Apple to Ban Apps That Reward Users for Enabling App Tracking | Hacker News Reader

Apple to Ban Apps That Reward Users for Enabling App Tracking

macrumors.com

94 pointsnojito22 comments

I wonder if there is an added benefit to this policy in terms of required geolocation for access. As in, will Apple prevent apps from requiring geolocation for access to content such as the MLB, NFL, or other apps that will only show content specific to your market area.

> "[...] and you can't withhold functionality or content or make your app unusable until people allow you to track them."

Per that reading, it would seem like the MLB and NFL apps would be banned from requiring location access before the live streams are playable, which could finally progress some of these insanely stupid TV blackout rules once and for all... Though, unless Apple will also apply this to IP based geofencing, there would still be a long way to go before TV blackout rules are gone from streaming services....

No, because huge apps like league sports and Facebook sell iPhones. They do what they can, but they ultimately can't actually ban MLB or Facebook from the store, or people will sell their iPhone and buy a different phone.

Apple can and will do that. See Fortnite:

https://www.epicgames.com/help/en-US/fortnite-c75/battle-roy...

Apple can handle angry gamers, they cant handle angry moms going on TV complaining about Apple removing FB.

You say that, but they also have set a precedent of doing that before with the Fortnite and plenty of other apps trying to subvert their arguably harsh In-App Purchase rules. I agree though, they try to ban the MLB, NFL, or other video apps with blackout rules based on geolocation, there could be a lot of people doing exactly what you suggest. Now, all of the apps could get rid of their app experience and go to a webapp only experience and circumvent the rules that way.

Fortnite is a completely different ball game compared to Facebook.

What else can you do on your mobile if they ban social networks?

One would have to rediscover productive uses for their time

I wanted to answer this by saying others were being unfair and Fortnite doesn't seriously compare to the MLB or Facebook, but man, I'm surprised at how much revenue it actually brings in. Apparently $1.8 billion in the last non-Covid year. That's still quite a bit less than MLB's $19 billion or Facebook's $86 billion, but a lot more than I expected. I still don't think Fortnite is going to have century plus staying power or drive five generations of inherited fan bases, but impressive nonetheless. Actually makes me wonder if Apple would really go that far.

> unless Apple will also apply this to IP based geofencing

The only way Apple can prevent IP based tracking or location (or anything keyed off IP addressing) is to proxy all user traffic (iCloud VPN, if you will).

Isn't monetary rewards the correct incentive though? Paying people (or discounting) shares the value-add of tracking back to the tracked.

Apple trying to keep people from willingly and knowingly accept tracking seems like they're being too paternalistic.

I believe gating features or giving preference to tracking/not-tracking is a violation of GDPR

I don’t think it’s “pay $0.99 to remove ads” that’s the problem.

It’s more about “Share your contacts for 500 gems” or “enable location tracking and we’ll give you access to all these cool filters”.

N.B. Snapchat recently stopped doing this. You can now use filters that don’t require location when location is turned off. I wonder if Apple stepping in is the reason why.

While I agree that such thing such as “Share your contacts for 500 gems” or “enable location tracking and we’ll give you access to all these cool filters” should not be allowed in the app store, they should not require that only apps from the app store can be used; you should be allowed to freely install your own (by using special menus or whatever). However, I would also have design the system that you can easily fake these data, so even if it does say "share your contacts for 500 gems", they will not know if the data is legitimate or not. (This capability might be useful for testing purposes too, perhaps.)

>I don’t think it’s “pay $0.99 to remove ads” that’s the problem.

>It’s more about “Share your contacts for 500 gems” or “enable location tracking and we’ll give you access to all these cool filters”.

while this is definitely pro-privacy, my cynical take is that this is also better for apple. If you offer an IAP apple gets their 30% cut, but if it's some sort of ad/data broker deal they don't.

Both are banned, so it’s not clear what you are cynical about.

IAPs are banned?

For that, yes.

Making services not-free (by de-incentivizing alternative methods of profitability) is certainly good for apple.

I would prefer a solution that had revocable consent and a record of it that was transferred to all the data brokers. The only prohibition on rewards being that the reward cant be on nullifying the revocable nature of the consent.

In this model the data brokers can be sanctioned for using data they are no longer allowed to use.

The problem is that “reward users for accepting tracking” very easily becomes “punish users who reject it”. The reward will be getting back the stuff you had before this change so you are no better off.

Apple believes that everyone should have access to privacy.

Does this mean if your app has rewarded video ads you can’t refuse to show them if ad tracking is turned off?

For people who don't mind apple's power over their system, this is great. For me this is just another demonstration of apple's power witch it absolutely shouldn't have and just another reason not to by an iphone

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