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).
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.
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.
This is no different to websites via browsers though, so it’s a moot point.
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
https://blog.lockdownprivacy.com/2021/09/22/study-effectiveness-of-apples-app-tracking-transparency.html
First link:
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.