[Nextgrid]

It wasn't a dark pattern per-se. They assumed good faith and relied on morals and compliance with the law to be sufficient.

Keep in mind that when the GDPR went in effect (and maybe before that with the "cookie law", as the advertising ID is equivalent to a tracking cookie), using the system-wide advertising ID (which is enabled by default - the dark pattern you were talking about) would be in breach of the regulation; apps should still ask for consent before using it and allow users to decline.

I can't fully fault Apple for expecting that the GDPR would actually be enforced and clean things up. It clearly wasn't the case however and they're thankfully making changes to mitigate that.