usually you host other people you invite to share the space.
Communities? Groups? No, no, webrings.
i hate linkedin so much
I joined it early on not thinking much of it, accepting invites left, right and centre. And then all the recruitment agents began spamming the shit out of me because I was a link so it cost them nothing. If a job said Java and my resume said Java they’d spam me even if I’m on another continent.
So I unlinked the lot of them and my life is relatively peaceful. If agents want to talk to me they need to send me an InMail which costs a point in their subscription but I still ignore them just to waste their points. I hate the service and I hate agents. If I was ever interested in a job spec that some agent sent me then I’d figure out the company from the clues in the spec and approach them directly. Because fuck agents and fuck LinkedIn.
thanks for reminding me to delete the app
They can harvest more personal data with an app, why would they improve the website.
The lemmy app voyager (wefwef) proves this id a lie. That webapp could have fooled me it was a native app.
“we can track you better on the app”
I dunno, I get what they’re saying. On my phone I much rather use a native app if it’s available than a website, even if they have a dedicated mobile version. Navigation is much better, UI is better, etc.
The app is asking for a million permissions that are completely unnecessary. They are just as much of a data kraken as facbeook, google and apple, with the exception of people being fully transparent about professional achievements and qualifications. That’s a definite reason to never give them access to my phone.
It’s not though. Do you have the app? I do. On iOS you can literally see what it has already requested to have access to, and if you said yes or no.
The app has never requested access to my contacts, meaning it has zero access to my contacts. Location? Not even once. Search history? Never. Like this isn’t even hard to prove. I just took this screenshot an hour ago:
See? Linkedin has never requested access to my contacts, which is the very first thing listed in the screenshot on this thread about what information it may get access to. People seem to be overlooking the word “may”. It may have access to your contacts…if you try to do something specifically with your phone contacts and then it asks you if it can and you say yes. Outside of that? No access.
The only data that the app has access to is what I do on the app, which is exactly the same data that it has access to when I access linkedin via their website in a web browser.
when i don’t use a site often, i don’t want to waste 200MB of space installing the app.
it’s fine for an app to have more functions than the website, but some companies cripple their mobile website functions just to get people to download the app so they can track user behavior more. sites that do that just make me stop using them. looking at you, tripadvisor and yelp.
Which is fair. If it’s something you use all the time, obviously an app is usually going to be the way to go.
But the reason they want you to install the app is so they can send push notifications and track you more effectively
Sure, but on iOS at least you can simply deny any tracking requests. I just looked and out of the listed data points on the App Store that the app might collect, it has access to literally none of them other than “other data”, which in my case is my photos since I have uploaded photos to linked in. I can retract that permission at will too.
It hasn’t even requested access to my contacts, for example. If it had it would show in the contacts section in the iOS settings menu here:
there are a bunch of other things they can track that aren’t considered “tracking requests”. time you spend on each page, whether you click a new popup, etc.
Whether you click a new popup on what? In the Linkedin app?
On the website they’re already tracking how long you spend on each page and everything you click on.
Websites can track clicks like you said, but on top of that, apps can track where exactly on the screen you tap, how long you scroll, where on the page you paused to look, etc.
Websites have been tracking that exact same stuff for years.
If you read the link you sent, you’ll see that those tools don’t exist on most websites - it’s a dedicated software for screen recording so product managers can understand how users use the site.
It’s actually a great example to highlight what I said - on most websites, you can’t track detailed user behavior, only clicks and the time of the click. You need to install software to find that out. On apps, you can track where the user scrolls, where they stop scrolling/scroll more slowly, and a lot more.
On a website, all you know is that the user took 2 minutes between loading the page and clicking button X. On an app, you can see that the user scrolled on the right edge (probably right handed), paused along the way at section A, exited the app (maybe they got a notification), came back to scroll down and click on button X.
