Now Apps Can Track You Even After You Uninstall Them

Google sort of bundles this functionality into Firebase.

https://support.google.com/firebase/answer/6317485?hl=en

Check under the "app_remove" section.

Also, a blog post of how this was used in conjunction with Firebase functions.

https://medium.com/@tarunkakkar/detecting-app-install-frauds...

Braze bundles uninstall tracking with marketing push notification campaigns. Frankly, I think it's wonderful to be able to show marketing people how their spam affects our install base.

TLDR: If you use regular push notifications (even for legitimate purposes like keeping up-to-date info in the app) then you can tell when someone uninstalls your app. If you wanted, you could then market to that person.

True, but this doesn't bother me much, and I'm usually a privacy maven.

Clickbait phrasing.

tl;dr:

1) Services can track you based on the data you've given to the app.

2) Obviously, this doesn't stop when you uninstall an app.

3) It's possible (using push notifications) to determine if users have uninstalled.

4) The service behind the app can then track you with a specific "uninstalled the app" status.

As an aside, I dislike the fact that "app" has become such a catch-all. It introduces confusing language, like in this example. The "app" didn't track you because the "app" was a client-side binary for interacting with a service. The service tracked you from the beginning.