Surely Apple also knows this, so when are they going to follow their own App Store policy and pull Meta's apps off the platform?
They won't because rules for thee, not for me. It's OK if someone big enough violates Apple's rules, but if a smaller dev does it? You get booted off the store.
When the incentives are this large, it’s just too profitable to not “be evil.” We can decry this, but it’s just human nature.
I also think this is a sign of late stage capitalism where the opportunities to profit “ethically” are becoming much harder to find and exploit. That leads to more pressure to find gray areas that others’ ethical or moral convictions prevented them from exploiting.
I just installed graphene os on a brand new cash-bought pixel for the express purpose of not being left out of some important WhatsApp groups or missing out on some other experiences that require installing apps that I know won’t respect my privacy. I assume anything from Meta is hazardous at this point.
Meta is run by people with no regard for ethics, and if that surprises you, that’s on you. Their whole model is just packaging and selling you with whatever tech they can grab. If you’re worried, don’t install Meta apps. I’ve got WhatsApp on Android and Instagram on iPad, They’re already getting eaten alive by TikTok and AI girlfriends
> Meta relied heavily on selling personalized advertising, which required it to be able to target particular demographics and interest groups. This was achieved by tracking individual users across different apps.
Yet another reason to dump native apps (many of which are built using the Facebook SDK despite having nothing to do with FB) in favour of web apps.
I am not surprised that a surveillance-advertising company will go to these lengths to ensure their being able to continue their shady-ass business model.
a friend of mine said one of his oddest interviewer moments was when he asked the candidate to describe a project they were proud of, and the candidate brought up how hard it was to do this sort of thing on an iphone and how their team at meta managed to find a way.
This is exactly why App Tracking Transparency was never going to work. Apple gave users a consent dialog but didn't actually prevent the data collection - they just made it slightly more annoying.
Device fingerprinting, session replay, and a dozen other techniques make the whole 'ask permission to track' model fundamentally ineffective. The data is still flowing, just through different pipes.
Apple itself collects the data it says is against it's rules for others to collect. They used Privacy as gate-keeping for it's walled garden App Store monopoly.
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 39.5 ms ] threadThey won't because rules for thee, not for me. It's OK if someone big enough violates Apple's rules, but if a smaller dev does it? You get booted off the store.
I also think this is a sign of late stage capitalism where the opportunities to profit “ethically” are becoming much harder to find and exploit. That leads to more pressure to find gray areas that others’ ethical or moral convictions prevented them from exploiting.
I just installed graphene os on a brand new cash-bought pixel for the express purpose of not being left out of some important WhatsApp groups or missing out on some other experiences that require installing apps that I know won’t respect my privacy. I assume anything from Meta is hazardous at this point.
Yet another reason to dump native apps (many of which are built using the Facebook SDK despite having nothing to do with FB) in favour of web apps.