Apple Robbed the Mob’s Bank
mobiledevmemo.com
mobiledevmemo.com
This is one important factor that very few FB users realize. The secret sauce is aggregating data captured outside of FB, which is hard to visualize and grasp for most people.
More than once friends/family have asked me if FB really can hear via your microphone, and my response is usually met with blank stares: no, they aren't listening to your microphone, they know much more about you from the sites you've visited.
For instance, on iOS, they cannot access your microphone without your express permission (though once they have obtained it once, you'd have to go into the Settings app and explicitly revoke it), and they cannot do so while the app is not open.
Similarly, in Safari on macOS, any website needs to ask permission to access the microphone/webcam, and you can revoke the permission if you want. (This isn't quite as obvious, but if you add the Website Preferences button to your toolbar, it becomes much moreso: I strongly recommend doing this for anyone using Safari.)
I know there's a fairly widespread idea that all smartphones act as always-on microphones and cameras for the shady tech overlords (or the government; whichever the person's particular fear is about), but the whole point of Apple's stance on privacy is preventing that sort of invasive, pervasive, surveillance from taking place from iPhones and other Apple devices.
You might think that Facebook knows about what you’re thinking about buying on Amazon because you’re talking to your spouse out loud about buying that thing. But more likely than not, it’s because you also mentioned it on Facebook Messenger — or Instagram, or WhatsApp. Or, because you already searched for the thing on Amazon, and Amazon sold that data to Facebook. Or because you watched a video about it on YouTube, or read a review article about it (which is what inspired you to be interested in buying it in the first place), and YouTube or that media conglomerate sold your data to Facebook/Amazon/etc.
Likewise, if Amazon knows about your Facebook activity, that’s likely an example of data-sharing in the opposite direction — Facebook selling to Amazon.
Of course, both Amazon and Facebook also partner with tons of other smaller third parties as well, to do ad-tech targeting that those third parties don’t bother to do themselves.
Something people always wonder about is how Tumblr still exists, despite having the worst internal ad-tech ever. Well, they don’t need to make money showing you ads themselves; they can just sell your data to Facebook/Amazon/etc., to improve their ad targeting of you.
Same goes for, say, Wordpress. Just because a blog doesn’t have ads on it, doesn’t mean it isn’t collecting your data and feeding it into one (or multiple) of the big five’s ad-tech backends.
Why do you say that it's a superstition? Have you reverse-engineered the Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger apps?
This indicator has not been reported to appear "for no reason" in these apps.
(Mind you, there's no similar feature for Android, so FAANG might be carefully snooping on only Android users. But it's pretty unlikely.)
Also, people snoop the network traffic from these apps all the time. There's no raw audio in there when there shouldn't be. (Or do you imagine the hypothetical speech-to-text modelling is happening on your phone? That'd be nigh-on Pokemon-Go-like in its battery draw. For an example of a similar battery draw: try opening Shazam or another "audio fingerprinting" app, and just continuously re-activating it whenever it deactivates. You'll lose a lot of battery, pretty quickly.)
Android has about two billion users - there's an extremely strong incentive for large, ad-driven companies (like Facebook) to segment Android off and take advantage of every API possible to gather data with - and they certainly have the resources.
> Or do you imagine the hypothetical speech-to-text modelling is happening on your phone?
Yes. Speech recognition is a relatively easy problem for the purpose of the advertiser, because they don't need anything approaching perfect accuracy - unlike tools like, say, Siri, which need a very high accuracy rate. It's well-known that you can sacrifice accuracy for performance/power in many algorithms, and voice recognition has been the focus of intense study, with many low-power algorithms being developed. For instance, here's a design (it does contain a custom chip, although one tested at a large process node and containing functionality similar to a GPU) that consumes 8mW of power on a >100k word dictionary: https://groups.csail.mit.edu/sls/publications/2018/Price_IEE...
> For an example of a similar battery draw: try opening Shazam or another "audio fingerprinting" app
Those are completely different tasks. Audio fingerprinting is not remotely comparable to low-accuracy voice transcription - otherwise Siri and Google Assistant would drain your battery constantly at the same rate.
It's pretty clear that your claims of "superstition" are unfounded speculation that is inconsistent with the abilities of modern technology.
Essentially - Talk to your friends about the most repulsive YouTube ads you’ve seen, loudly, in the presence of their mobile phones.
I ended up doing this after being forced to endure a particularly stomach churning ad related to ear wax removal.
When I discussed it with two friends, I told them about the ad, and wondered if they would start seeing it. Sure enough a day later my friend told me she’s getting the ear wax ad.
Maybe it has to do with android vs iOS, maybe there is some other way the data was linked, maybe it isn’t facebook listening in but some other app.
But it really does look like the microphones are on, and the networks are listening.
"I just talked about X product the other day, but never searched for it. But I'm getting ads for it now anyway!"
Well, you may not have searched for it after that conversation, but other people in the demographic they think you belong to did. So they think maybe you're interested in X product as well.
And also off-line data collection. Do you have a loyalty card for some store you go to often? There's a decent chance that data ends up with Facebook.
I'm frankly a little surprised that Facebook didn't follow Apple by releasing a credit card.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-an...
I wish Apple did not sell ads of any kind (the don't need even more money), but using knowledge you gain just from a transaction to make money, simply because you have to exchange some information to get what you want, is as old as selling anything (Omar in the market sees you bought two sets of flowers, assumes you are an adulterer, turns you in for a reward to the Czar).
I'm sad they didn't make it a base part of Apple Pay.
>Apple has taken money from a party that is so unsympathetic that it can’t appeal to a greater authority for redress. Apple has brazenly, in broad daylight, stormed into the Bank of Facebook, looted its most precious resource, and, camouflaged under the noble cause of giving privacy controls to the consumer, fled the scene.
Facebook does not already have money from future ad revenue, therefore Apple cannot have “taken” it.
> that is so unsympathetic that it can’t appeal to a greater authority for redress.
Facebook cannot appeal to a greater authority for redress because no crimes were committed against them.
The rest of the quote is also hyperbolic nonsense. “[Apple] fled the scene” does not make the slightest bit of sense.
It sounds like you are trying to interpret it very literally?
The utility of an analogy that compares every business offering a better product to consumers as a thief robbing another thief is pretty useless to me.
I guess the internet came in and robbed all the travel agents, secretaries, map makers, and other obviated middlemen too. And Facebook and Google robbed all the ad agencies. And then “fled the scene”.
The analogy is not "robbery" but "rob the mob". Namely, the idea that if your target is reprehensible enough, you can get away with things that you otherwise couldn't.
Suuuuuure they can... This is a thing!
There was a recent financial scandal where a company started out by buying accounts receivable at a small discount and ended up loaning money for hypothetical accounts receivable from hypothetical customers.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-04-06/greens...
Sounds like an obvious monopoly abuse to me. I hope some government (European maybe?) do something about it.
so frustrating to read this in 2021, with memories of the personal computer in the 80s and 90s. The exact market placement of PC's was to break a dependence on a central account somewhere. Many, many people knew exactly what that meant, supported a plural market of hardware and software (in the West) with their individual purchases, and things were fun and interesting.
Trading software and hardware was more like trading books and records - in the privacy of your town and home. So many positives to this model.
We’ve entered the era of “computing as a service” outside the enthusiast / PC gamer realm. At the corporate level, this is literally becoming the case: the new model is to just outsource everything for corporate devices, including ownership of the machines, and lease them through a managed services agreement. But this rebundling is less obvious in the consumer space as PCs have largely been replaced by tablets and smartphones (which do follow more of an “as a service” model).
Ahah, Ahahah.... AhaHAHAHAHAHAH
Sure, the App Store is just full of Scam Applications that are "so hard to detect" that they top the App Store revenue chart,
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2021/02/09/developer-uncovers...
but Hey, THANKS APPLE, they CURATED the App Store !
(PS: if you got scammed and get your bank account siphoned off, or lost all your bitcoin, this is obviously Your Fault. Now that you have a problem, let's correct the previous statement : Actually, Apple Never promised anything, right ?)
Apple shouldn't be in charge of commerce on iPhone. It's as if there were only two electric companies, and they charged Tesla 30% to charge your car. The electric company is now in charge of the ads being beamed into your skull, because they had all the power and wanted more ways to make money. It's cute to say that it's in the name of consumer privacy and all, but really the powerful company is just thirsty for more.
Apple is a monopoly's monopoly.
So who should be? Facebook? Google? Microsoft? Adobe? Disney? Samsung?
How many APIs and app packaging do you think app developers would bother working with?
How much time do you think it would take for the network effect to desertify all-but-one?
Given the only incentive for these stores would be user monetization, how long would it take for the winner to make confetti out of your privacy?
If Apple's strategy is "Privacy is a luxury item we embed in our products", how would breaking Apple's monopoly on Apple's products affect Privacy?
Currently you are forced to use Apple's AppStore and payments. Apple invades your privacy and tracks your activity without any ability to opt out.
If you could install other software on the devices you own, you would have a choice to avoid this tracking.
It's strange that he got downvoted for telling something so obvious.
What's the point of choice if all choices are bad?
This whole "Consumer Choice™" delusion is some wonder to behold.
So just opt in when the phone gives you the choice.
The article was about how Apple is out maneuvering Facebook. By restricting Facebook's third party access to customer information, Apple reinforces its own advertising position. They recently added another placement to the search page in the AppStore, and will no doubt expand to more areas. Their hiring of a former Facebook ad executive is telling.
It addresses this good guy / bad guy narrative. Apple is better at PR not necessarily better for consumer privacy.
This absolutely does not mean that Apple is realy a defender of consumer privacy. Apple does not support privacy out of principle but does it for PR and market share. Apple will (and does) happily compromise privacy for their bottom line.
Then you are extremely naive.
Apple takes away from you as much private data as it can. It's just very bad at exploiting it, primarily because the company already earns so much money, it's not even incentivized in recognizing the benefit of data mining.
But with iPhones sells diminishing every year, the situation is changing. Growth must come from services.
Apple will continue to slurp away your private data. Apple will invest more into this resource, and make more and more use of it, including for the targeted Ads that used to be "so evil" when they came from another Ad network, but hey, if it's Apple, it's different.
Facebook advertisers being able to target people for being sick, pregnant, poor and similar, based on photos you liked on instagram or even browsing non-facebook sites, is an entirely different level of privacy breech.
This is creepy.
A fairly large potion of Facebook Ads are actually Ads for Apps or specifically Games. Previously the Ad network ( in this case Facebook ) would know what sort of Games you have installed, and show you some relevant ( or similar ) games that you may like. There is no point showing you FPS games if you dont play FPS games at all. With ATT no ad network, including but not limited to Facebook will not have any "newer" data. And they cant target those ads for you. This is what the whole "tracking" argument is all about. ( At least from Apple perspective )
But since Apple has all those Data, they can now sell those Ads themselves. Of course the argument is the definition of Tracking. And may be the vast majority understanding of what tracking really mean, portrayed by Apple differs greatly to the actual technical definition. Benedict Evans [1] has quite a few words on it.
On the PR and media side it is the same playbook as they did with Qualcomm. Facebook and Qualcomm are evil, Apple are righteous. But when the trial did happen every single accusation Apple made against Qualcomm turns out to false before they were quickly settled.
The amount of hypocrisy from Modern Day Apple is even worst than Google in early 2000s.
[1] https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1387130787510751239...
Sorry, could you expound on this a bit? I don't recall hearing about this.
The 2nd best I found was somehow from Cnet [1] from Shara Tibken. The link is a high level summary, her twitter account has many more information.
And it was at that moment I learned, It wasn't the reporter's problem for fake news. I discovered most Reporter's Twitter account actually report more useful information with very little bias. They were actually doing their job, wonderful and brilliantly old fashioned way. What was the problem is a lot of these were editorialised in print or online in order to drive click rate.
I was on Apple's side at first, although I knew their explanation of "Double Dipping" and Patents Percentage of a Devices were false. But I still gave them many benefits of doubt and that Qualcomm was over charging. But when all the figure was shown, Intel throw in the towel, the amount of Hypocrisy from Apple was far beyond anything I have seen. I seen then have gain tremendous respect for Qualcomm as a business and how professional they were in the whole account.
[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-and-qualcomm-settle-heres-wh...
They just sherlocked Tile and Facebook Ads in the last month alone.
This is clearly anti-competitive, at least in the EU.
Let them advertise there for now. It’s not like I’ll see it much.
I think the author confused the PR department with the business strategy department. They are the ones that really deserves the pay raise.
previous discussion yesterday:
They could have helped us get real sideloading on iOS.