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0 pointszepto5y ago0 comments

This is just not how it works.

Apple’s rules relies on both controlling the API and the App Store rules, to prevent tracking and other kinds of misuse.

Facebook’s store simply wouldn’t have rules against fingerprinting etc, and of course the Facebook store app itself could issue and manage tracking identifiers.

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dylan6045y ago· 2 in thread

So you're saying that even if a developer doesn't want to bother with the tracking, the FB store will demand you put stuff in to feed their beast? Again, I still say that the device itself will need to grant an app access to things like GPS, etc. If the user says OK to that request, then whatevs, but the OS will still force the app to request permission.

zeptoOP5y ago

> So you're saying that even if a developer doesn't want to bother with the tracking, the FB store will demand you put stuff in to feed their beast?

No - why would this conversation have anything to do with developers who don’t want to do tracking?

I’m saying that developers who do want to track users across apps (including anyone who used the Facebook api) would be able to do so without getting user consent. If they couldn’t get an identifier from the OS, they would be able to get one from the store app, so OS based permissions would be irrelevant.

> Again, I still say that the device itself will need to grant an app access to things like GPS, etc. If the user says OK to that request, then whatevs, but the OS will still force the app to request permission.

This is irrelevant to preventing tracking of user behavior across apps without consent which is what Facebook is arguing for.

However you raise a good additional point. An app which asks for GPS to provide a local feature would also be able to sell that data behind the scenes without consent, if the app was sold on a store other than Apple’s.

None of this is good.

dylan6045y ago

> No - why would this conversation have anything to do with developers who don’t want to do tracking?

Because it's FB. Pure and simple. Why would you think for one second that it would be anything different? You want to use/live in the FB environment, you play by their rules. That means using their SDK in all of your things deployed via their environment.

So in this case, it's good for the goose but not the gander when FB slaps terms on their platform, but not when Apple does it on theirs. Yes cart->horse, but you just know it's going that direction.

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