[alistairSH]

Maybe because opting into tracking via "Music" or "Photos" when I've already consented to tracking at the OS level is redundant? There's no unknown 3rd party here - it's all Apple. In the case of apps from the App Store, there are/were 3rd party trackers - I download "Candy Crush" and it sends data to Meta or Google or somebody else.

[buran77]

> I've already consented to tracking at the OS level

That's very wide and obscure. Even the bullet points for how the OS can track you go past what can be considered informed consent. If that consent covers every 1st party app that will ever run on the phone then it's a guarantee nothing in about it is really informed.

If you think a vague, blanket consent is all it takes then every company will get one in a jiffy. Just touch any company's real estate in any way whatsoever, get a prompt that "you consented to being tracked in any company related app forever", profit. You "consented".

Remember when Disney tried to get out of a wrongful death lawsuit by citing some agreement the family of the victim accepted for a Disney+ trial years before? [0] Well you're describing the same principle. Consent should be granular.

[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/disney-says-man-cant-su...

[gruez]

>Remember when Disney tried to get out of a wrongful death lawsuit by citing some agreement the family of the victim accepted for a Disney+ trial years before? [0] Well you're describing the same principle. Consent should be granular.

That case was wildly mischaracterized. The restaurant that allegedly caused the wrongly death was not owned or operated by Disney, but Disney was dragged into the lawsuit anyways on the basis that they listed the restaurant on their website. Disney retorted that if they could be on the hook for a wrongful death under such tenuous circumstances, that they should be let off the hook on the basis of the tenuous waiver the plaintiff signed years before.

[zimpenfish]

> Disney retorted [...] tenuous waiver

They've since backtracked on that retort though and accepted the court process[0].

Although their first response was nothing to do with arbitration[1]. Their lawyers are flip-floppers.

[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/disn...

[1] "Disney made no mention of arbitration, instead arguing it was not liable because it has no control over Raglan’s operations or management and merely serves as its landlord."

[CharlesW]

> That's very wide and obscure.

It's not "obscure" to anyone who takes 5 minutes to ask for it. Apple will happily send you all the data they have about you.

https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/apple-data-and-privacy-how...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-data-collection-stored-r...

[buran77]

You're shooting blanks from the hip. Jumping to answer without even understanding the question or the point of the article.

When I activate a brand new iPhone I don't get presented with Cnet/Zdnet articles from 7 years that tell me that the OS tracking I'm consenting to now will be pooled with any tracking collected from any Apple app now or in the future.

Apple does not allow 3rd party apps to cross track. Insta app can't collect tracking from the FB app. And that's great. But Apple's apps are excluded from this and allow cross tracking. Apple pools together all the tracking it has access to between OS and apps. OP says they're fine with it because they already trusted the OS. But the OS and the apps are different things. What the OS does is at technical level, the apps know what medication I take, how well I slept last night, or which stores I buy my things in. Combining that is way more intimate than "OS tracking".

I trust Apple more than most other big tech companies but such policies still don't sit right with me. They advertise "privacy" but then eschew their own rules.

Downloading my takeout data after the fact won't prevent Apple apps from pooling tracking data in the first place.

[CharlesW]

Again, I'm responding to your "obscure" characterization. The information Apple collects is well-documented by Apple and others, and available for anyone to validate.

> Insta app can't collect tracking from the FB app.

Meta absolutely aggregates user data across their different applications/services.

[realusername]

> I've already consented to tracking at the OS level

Isn't that sentence by itself kind of insane? Tracking at the OS level used to be unacceptable.

Nobody should expect their OS to track them like this in the first place.

[Spivak]

Not saying what's being collected isn't invasive but over time we've redefined spyware and tracking to include logging, error reporting, and telemetry.

Someone in the 90's would be imagining bonzi buddy when you say tracking when it's actually pendo.

[alabastervlog]

This has it backwards: “telemetry” or otherwise collecting info without explicitly asking each time was definitely, for-sure just spyware as late as the mid ‘00s. We only later decided a bunch of that definitely-not-ok stuff was ok.

[Latty]

Companies have intentionally bucketed those things together with invasive ad tracking so they can obfuscate what the user is agreeing to.

As with GDPR, it's easy to offer a good user experience and do the right things by default, but there is an active choice being made to make it annoying and misleading to try and trick users into doing stuff that is against their own interests.

[Spivak]

Apple isn't, I can turn off ad tracking and keep analytics on.

[Latty]

Sure, but the "redefinition" you talk of isn't consumers suddenly being unreasonable, it's the fact they've experienced so much gaslighting and unclear dark patterns they are (reasonably) assuming everything is suspect and rejecting it all.

[realusername]

And what about something like the AdvertisingID? The OS creates an identifier for the purpose of tracking you with ads.

[gruez]

Before that app developers were reading IMEI or mac addresses, which were arguably worse because they can't be reset.

[realusername]

Isn't that just because the sandboxing is really poor on mobile compared to the web? You cannot read those on the web.

[voisin]

> I download "Candy Crush" and it sends data to Meta or Google or somebody else.

Was the Candy Crush developer getting paid for inserting these trackers, or did they only get paid where they also showed ads?

[ceejayoz]

Both companies offer various tracking products that don't require ads.

Google Analytics, Facebook share/login integrations, etc.

[jajko]

Mam, I wish I had your blind trust into multibillion corporations. I am experienced enough to know that I simply don't. Champions of privacy should do better, no they should clearly lead the market, like it was with updates.

I mean thats the main value proposition for Apple these days, no? At least for more tech users.

[alistairSH]

I don't trust Apple - I assume they're tracking. Their record here is better than Google or MS, but that's a pretty low bar. And now that I've picked my poison for overall ecosystem, I want to limit (or at least opt-in) to other tracking.