Despite privacy outrage, AccuWeather still shares location data with ad firms | Hacker News Reader

Despite privacy outrage, AccuWeather still shares location data with ad firms

zdnet.com

199 pointsuladzislau66 comments

Classic corporate response. They're sorry because their analytics shows that brand sentiment will increase by x%, and they don't even need to mean it.

Happy customer of Dark Sky here.

Dark Sky actually addressed this topic recently with some additional information. Good read.

https://blog.darksky.net/location-privacy/

Just deleted AccuWeather. I am 100% convinced by the blog post -- but the DarkSky App is unfortunately not available outside USA.

I really wish that the user could selectively switch on or off what permissions an app receives -- Instead of a blanket list of permissions at the install. For instance -- "lie to the App and give location obly within 100m".

The problem was actually wifi information (which can be used to infer location) not location. What OS are you using that you can't choose permissions individually for an app? I forget which version of Android got that but it's at least a couple years old at this point. The other benefit being that it installs updates without having to ask for you permission, then when the app needs a permission, it asks you if you want to grant that permission. And you can go to Settings->Apps->[The App]->Permissions to enable/disable them individually later.

I'm not sure where you are, but the Dark Sky Weather app is available in the UK. I believe many other app use the Dark Sky api too, like Carrot Weather, which is quirky but quite good.

Maybe this (noise added to data going to advertisers) should be required on phones, it's basically an enforced form of data privacy.

iOS has always had this and android has had it since marshmallow.

Recent convert to Dark Sky. Highly recommend it. One of those increasingly rare instances where you can pay upfront for quality software.

Unless you are outside the US or UK or don't want to create a new iTunes account tied to those places (if you happen to have a valid card or an iTunes gift card for these countries)

As someone in Canada who wasn't able to download DarkSky for iOS, I've found Weather Line provides many of the same features (including up-to-the-minute precipitation forecasts). It uses the DarkSky's API for its data.

https://darksky.net/

A web is not the same experience as a real native application (specially since I can't use the web on my watch)

Yesterday, I uninstalled AccuWeather. This morning, I happily connected a game to Facebook to play with friends. Then I read this article. I'm such a hypocrite.

Being a hypocrite dosent make you wrong, or your actions meaningless. After all everyone is responsible in at least a tiny way for most of societies systematic ills, but that dosent mean that speaking out, and acting out against them is stupid, pointless or self defeating.

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"[1]

Emphasis on the foolish: There's nothing inconsistent about selectively choosing which are "worth it". To go all one way or the other would be a foolish consistency.

[1] Ralph Waldo Emerson, self-reliance

Uninstalling the horeshit is easy, trusting the replacement app is the next problem.

Anyway, there is an easy fix. Both Android and IOS allows you to disable GPS permissions for specific apps. Just disable it and add your home town as favorite. 1. Weather reports aren't that local. 2. You rarely travel frequent enough that this becomes an inconvenience, and if you are traveling that frequent, you are more likely interested in the weather at your next destination rather than current location.

Except this app notes the wifi hotspots you connect to so they can still track you if you turn off location permissions.

I don't know why Apple haven't removed them from the App Store yet.

Some apps check their permission at each start.

I recently started dating a chinese gal and she insists we communicate through wechat.

At this point, I must have at least 10 chat services on my phone, what's one more ?

Unfortunately, it asks for many permissions at the first startup and checks them everytime.

Also, it displays an annoying popup over the mic icon in order to make me give it that permission too ..

I have just stopped using that app. Unfortunately this kind of issue never gets a lot of attention and I feel like I sound like a tinfoil conspirationist when I explain that I don't want to give my location and contact list to random companies.

iOS or Android? On Android, if I tell an app "no" enough times (2?), the system UI offers me a checkbox: "never ask about this again".

Although I suppose the app itself can show "please enable" messages outside of the system UI...

I have not checked on iOS but I guess the app has the same behavior there since the 2 platforms privacy models are now pretty similar : At each startup (and also maybe at each screen display, I have not checked that far) the app checks its permissions.

It first displays a full screen splash (already a big nono for a messaging app, these must load quickly) during that time. If it misses either contacts or localization it will ask for these.

Since it checks each time, even if you accept at first and revoke afterward, it will still ask again the next time you use the app (and revoking permissions understandably restarts the app).

Of course you can refuse them permanently but then the app will be stuck on that screen with a popup asking you to activate these permissions.

So far, it is the only messaging app I have seen with such an aggressive approach to critical permissions.

It can also be argued that the app does not need any of these to offer its core feature.

The scandal comes from the fact that the location info is transmitted when GPS permissions are already disabled, and at a level much more precise than the weather location you chose.

If as a user, these types of things anger you, please just stop using the product.

These practices will continue to get worse as long as users put up with it.

Then you might as well stop using your smartphone and all 3rd party apps on it.

The vast majority contain SDKs which tattle your whereabouts, contacts and other interesting tidbits to advertising networks.

Or, you might as well start paying for the apps you use (like more than $1) :)

The vast majority of FREE 3rd party apps have tracking SDK, that is an important distinction. I mean really, what did you expect, the developers of those apps giving them for free in exchange for nothing? (the fact that they hide this is another discussion)

Serious question... Is there any data on usage of tracking for paid vs free apps?

There are plenty of cookie onboarding vendors who will pay a monthly recurring CPM rate for mobile logins that they can match against and they do not require you to show ads.

So if the majority of users are not privacy aware and would just accept whatever permissions are requested, what is the disincentive for a paid app to include these trackers and add a recurring revenue stream?

None, and quite a few do.

I know, but do you happen to have any data to reference that actually breaks down the % who do vs. those who don't? Obviously that would be messy data, but I'm genuinely curious as to what the adoption rate is for those sorts of things.

I actually don't know much about mobile app traffic analysis, so I'm not sure how easy that is to sniff.

Nowadays, even middle-end, high-end apps that cost hundred of $, will track you anytime you do something with them (ie: Autodesk, Adobe...).

Then you might as well stop using your smartphone and all 3rd party apps on it.

...Is probably the right answer.

Unfortunately, if you want a phone that actually works these days, you're basically stuck with iOS or Android devices, and all the junk that implies.

If I could buy a modern dumbphone that just works as a phone, with decent components so it has good reception and reliability, and ignore the whole smartphone fiasco altogether, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

I do cyagenomod(lineageos) with all the Google stripped out. A terminal, ssh, Firefox mobile, and a YouTube apk with ads stripped. This is why privacy respecting Foss and the four freedoms are important. Eventually people will wake up as the surveillance state becomes more abrasively obvious to even the lay-user.

> and a YouTube apk with ads stripped

Doesn't the YouTube app still rely on Google Play Services?

Anyway, if you still want to watch YouTube without Google, I'd recommend NewPipe on F-Droid. [0]

It's awesome. You can download videos to local storage for later watching, play music headless in the background, and there are no ads!

[0] https://f-droid.org/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/

You can buy a phone like that, they are usually advertised for rural use

edit: or you can make one http://zerophone.org/ which also has plans to crowdfund some pre-built phones

I'd love to, but as someone who has spent a lot of time looking recently, it's certainly not easy to find anything suitable here in the UK. You can get dumbphones, but getting a good dumbphone, with reliable reception and decent battery life, is a different question altogether.

If you want anything at all beyond basic features, like say a dual SIM option for use when travelling, you're straight into high-end smartphone territory, even if you actually have no interest in the so-called smart parts of the device.

Dual (or even triple, and I've seen 4 and 5 too) SIMs is pretty much standard on phones, dumb or smart, intended for the Asia market, mostly produced by various small companies based on the standard Mediatek platform, but you can buy those online.

My $20 Wiko Lubi has dual SIM. Never had problems with its reception or battery life, either. Audio quality, on the other hand...

I don't know know where you live, but Nokia has released a new version of the Nokia 3310 in some places (not the USA yet, though).

I could put you in my will and leave my Nokia to you, I'm fairly sure it will still work by that time :)

Or just use cyanogen privacy guard to send random fake data.

Would love a source for the "vast majority" part. I doubt hardly any of the apps I use on a regular basis do this, assuming I even give them those permissions.

It is a cynical opinion often repeated, but is not true. Many apps use analytics but limit it to data such as crash information and device hardware / OS version.

There are absolutely other apps which perform tracking similar to AccuWeather, but not many (on iOS anyway).

Worried about car accidents? never leave a house, cant be easier than that!

The answer is regulation and heavy fines.

Well, yeah. This is the company that lobbied hard to restrict release of public research (ie NOAA mapping data). Of course they are scum.

Although, I like their service - just uninstalled. Peace.

Didn't even realize this was happening until this article. But seriously, we should consider enacting laws against this. For advertising purposes they shouldn't need anything more than a city location. Even then, there should be an option to turn it off.

EU GDPR: "Valid consent must be explicit for data collected and the purposes data is used for."

But the GDPR doesn't come into effect until May next year.

theweathernetwork.ca has always had better results for me. On mobile you can save a bookmark to it on your home screen so it works just like an app. Open in Ghostery to block the ads and you're on your way.

No one ever needed the location feature of weather apps in the first place, we can't even travel fast enough for it to be worth the extra battery consumption. Put a link on your home screen to search "Weather <zip>" in a search engine you're not logged into and make sure your browser isn't sharing it's location. Go someplace new, type in the new zip or, if you don't know the zip, city. Staying for a while? Make a new link on your home screen.

best option is to just learn to read metar/taf.

What I'm curious about is the best way to test this in other apps - the stock weather app on my phone pulls data from AccuWeather, but do they also have the problem features?

Pretty sure I can monitor what IPs my phone is connecting to with some of the routers I have access to, monitoring the actual packet data itself is a bit more troublesome - and may not be useful if it's encrypted.

I have avoided AccuWeather since they worked with Santorum in 2005 to try and avoid "competing" with the NWS.

This might be a good time to share what is (in my opinion) the absolute best weather app for iOS: Hello Weather. It's minimal, functional, and beautifully designed.

Maybe there needs to be an extra level of compliance for apps that are straight-up. (Like PCI compliance)

Opt-in, but you get a special badge on your App Store listing.

Deleting such an app seems like a reasonable solution.

The iPhone has a built-in Weather app, why bother with another that is sharing location data?

The iPhone does. The iPad does not. Why Apple hasn't made an official weather app for the iPad yet, I have no clue.

Same with the calculator app

iOS and Android should offer location precision setting for each app.

If GPS location is: [47.49233343443, 19.05412443234]

Then it should offer to round it [47.5, 19.1] for some apps.

Alternatively, the OS could allow you to set your city (or region/state/county perhaps) and just return this as the GPS location for certain apps. i.e. choosing London could return a fixed 51.5073509, -0.1277583 for all users who chose London.

Worries me that the request is made with http and the screen cap has some items blacked out.

That was just to redact sensitive information.

Of course. I am worried that sensitive information is being sent via HTTP.

Oh for sure. This ad provider uses plaintext in other apps as well, definitely not good.

I really hope this helps drive privacy laws in the US to favor the consumer. Please share these articles with everyone you know.

Why not just search "weather city" on Duckduckgo and bookmark the page?

Why can't we all use FOSS? Oh yeah, people are greedy...

>the cost-per-mile metric for advertisers.

So advertisers pay more the further I travel? Do they factor in MPG and gas prices?

I prefer wttr.in

Reply on news.ycombinator.com