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Comment by JimDabell | Hacker News Reader

When I buy an iPhone and use iOS, I’m making an active choice to be an Apple user.

When I install a third-party app and use it, I’m making an active choice to be their user too.

When that third-party app embeds the Facebook SDK which tracks me, I don’t know about it and do not have the ability to consent to Facebook tracking me.

ATT brings Facebook to the same level as Apple and the third-party app developers by giving me the visibility and choice I would otherwise be deprived of. It should be possible to opt out of being a Facebook user. Being silently opted-in without consent is what ATT fixes.

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If Apple believes the warnings are valuable...

Why not apply them to their own ecosystem?

Just because I might be a one-time user of an Apple product definitely doesn't mean I've made an active choice to be enrolled for marketing across their entire ecosystem, indefinitely.

Hell - I'm literally typing this on a Macbook that my work requires I use, I didn't make an active choice there at all...

>If Apple believes the warnings are valuable...

>Why not apply them to their own ecosystem?

OP is only claiming that warnings for third party tracking is valuable. I'm not sure you go from that to "we should have warnings for first party tracking (ie. GDPR-style cookie banners)".

You also don’t have a choice when Apple embeds tracking into their apps, third-party or not. I don’t see why Apple gets away with it just because it’s first party. Should I assume Reminders is sending tracking data to Apple and that’s okay?

For diagnostics and usage patterns only, of course.

Where's the consent? Where's the opt out? These are things we demand of all companies.

Every time I've ever updated my MacBook or my iPhone to the newest OS I got a popup asking if I wanted to consent to reporting anonymous usage data to Apple. I've always refused.

Am I to believe that Apple ignores my explicit refusal of consent and reports the data anyway?

Yes:

https://www.cyberghostvpn.com/privacyhub/apple-privacy-viola...

If you trust Apple with what they do on your iPhone, you should trust the third-party with what they do inside their app, there is no difference.

If you need to know the details of what is done inside the third-party app, then that third-party is not trustworthy. Or you also need to know what is done inside iOS.

The problem is that in today world, we don't know who we can trust, and that the context might change over time. We all believe that Apple doesn't do shady stuff today, but has anyone proof? and will that change some day?

>If you trust Apple with what they do on your iPhone, you should trust the third-party with what they do inside their app, there is no difference.

Why is trust an all or nothing proposition? Why can't I trust an app to do whatever it wants within its sandbox, but not to get an unique identifier that can be shared between apps? It's not any different than sandboxing, where I trust the app to do whatever it wants in its sandbox, but not mess with my documents or OS.

> there is no difference.

That’s not true, Facebook’s business model is inherently privacy invading.

Do you compare Facebook that knows about your friends and holidays to Apple iPhone+iPad+mac+homepod+watch+health+card+wallet+mail+contacts+calendar+passwords+... ?

Apple makes money from selling me goods, Facebook makes money from selling my attention.

This is why I can trust Apple more than Facebook.

> When I buy an iPhone and use iOS, I’m making an active choice to be an Apple user.

> When I install a third-party app and use it, I’m making an active choice to be their user too.

Are you properly notified of exactly what they record, and where they record it? In a form an average user can easily understand and control? Can you opt out of changes in something you are locked into?

No, but that's not what this system is about. It's literally just "are you going to tell anyone else about what I'm doing?"

> When I buy an iPhone and use iOS, I’m making an active choice to be an Apple user.

I disagree. I’m choosing to be a user of the specific device that I bought, nothing more.

> When I buy an iPhone and use iOS, I’m making an active choice to be an Apple user.

At the time of the purchase, at best. If Apple changes their tracking after that and you don't agree with it, what will you do, sell the phone?

You're mixing things up.

There are two decisions:

1. To be a user.

2. To have data tracked.

Installing from the App Store is decision #1 but #2 is made separately.

Is buying a phone both #1 and #2 together? If so, why?

> When I buy an iPhone and use iOS, I’m making an active choice to be an Apple user.

No, I'm making an active choice to have a device capable of SMS, voice and video calls, and recordings.

> When that third-party app embeds the Facebook SDK which tracks me, I don’t know about it and do not have the ability to consent to Facebook tracking me.

With sensible data protection regulations, like GDPR, you must be informed and consent to it. We can talk about implementation details for months, but that's the gist of it.

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