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Comment by yllus | Hacker News Reader

For those wondering why the Facebook SDK is so widely used in popular mobile apps: Facebook Login is actually in the minority of reasons to add the Facebook SDK to your mobile app. The vast majority of apps will add the Facebook SDK because it contains Facebook App Ads; a library that "completes the circle" in terms of finding out how effectively the ads you ran on Facebook were at getting people to download, install and run your mobile app. So really the Facebook SDK is there to collect data of that advertisement being effective and provides both Facebook and the mobile app developer with knowledge of how their ad spend went.

Is that "spyware"? Some would call it merely wanting to know if your marketing budget was wisely spent - I suppose a lot depends on what data it collects on people.

More info: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/app-ads

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Don't mind me. I'm just going to come into your house and record what commercials you are watching. I'm not spyware I'm just _merely_ wanting to know about my marketing budget.

Analogy may not be perfect but it takes serious mental gymnastics to fail to see this as spyware, in my opinion.

It wouldn't be surprising if some Smart TVs are already doing this.

Didn't Samsung literally get caught uploading screenshots of content played on their TVs to some server? Maybe it was some other company?

These days, unless you take drastic measures to defend yourself from spyware embedded in consumer technology or forgo it all together, it seems that you'll be subject to this kind of surreptitious abuse as a matter of course.

Worse than that, audio recordings from people's living rooms:

"Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition."

> that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition

Could also mean they're using AWS Transcribe (or similar) instead of rolling their own speech to text engine.

But that's only the most optimistic interpretation.

Yes, Vizio already got caught and sued over this behavior.

> Starting in 2014, Vizio made TVs that automatically tracked what consumers were watching and transmitted that data back to its servers. Vizio even retrofitted older models by installing its tracking software remotely. All of this, the FTC and AG allege, was done without clearly telling consumers or getting their consent.

> What did Vizio know about what was going on in the privacy of consumers’ homes? On a second-by-second basis, Vizio collected a selection of pixels on the screen that it matched to a database of TV, movie, and commercial content. What’s more, Vizio identified viewing data from cable or broadband service providers, set-top boxes, streaming devices, DVD players, and over-the-air broadcasts. Add it all up and Vizio captured as many as 100 billion data points each day from millions of TVs.

> Vizio then turned that mountain of data into cash by selling consumers’ viewing histories to advertisers and others.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/7/14527360/vizio-smart-tv-tr...

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2017/02/...

https://samba.tv/

"We use anonymized data to provide a positive advertising experience, enable ad-supported TV networks to keep their shows free, and partner with TV manufacturers which reduces the price of TVs for you."

We are already living in the world of 1984.

"TV watches you", except this isn't Soviet Russia.

In many ways; yes.

In the most of the important ways; no.

You can still fight back effectively. Don't go gentle into that good night.

Some of them even connect to any available open wifi without being configured to do so, so even keeping them from phoning home is difficult/impossible if your neighbor is careless.

Don’t forget that you’re picking which houses to invade based on gender, age, etc.

Totally not creepy.

Isn't that how the TRP is calculated. IIRC agencies install devices in random houses to find which program is being watched.

The difference is that this is done with the user’s explicit consent and I’m pretty sure they get compensated for it.

Sample of houses IIRC 10,000 in USA. That's vastly different to installing the device in every house in America.

How does the Facebook SDK in a 3rd party app correlate that you're the same user if you don't log into the app with FB? Is there some universal device identifier all your apps have access to?

There was a static universal device identifier until iOS 6. Even today, while Apple has implemented many sensible restrictions on tracking, there's still a ton of information that can be used for device fingerprinting freely available to all apps. This blog post [0] pegs the amount of useful information at around 56 bits.

[0]: https://nshipster.com/device-identifiers/#fingerprinting-in-...

The IP addresses (both WiFi and mobile), device make/model, carrier and locale can be combined into a fairly unique fingerprint, narrowing it down even more over time since the SDK phones home every time the app is opened.

There's an "advertising id" that's assigned to your phone, accessible by apps you install. This ID can be reset by the user, but only if they are aware of it.

That isn't even as useful as `identifierForVendor`.

Do you know how common it is to use the Facebook SDK for app analytics even from outside the Facebook ads ecosystem? I can’t remember exactly where I got this from but I was under the impression that it was pretty widely used for general analytics in the same way that loads of sites use Google Analytics without being in their ads ecosystem.

One important distinction that often gets lost in these conversations is the difference between "linking" and "de-anonymization". In general, the bigger players in the analytics space are extremely careful about avoiding any risk of de-anonymization both contractually and in process. Salted hashes and minimum base sizes to report out are the norm. Some funkier approaches seem to be in R&D. There are of course bad players in the fringes but the big players have largely cleaned up their act.

Thankfully we removed FB several years ago when I found it sending data to FB servers that we did not authorize, we support our own logins for our own customers and there was no reason to use it (not sure the history before I got here). Sadly we do use Google Maps and got bit for weeks when that fiasco happened recently. I wish we could just use Apple Maps for iOS but somehow we have some marketing deal or something with Google.

Many apps on my Android device routinely send requests to edge-star-.facebook.com even when I don't use facebook login. Are these ad related requests?

That’s most likely the Facebook SDK we’re talking about. The SDK phones home regularly regardless of whether it’s features are actually being used.

You can get NetGuard on Android and see how often and what is called (facebook.com, graph.facebook.com, other vendors, platforms, IPs, etc). You can choose to block what is not needed. Kind of uBlockOrigin for Android. Sometimes stuff breaks.

And a lot of stuff is not related to FB Login.

Facebook launched Facebook Off Activity a while ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22178917

You can go to your profile, and check which third parties, or advertisers uploaded contact data of you, download backup data to see in json files which apps what sent about you ("App activated", "Made some purchase").

If you squint then the Venn diagram of "spyware" and "knowing if your marketing budget was wisely spent" is a circle.

No need to squint, just cross your eyes ever-so-slightly

It’s spyware when the user is unaware of it and their usage data is used without their consent.

If the parties consent to it, it’s fine. When it’s hidden and nonconsensual is where the problem arises.

> Is that "spyware"?

This seems like much less of a damning claim than openly supporting an ad network.

Can’t you just use a simple tracking pixel?

>Is that "spyware"?

Yes, absolutely.

It uses energy and bandwidth I paid for to surreptitiously transmit my information for use which will solely benefit Facebook and the software developer.

I feel like I'm in the minority here -- but I don't understand the problem.

Software developers want to know whether their existing marketing methods are effective. The FB SDK helps with this. You always have the choice to not install the app (if you don't want to).

This also helps developers make sure their marketing is effective and reaching the right people, which seems like a win-win to me.

>Software developers want to know whether their existing marketing methods are effective. The FB SDK helps with this.

As you mention, this is something the software developer want, not necessarily the user.

>You always have the choice to not install the app (if you don't want to).

This argument may have some teeth if directed toward a user in our industry. Depending on the scope of the particular software in question, the majority of users is likely to be those outside the software industry; the layman. The argument falls flat when the other person doesn't have the necessary understanding to be able to perform thoughtful analysis.

>This also helps developers make sure their marketing is effective and reaching the right people, which seems like a win-win to me.

That may be one reason this practice is in-use. I don't see how it makes the difference: the software developer continues these practices with no consideration of their user, much less the user's consent or indication anything is going on at all. It's all about what the software developer wants, not the user and that's not OK.

> It's all about what the software developer wants, not the user and that's not OK.

I work in Software Development. Most of the time, the user doesn't know what he or she wants. They might feel that something is just not right, but don't know why, or cannot express why, because they don't know. Or don't care: I used to send out surveys, and the response rate was usually around 300 out of 50.000 confirmed users. That's... not much. At least for me, if I need to make major decisions.

My main takeaway with metrics is that I'm fine to give metrics to the vendor, as long as it's only me and the vendor, and as long as I know what it's used for. Also, it depends a lot on what is tracked.

Starting and closing the app, ways the user took to get to a certain point - I'm fine with that. But dare you transmitting my file names over to your server. Or any data I enter. That's none of your business.

You wanting more data does not give you license to assume consent for using a device you do not own to spy on a user. Even if a majority would have consented, assuming consent means that you are now co-opting some number of devices which do not belong to you to do things the owners of those devices do not want to happen.

It’s extremely unethical, and should be illegal.

Well - the user is using the device with a part that I created. If the user doesn't want to participate in enhancing the product, we need to go the old school way of enhancing products: Research. We need to conduct studies, do testing with test persons, etc. This can be done, sure. But then your off-the-shelf app won't be available for 99 cents or for free, but cost more like 19.99 USD.

Might help streamlining the market, so I‘m open for that.

This very same argument would apply to, say, "5% of the price of my dinner goes towards healthcare for the waitstaff. That's something the company wants, not something I want."

There are much better argument for it being spyware, e.g., that it spies. It's not a very strong argument that a thing is bad simply because it helps the provider of the thing.

It is not the same argument. Money is fungible, you know exactly what you are paying and the cost to you, how the money is used is not usually your problem [1]. In this case you have no idea how much and with what you are paying. The app could be exfiltrating all kind of information and you have no way of knowing.

[1] although people might have issues with unethical or illegal uses.

>This very same argument would apply to, say, "5% of the price of my dinner goes towards healthcare for the waitstaff. That's something the company wants, not something I want."

I'm not sure I follow. If you're paying the same amount in either scenario, how are you adversely affected when a portion of your bill is allocated to a healthcare account?

>There are much better argument for it being spyware, e.g., that it spies. It's not a very strong argument that a thing is bad simply because it helps the provider of the thing.

I'm lost here, as well. Your argument is that I haven't made any arguments stronger than "that it spies"? I agree that stating only "that it spies" would be lacking critical thought and analysis, but my arguments have been more specific. The whole "it spies" assertion, generally speaking, is the basis for the more detailed responses I've submitted to this discussion.

I certainly don't want 5% of the price of my dinner going to healthcare costs. Don't tell me that's something that actually happens where you live?

Do you expect 100% of the cost of your meal to be the raw ingredients? Surely in (almost?) every single retail or service transaction, part of what you are paying is going towards operational costs, taxes, and yes... employee health insurance.

Is your objection the 5% or that it's going to healthcare costs?

I think the objection is that for most of western civilisation, healthcare costs are paid for by taxes not employers

OK, but those taxes are paid by someone (usually business taxes). I am strongly in favor of government-funded healthcare but the number of countries where the government can be funded by, like, drilling oil is very small, so I think my argument stands - some portion of the money I spend on dinner is going not towards things that directly produce my dinner but things that someone else thinks is worthwhile. Even if I agree with it, it's not my decision.

Structuring something in the interests of what benefits them won't necessarily align with what benefits you, since the actual structure of the relationship matters, as brief regard to my flippant comment on your analogy. It isn't about what % of dinner goes to healthcare - it's (and I was assuming some hideous employer-pays healthcare system) rather about the system which is built to align incentives and benefits in certain ways. That is, I stand to lose in many situations if healthcare is provided directly by the payments of my customers, or whatever. Likewise, with privacy, it isn't just that 'it spies', it's that what it purports to aid me in is likely coincidental. Just like a targeted advertisement actually really benefiting me is effectively irrelevant to the advertiser - it's just nice if our incentives happen to align, for one brief moment. :-)

It isn't so nice when they don't.

User benefits from effective marketing. If software dev knows who their audience is better it means product will reach the correct customers more efficiently. It is win for everybody.

Marketing platform and the product being marketed benefit from effective marketing.

That the user was “sold” to is not inherently positive. Not all products are good. Not all users can afford products they’re buying. Not all users necessarily understand they’re paying in ways they’re unaware of.

Straying away from social media in this example, cigarettes and alcohol feel like good candidates here.

It has to say something about the effectiveness of your marketing if the only way you even observe it having an effect is by installing spyware on every users system.

Nobody said it was the only way, but better measurement means optimizing ad spend to better target users and lower prices.

If companies genuinely believed that they'd advertise loudly that they were using the ad platform. The fact that they do it surreptitiously speaks volumes.

What’s wrong are two things: lack of transparency and lack of choice. They could just ask where people got the app, and offer them a choice not to disclose, but they choose to not offer the user that choice and to not transparently communicate the choice has been withheld.

That’s user-hostile.

The problem with saying “just don’t install the app” is that you have to be informed first, and that even then you have no real choice. If you want to take part in digital social networks you must surrender control and privacy. If your data is a valuable commodity you should be able to decide who gets what, just like you decide with your money. But you can’t, not really.

It is not clear to users which apps use the Facebook SDK, so they can’t avoid them even if they wanted to. And so many do include it that it’s hard to find alternative apps…

> You always have the choice to not install the app

You also have the choice to consider the practice questionable, unethical, a systemic problem once it becomes widespread; to highlight it in public posts and forums, to protest how widespread it has become, to believe that it should be illegal in the context of consumer and privacy protections, to lobby for making it illegal, etc.

> You always have the choice to not install the app (if you don't want to).

Before this article came out was this information available to the users to help them in making this decision.

No, it was not! Hence the problem.

I think it's pretty clear that if you're not paying for the application, then you're the product not the customer. Even the most ignorant users have probably got that message by now.

If the app is paid-for, it's less forgivable to be using this kind of spyware.

Your flawed logic applies whether it's paid or not: just don't install it.

Apparently you don't think actually knowing if the app includes the SDK is relevant, this is victim blaming of the highest tier.

Spotify is a paid app that includes it.

Usually when you say “win-win”, one of the wins is for each side.

The user has not explicitly allowed this information to be collected, yet the software developer wants to. That I think is the definition of spyware.

If I were to project this pattern 10 steps further, a software developer may want to know the gender and emotional state of the user installing their software using the front camera. That would also be a spyware, but it's on the higher end of the spyware spectrum.

>The FB SDK helps with this. You always have the choice to not install the app (if you don't want to).

up until now I wasn't even aware of the facebook sdk or that say, spotify is sharing my data with facebook even if I don't use their login option so it's pretty hard to make a informed decision.

Is this even legal under GDPR?

To the best of my knowledge, no. Even if we assume advertising attribution falls under legitimate interest (which isn’t certain), it would still only allow them to call out to Facebook once after install to report whether the app was installed from an ad. As of right now the Facebook SDK calls out every single time the app is opened or brought back in foreground.

> Is this even legal under GDPR?

I guess you could always complain about it to your country's data protection watchdog and then we'll all find out?

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

- Upton Sinclair (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair)

It's probably time to retire Upton to the Internet Hall of Fame next to Betteridge.

> Software developers want to know whether their existing marketing methods are effective.

so what?

The problem is that it happens silently and without consent of the owner of the hardware.

It’s win-win for facebook and the app developer. It’s only lose for the actual user.

> Is that "spyware"?

>> Yes, absolutely.

Much much worse: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19595478

In that sense, any sort of client-originated telemetry is spyware. And there’s an awful lot of that, starting with ICMP.

Don't be an apologist. Any technical person here could show you how to write polite and respectful software.

If the software developer didn't get anything off you they wouldn't make the software available to you in the first place.

Fuck, I've been paying for Spotify as an act of charity?

Spotify is actually using Facebook for login, though, so they don't necessarily use App Ads. The original commenter only said that it's the reason most (but not all) apps use the SDK.

Facebook Login can be implemented with plain oAuth without sending any data to Facebook until the user actually uses the FB Login feature.

Regardless of which SDK features they use the SDK calls out to Facebook with the device's fingerprint and a persistent UUID every time the app is launched or brought back into foreground.

Would 100% suggest going the basic OAuth route with FB, and not relying on their SDKs whenever possible. Been bit by Friday-afternoon-PST deployments that wreak havoc until work starts Monday too many times :/

Did anyone make any replacement login-only libraries for Facebook?

It's not exactly what you want, but just yesterday I made AccountsJS work with Facebook OAuth.[1]

I was glad today when watching this newsline, to have avoided the facebook SDK.

I think OAuth is usually better because every major provider has some version of it and so you basically can implement them all the same or at least in a really similar fashion.

1. http://www.accountsjs.com/

Ah. I'm thankful for the opportunity, err... requirement to trade my privacy for others to have one fewer password to deal with. And of course for Facebook to have more personal data to munch on.

I'm not really sure what the problem is here. You are perfectly free to not use Spotify, or any other app that chooses to utilize Facebook login or other components of the Facebook SDK. Spotify made their choice to use the SDK for whatever gains they get out of it, and as a customer you can choose to not use their service or app if you disagree with that.

There's even comments in this HN thread that point you on how to do it on Android if you're so inclined.

This is really just a variant of the "and yet you participate in society, hmmm" argument.

At some point users are allowed to complain about shady behaviour done by huge corporations with resources they use to try to thrust their way into everyones lives.

And at some point, companies are allowed to make their own decisions about how they want to instrument and monetize their products. This general complaint about not liking a component of someone else's software doesn't resonate with me at all. Not that you're wrong, but we just have different values.

I sometimes will load a website that uses React when really it's just a static content site. It just gets tiring, and doesn't add to the conversation, when every discussion about an article that could be HTML devolves into that. I get that other people feel that way, and in many ways I share their values... But it becomes its own sideshow and hijacks the otherwise interesting conversations, without adding anything new.

<< I get that other people feel that way, and in many ways I share their values... But it becomes its own sideshow and hijacks the otherwise interesting conversations, without adding anything new. >>

With sincere respect, I don't understand this argument, in general, whenever it comes up. Whenever I find a discussion unhelpful or tedious, I move on or mute it. Often, I've been in an interesting online discussion, and someone pipes up with the wish for everyone to stop talking about this topic because it's not interesting, when they have the tools available to not follow the discussion.

Can you explain? Honest question.

At the risk of getting downvotes for being snarky, it essentially boils down to the "Stop it, you're having fun wrong!" nerd stereotype.

>> And at some point, companies are allowed to make their own decisions about how they want to instrument and monetize their products.

No, they are only allowed to monetize according to laws and regulations. There is nothing magic about software making it right to disregard laws or not having respect for customers. It feels like some think software should be where to world was at the start of the industrial revolution, where companies could do what they wanted and there was no laws stopping them from dumping acid in the river.

Edit: fixed spelling

Obviously companies can choose how they want monetize, that doesn't mean you are obligated to defend then when what they're doing is scummy it immoral.

Why deflect criticism.by saying "well you don't have to use their app now do you?"

When a person does something immoral rarely do people defend them by saying "well you don't have to engage with them now do you?

Why not debate the morality or legitimacy of the act in question rather than deflect try to deflect the criticisms?

Does React report your personal data to Facebook?

As with all things Facebook, the truth is that they're opaque as mud about what they do with data.

I'd give more credence to "the market is making an informed choice" hypothesis if consumers were, in fact, informed.

Spotify made their choice to use the SDK for whatever gains they get out of it, and as a customer you can choose to not use their service or app if you disagree with that.

Wrong. At least for EU citizens.

If Spotify are collecting data in this way (and not only using the SDK for Facebook Login), they are in violation of the GDPR. There must be clear unambiguous consent to collect the data in the form of an affirmative action of the user and it must be possible to use the app without giving consent, because the Facebook data collection is not essential for the app to operate.

If they do share data with Facebook, Spotify should be scared, since they are definitely large enough to be on the radar of the EU or national bodies.

Moreover, outside the EU it would be dumb for Spotify to say "just don't install the app if you don't agree". The 10 Euro per month that premium users pay is worth more than some Facebook tracking.

(IANAL)

> If Spotify are collecting data in this way (and not only using the SDK for Facebook Login), they are in violation of the GDPR.

It's kinda worse. They "only" open the gate wide and any of your data they can see is there for Facebook to take. It can feast on any data it can grab with the same permissions the main app has. Like a fucking virus from MS-DOS times infecting binaries, but this time developers are doing it quite voluntarily.

There should be more visibility on where a user's data is going. User's should be informed, similar to malware sites, they should be informed "this website is sending your data to the following companies" etc.

>If the software developer didn't get anything off you they wouldn't make the software available to you in the first place.

A lot of software these days don't offer a way for casual users (read: not enterprise/small business) to pay for it. It's "free" or nothing.

Maybe they could try the novel method of charging money instead of buying ads to get users to show ads to.

For the average user out there, the fact is, most people only care about privacy when there's a breach/outage/scandal of some kind. Otherwise, the average person is not going to have "zomg fb is spyware" on their mind.

If apps start charging money, there would be a significant drop in the # of average user installs. Then the app would only make money off of privacy focused users, which is comparatively small.

>For the average user out there, the fact is, most people only care about privacy when there's a breach/outage/scandal of some kind. Otherwise, the average person is not going to have "zomg fb is spyware" on their mind.

Because they don't know.

Like every industry, there are practices involved to which the layman is oblivious. It is important to remind ourselves that the reason the majority of users aren't vocalizing their concerns with these unsavory practices isn't because they don't care but because they don't know.

The 'not knowing' part happens when the outrage is then transferred to any app which does integrate the FB SDK (like zoom). We as developers have sortof taken for granted that the FB/Google/etc SDKs can do no evil. Maybe that attitude should change, because public opinion certainly has.

>The 'not knowing' part happens when the outrage is then transferred to any app which does integrate the FB SDK (like zoom).

Sorry, I'm lost here. Can you elaborate?

>We as developers have sortof taken for granted that the FB/Google/etc SDKs can do no evil. Maybe that attitude should change, because public opinion certainly has.

Previously, you mentioned

>If apps start charging money, there would be a significant drop in the # of average user installs. Then the app would only make money off of privacy focused users, which is comparatively small.

I don't have any reason to believe sales would lessen if a formerly "free" application began charging. The difference, however, I have no idea. You mention "significant" which is, of course, relative.

It isn't difficult to see the incentive at work in this scenario:

a) I could charge a nominal fee for use of my software, foregoing the unsavory practices discussed in this thread, and make X amount of money.

b) I could sell my user out and potentially make more than X amount of money. How much more? I don't know, but more.

Is that what it comes down to?

That makes sense if you're talking about ads in the app, but that wasn't the discussion. The discussion is about the marketing folks running ads on Facebook for the app and wanting to know how effective those ads were.

Apps that are based on a subscription model also advertise for their apps, the two issues are orthogonal.

If the software developer would charge a reasonable price directly to the user, they wouldn't have to use intrusive and unreliable libraries like Facebook SDK.

So they can charge directly to the user. They're still going to advertise to acquire that user though.

> They're still going to advertise to acquire that user though.

There would be no reason to put advertising in the app the user has already paid for.

And yet FOSS exists.

And paid software (such as Spotify) still does shady stuff like reporting to Facebook that I'm a user of their app and the schedule on which I use it.

I'd rather pay for the app directly actually.

That definition is rather too broad. It makes basically everything spyware which dilutes the word too much to be useful.

Nowadays, lots of things are spyware. It's important that we acknowledge this fact. Back when the Internet had a more technical userbase, the shady nonsense software tries to pull nowadays would not have flown at all. Those people would be outraged, and they'd absolutely agree that things like Facebook, Spotify, and Windows 10 meet the definition of spyware.

But slowly, the Internet population grew to include the masses, and it turns out most people don't care whatsoever about what their software is doing or how it works so long as it gets the job done, whether that's communicating with relatives, playing music, or providing a platform for other applications.

This is what happens to every charged label.

1. People realize the label is powerful.

2. They begin applying the label to as many things they don't like as they can get away with.

3. This changes the definition of the label, causing it to become some blanket umbrella term.

4. The label loses its power, because it now describes many lukewarm behaviors instead of just the worst offenses.

For example, it's popular nowadays to say "everyone is racist." Well, if everyone is racist, is being labeled a racist really that bad? Not compared to what it used to imply about you.

>That definition is rather too broad. It makes basically everything spyware which dilutes the word too much to be useful.

I don't agree. I was very specific in stating that the practice of consuming a user's resources to transmit their information, without their explicit consent, nor an indication of the activity, for the sole benefit of Facebook and the software developer, can absolutely be considered spyware.

Devil's advocate: you could always not run those apps. Although for non-technical users it would be challenging to determine if the apps were transmitting that info, it's possible for technical users to detect it (assuming the info goes to an obviously-facebook url and isn't piped through e.g. spotify)

Additionally I don't think there is anything wrong with client-side analytics in general since it's basically the only way to monitor performance/usage in production. And this type of thing is hard to discern from the more benign case

>Devil's advocate: you could always not run those apps. Although for non-technical users it would be challenging to determine if the apps were transmitting that info, it's possible for technical users to detect it (assuming the info goes to an obviously-facebook url and isn't piped through e.g. spotify)

But therein lies the rub: the overwhelming majority of users of software are not like you and me and have no idea what's going on behind the curtains.

>Additionally I don't think there is anything wrong with client-side analytics in general since it's basically the only way to monitor performance/usage in production. And this type of thing is hard to discern from the more benign case

I hear this argument a lot and I empathize with the idea that having such information can aid in the development process. However, the argument asserting that some data may be useful to the developer so the developer is thus entitled to it, doesn't wash.

Regardless of the ubiquity of this behavior in today's software development industry, the fact remains that this process consumes the user's resources without their knowing or say in the matter and it's not OK.

The resources are trivial. If you don't like it you don't have to use the app that you chose to install.

>The resources are trivial.

Some of them aren't, though. The Facebook SDK isn't a trivial resource. It also depends a lot on the specific device the software is being loaded on to. It may be trivial to a newer device or one with upgraded hardware, but perhaps not so with baseline hardware or devices several years old.

>If you don't like it you don't have to use the app that you chose to install.

This argument may work with someone working in the software industry, but falls flat the moment the implied obligation is place on the unsuspecting.

You've very quickly sidestepped the primary point of the parent - many users would not know if it was even being loaded.

> The resources are trivial.

I think I as a user should get to decide that.

My bank has the Facebook sdk in there app. At the time they where the only bank willing to open an account for an under 18, international student. I queried them about opting out, they told me to opt out on Facebook's end. Not sure how I would avoid banking.

What is this fresh hell? If you buy a spatula on Amazon, would you accept "client-side analytics" on what you cook because "it's basically the only way to monitor it?" Or would you say that your spatula usage is nobody's business?

I love and happily pay for Spotify, but it is eye-opening that they send any data to Facebook. Well, shit.

If my spatula had as many failure modes as software, I would find it reasonable, sure.

Can you explain this argument? They are not adding the Facebook sdk to track failure.

In fact I would say that the incident we are discussing here shows that adding the sdk adds a failure mode.

> Additionally I don't think there is anything wrong with client-side analytics in general since it's basically the only way to monitor performance/usage in production. And this type of thing is hard to discern from the more benign case

I think in these situations it often helps if we would find this behaviour acceptable in the real world. For example we see advertisment in airport toilets or malls or whatever. As someone pointed out, the company advertising does have an interest in finding out if the ad is effective. So would people find it acceptable if someone was following the from the advertisement and writing down which stores they go to, what they buy? I acknowledge that there is significant effort to develop technology (e.g. using ultrasound) to do this, but the efforts to do this covertly are IMO a good indication that people would not accept it if it was done in the open.

Offline shops already track you via bluetooth and wifi

https://falkvinge.net/2017/04/15/schiphol-airport-tracking-e...

That's what I acknowledged with the ultrasound tracking (I was not aware of the tracking at Schiphol). But it just reenforces my point, if they would do it openly people would strongly object. Privacy invasion using technology is so abstract that it doesn't really relate to reality for many people (even very smart people).

I can see a difference between paid and free-to-play apps.

If I pay for the service, I can expect that the service is taking nothing more from me than the payments I make. Our contract is explicit.

If it's a free-as-in-beer service, then the user must realize that the business which is offering the service expects to get something for its purposes from the user, such as user's eyeballs and user's computing resources.

If it benefits the software developer and this is what allows their business to work, then that benefits you. If it didn't then you wouldn't have the app.

> will solely benefit Facebook and the software developer.

I mostly agree. But, in some(most) also the user by encouraging the developer to release updates and launch new features.

release forced updates and launch no new features, but "general bug fixes and performance enhancements."

I’ve got tons of apps in my App Store’s update queue, some that I haven’t updated for a couple months and they still work perfectly. Uber is one that comes to mind. They keep changing the UI while I keep using the same version from ages ago. I don’t bother updating anymore, it’s just noise.

What about security?

I do update banking and critical apps (say, VPN clients, PDF reader), though.

In the consumer app cases, either I'm hitting somebody's backend with wrong data, which fails and so I update the app, or more frequently, those whiny apps with almost daily updates are just a WebView shell to some website.

Otherwise, what a hacked iOS sandboxed app can do? If there's an exploit to escape the sandbox, like in the WhatsApp case, we have a way larger issue and I wouldn't expect a random hacker to waste such an exploit that could be better targeted at Jeff Bezos or so.

Other exploits are for system apps (Mail, Safari, etc) and are handled by OS updates.

Do you feel the same about Google Analytics? Its data collection is very similar.

> Yes, absolutely.

I support you in your courageous fight against nuance.

And you since you installed the app for some purpose.

That is the entire business model of mobile.

Spotify is a paid product.

There are other ways to target / close the circle. App developers can share emails of new installs with facebook for cross match and more options. Would this feel better?

>There are other ways to target / close the circle. App developers can share emails of new installs with facebook for cross match and more options. Would this feel better?

Of course not because it describes the same behavior.

So do you argue then that looking at highway banner ads caused you to deplete your glucose stores in your cells derived from the food you paid for?

It's difficult to argue about whether it's "surreptitious." It's certainly no secret. I think this is why you need organizations (perhaps government or otherwise) to establish standards for what is and isn't acceptable, so we don't have to quibble over words like "surreptitiously."

> It's certainly no secret.

There is no easy way to tell whether an app shares data with third-parties without setting up an MITM proxy or a packet capture. As far as the majority of users are concerned it is a secret.

>It's difficult to argue about whether it's "surreptitious." It's certainly no secret. I think this is why you need organizations (perhaps government or otherwise) to establish standards for what is and isn't acceptable, so we don't have to quibble over words like "surreptitiously."

It is a secret, though. Outside of you, me, and a few other folks like ourselves, users of this software have no idea what's going on behind the curtains. There is no overt disclosure to the user explaining the myriad communication exchange, occurring on a nearly constant basis, between their device and some remote server(s); much less giving the user a say in the matter.

Stating the use of the word "surreptitious" (to act in a clandestine manner; exactly how these communications are executed) amounts to a mere quibble is disingenuous.

I cannot easily see what information goes through an ASP form submitted with a ViewState parameter (where the page state is encoded in a blob buried in a JS var or HTML comment). Is that also surreptitious?

>I cannot easily see what information goes through an ASP form submitted with a ViewState parameter (where the page state is encoded in a blob buried in a JS var or HTML comment). Is that also surreptitious?

I can't say I completely understand the scenario, but if you're talking about a user filling out a form, then submitting that form, then no. That would be expected behavior.

Data may be encoded in any number of encodings depending on need. Encoded data isn't always human readable; especially so during secure transmission. It's not so much the inability for a human to read the encoded data as it is the data being consisting of only what is necessary to perform the action expected by the user; those expectations, of course, set via whichever means the user is interacting with the software.

Please correct me if I've misunderstood.

> That would be expected behavior.

That's exactly my point. "Surreptitious" is being used to mean "I think it's bad, and I think it's not expected." The "bad" part is obviously subjective, but even if we agree on that, the latter is where you really need standards bodies to agree on what is acceptable technology practices. To me, ad tracking is definitely expected (regardless of whether I think it's bad). I suspect it's also expected by nearly all HN participants, and ubiquitous ad tracking is even in the mainstream public consciousness outside of tech circles.

Having a government full of technical lot illiterate politicians regulating digital advertisement - what could possibly go wrong.

Then that's the fault of companies who fucked up self-regulation so badly that the government has to step in. If they had behaved, this wouldn't be necessary.

I am not sure whether there could be anything worse than the current situation of a free-for-all with customers' data.

There absolutely could, if the new legislation were easy enough to circumvent for large companies but expensive to implement for everyone else, giving big players an even bigger advantage as far as data goes.

Maybe the government having access to all of your data....

>Having a government full of technical lot illiterate politicians regulating digital advertisement - what could possibly go wrong.

I'm not sure that argument works.

If we expand a bit, It wouldn't be difficult to find that governments are mostly comprised of <industry> illiterate politicians. There is no need for a government to be comprised of digital advertisement industry specialists in order to pass meaningful industry regulation.

Those who don’t learn from history....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_A...

And a few where we dodged a billet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Act

You're trying to convince me that the system isn't perfect. Listen, I've long since agreed with you.

I commented on your initial response because it was overly dismissive and implied the only way forward is to first wait until we have a government stocked with domain experts who only act only on policy within their domain. It dismisses the fact that it is unlikely that the politicians introducing regulation were solely responsible for its construction.

Yes, there is corruption in government and yes ignorance is painfully obvious in some legislation, but to dismiss the idea of enacting regulation because the politician(s) signing it into law may not be experts in the field the regulation addresses, isn't at all practical.

I'd further argue that it is incumbent upon those working in industry to ensure the creation of regulation is conducted transparently and includes representatives from the industry to contribute the necessary knowledge and expertise required to formulate the law(s) such that society benefits from the protection and commerce suffers no undue burden.

Given the choice between a corrupt company and a corrupt politician, the corrupt politician can do far more damage. It’s far easier for me to choose which companies I use than choose which government that I am under.

The government can do and has done far more damage than big tech.

History has much scarier lessons about governments abusing detailed lists of population preferences.

> Is that "spyware"? No You know its being used then you install the app. You have a choice. Either don't use Spotify and go to some shitty open source music app or give your data.

Why on Earth is it the advertiser's perspective that decides what is spyware. This is a consumer rights issue. As a user, I don't care what the intentions of the spying are.

This is also not GDPR compliant, not that anyone actually bothers to enforce the law.

If we respect the GDPR then data sharing for Facebook Login should only happen once the user presses the Facebook login button (as at that point the data sharing becomes essential to provide the functionality).

As far as ad/marketing attribution it should be opt-in as that is not an essential requirement to provide the service (and even less so for paid apps).

In both cases the SDK breaches the GDPR as it calls out every time it's loaded and upon first launch it will "register" itself with Facebook by submitting device information (make/model, carrier name, locale, timezone, etc) and obtain a unique ID which is then used in subsequent requests, providing Facebook with a trail of your whereabouts and usage patterns based on IP addresses you connect from (which they can then correlate with any other information they have).

Re: Ad/marketing attribution, that's not necessary correct. If the data point that gets sent back to Facebook is a GUID type string that matches the GUID that got generated when you first clicked the Facebook ad for the app and doesn't include data about you specifically, I believe that's fine. I don't myself have up-to-date information what data Facebook receives via its SDK but I suspect it is GPDR compliant through such methods.

GPDR specifically allows for anonymized/aggregated data on app usage or marketing feedback: https://gdpr.eu/eu-gdpr-personal-data/

> matches the GUID that got generated when you first clicked the Facebook ad

Knowing Facebook, that GUID would surely be bound to the user, still leaking to Facebook that the user is now using the app.

An ad campaign ID (same for all ads of this format in this campaign) sent to the app developer (which can then aggregate them on their side and send the daily aggregated data to Facebook) would be better.

In the eyes of the law, how is storing and sending the guid later different from storing and sending a cookie?

Edit: the GPDR link specifically says identifier numbers are personal information, and I don’t see a carve out for allowing targeted marketing campaigns to use them to measure/improve targeting performance.

Wrong link, maybe?

Sorry, use of the term GUID confused things - I meant that if an identifier string is generated when you click on the ad, and the purpose is to simply see if that identifier completes the app install and first use - that's not against GPDR. (In my head GUID means "unique identifier string".) Storing the GUID tells you nothing other than some device clicked on an ad and some device did or did not complete the app install.

That is definitely not the case for the ~10 relevant apps I have worked on.

I'm not interested in arguing definitions. I look at what apps on my phone do, and delete anything that wants to talk to the surveillance shops.

It is that simple - I don't trust or use FB, and of course that includes third party FB feeders.

Genuinely curious here, which apps have you kept and use daily? The number of monetized apps that don't talk to Google/FB (or other install trackers) is likely in a very small minority.

I am in the same position though I am not justifying this spying by any means. I have probably a handful of third-party apps and rely on built-ins as much as possible (Apple Maps, calendar, mail, etc) and use most third-party services through the browser with AdGuard to block spyware.

How do you monitor this?

There are several ways to do it. At home I run mitm-proxy and sometimes squid.

For on-phone use, so you can grab cellular data, Charles:

https://www.charlesproxy.com/documentation/ios/

Network blocking like PiHole can block it, but on Android, I also use Blokada, which traps and logs outbound requests to domains on the block list. I also sometimes use ClassyShark3xodus to scan apks for trackers. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.oF2pks.classyshark3xodus...

Also Netguard, pay 6 euro or greater 1 time donation and monitor all outbound requests, among other things

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