I loathe the wording that’s been normalised around tracking. The options for the upcoming dialog are “Allow” or “Ask app not to track”.
Why the fuck do I need to ask, as if the app is free to deny my humble request not to be spied upon? The whole tracking industry is awash with weasel words and vagueness in an effort to have us make ill-informed decisions.
You need to ask because Apple can’t enforce on an API level that apps don’t track you. Less vague language may lure people into a false sense of security. In theory Apple should be safeguarding you from malicious apps, in practice they regularly turn a blind eye once an app is big enough that an app not working becomes a problem for Apple rather than for the app developers.
I also think the language in that prompt is very much intentional. Apple doesn’t want apps to track their users, so I think they’ve added an ick-factor to the prompt. On Android, buttons are labels with things like “allow” or “deny”.
The only way to get rid of the tracking system is to make it interesting for companies to stop tracking you. 1 star rating + uninstall + switch to a competitor is the best you can do.
That’s a very valid point, albeit incredibly disappointing. Mechanisms to block tracking should be built into the operating system, but I also realise that it would probably be impossible to accurately implement.
“Ask app not to track” is accurate to what you’re choosing, I just hate that we’ve gotten to this point.
Apple does actually build quite a few privacy preserving technologies into its operating system. The only unique identifier they intend to provide is the ID that the “we want to stalk you” prompts are referring to.
Tracking companies have proven to find new ways to track users, unfortunately, but they are trying their very best. Something you can’t say of Microsoft or Google.
As far as Apple has been capable of so far, the only unique device identifier apps on their platform can get access to is the one that you need to accept a prompt for. However, they know damn well that there are ways of fingerprinting devices that they can’t prevent (without fucking up the user experience) so it would be dishonest to pretend that saying “no” blocks these attempts.
Apps requiring accounts to be useful, for instance, can be tracked by the user ID on the app’s end. That’s not something Apple can ever prevent through technical means.
I think it is this way because Apple thought it would be misleading if the option was “deny tracking”, because there isn’t a specific technical mechanism to ensure that. It’s unfortunate but I’d rather it was honest than lied.
I came across a website today that had on off toggles for all their stuff cookies. When you clicked the toggle the colors of the “x” and the check mark changed between purple and black. I could not tell which was off and which was on. It made me very angry
I loathe the wording that’s been normalised around tracking. The options for the upcoming dialog are “Allow” or “Ask app not to track”.
Why the fuck do I need to ask, as if the app is free to deny my humble request not to be spied upon? The whole tracking industry is awash with weasel words and vagueness in an effort to have us make ill-informed decisions.
Fucking parasites.
Let’s not forget. Yes or not till I accidentally click the wrong button
Or even worse, you’ll hit yes, because hitting reject is not an option for whatever fucking reason
You need to ask because Apple can’t enforce on an API level that apps don’t track you. Less vague language may lure people into a false sense of security. In theory Apple should be safeguarding you from malicious apps, in practice they regularly turn a blind eye once an app is big enough that an app not working becomes a problem for Apple rather than for the app developers.
I also think the language in that prompt is very much intentional. Apple doesn’t want apps to track their users, so I think they’ve added an ick-factor to the prompt. On Android, buttons are labels with things like “allow” or “deny”.
The only way to get rid of the tracking system is to make it interesting for companies to stop tracking you. 1 star rating + uninstall + switch to a competitor is the best you can do.
That’s a very valid point, albeit incredibly disappointing. Mechanisms to block tracking should be built into the operating system, but I also realise that it would probably be impossible to accurately implement.
“Ask app not to track” is accurate to what you’re choosing, I just hate that we’ve gotten to this point.
Apple does actually build quite a few privacy preserving technologies into its operating system. The only unique identifier they intend to provide is the ID that the “we want to stalk you” prompts are referring to.
Tracking companies have proven to find new ways to track users, unfortunately, but they are trying their very best. Something you can’t say of Microsoft or Google.
As far as Apple has been capable of so far, the only unique device identifier apps on their platform can get access to is the one that you need to accept a prompt for. However, they know damn well that there are ways of fingerprinting devices that they can’t prevent (without fucking up the user experience) so it would be dishonest to pretend that saying “no” blocks these attempts.
Apps requiring accounts to be useful, for instance, can be tracked by the user ID on the app’s end. That’s not something Apple can ever prevent through technical means.
I think it is this way because Apple thought it would be misleading if the option was “deny tracking”, because there isn’t a specific technical mechanism to ensure that. It’s unfortunate but I’d rather it was honest than lied.
I came across a website today that had on off toggles for all their stuff cookies. When you clicked the toggle the colors of the “x” and the check mark changed between purple and black. I could not tell which was off and which was on. It made me very angry