[gruez]

So like... most b2c apps out there? I checked app privacy report for a few such apps I have installed and also got a very high proportion of third party domains. Maybe not as high as 77% but definitely above 50% (ie. more domains are third party than first party). The most surprising part here is them refusing to put correct info in the "data collected" section of the app store listing.

edit: they seemed to have updated the store listing, so the "data collected" section is correct.

[tr_user]

[flagged]

[gruez]

No. Stop putting words in my mouth.

[mattbuilds]

No one put words in your mouth, they asked you a question. You are the one who made the initial comparison to B2C apps, so it seems like a fair question to me. Your comment implies that its standard and the app isn't doing anything out of the ordinary when I think most people would except an official government app to be held to a higher standard than the average B2C app.

[gruez]

>You are the one who made the initial comparison to B2C apps, so it seems like a fair question to me.

The relevant part of B2C is the 2C part, not the B. Mass market apps are generally ridden with telemetry and SDKs. Moreover I'm not sure how you think it's a "fair question" to go from a remark about how other apps are equally bad, to thinking I want the US government to operate as a business. It's like doing:

A: "I called the IRS and was put on hold for 2 hours, can you believe that?"

B: "To be fair that's the experience calling into most businesses, like banks or the cable company"

A: "Wow so you think we should be running the IRS like a bank?"

>I think most people would except an official government app to be held to a higher standard than the average B2C app.

Is this a "yes, in an ideal world that's how things should be" type of statement, or are you claiming "yes, government agencies have a track record of delivering technical excellence on software projects, and this particular project was especially bad"? The former is basically a meaningless platitude, and I don't think anyone seriously thinks the latter is true.

[neya]

It's a classic deflection tactic - when they can't refute you by merit, they answer something with a question that is completely different about what was said - BOOM, the discussion is now about something else, completely different from the original issue. I honestly can't tell if it's bots or humans these days doing this a lot, but they're getting pretty good at it.

[jmalicki]

The government should outsource way more of their traffic to third parties than a business should, since the government is inefficient, right?

[amazingman]

Poe's Law strikes again. I legitimately can't tell if this is sarcasm.

[jmalicki]

It is sarcasm. I always get screwed by Poe's law, since dry sarcastic parodies of extremist views is one of my favorite methodologies for producing humor.

[dwattttt]

I'm happy to be against both the white houses' 3rd party telemetry as well as other apps. I can multitask.

[iterateoften]

A government app being built like b2c is exactly the problem

[gruez]

I'm sure that HN's preferred app would be <5MB, and has zero third party SDKs or telemetry, but half a dozen SDKs and third party domains is basically most mass market apps these days. Is it bad? Yes, but the whitehouse isn't being egregiously bad, but "whitehouse app is bad, just like most other apps" isn't going to get clicks.

[abustamam]

"everything else sucks too" is not a great defense for the US govt.

[gruez]

If only. It would be a far better state of of affairs if the US government sucks like every other first world country. No other first country are waging war in the middle east, having paramilitary forces terrorize residents, or are undergoing a partial government shutdown.

[charcircuit]

Just because an app embeds YouTube instead of creating their own video hosting solution that does not mean that does not mean that the app sucks.

[abustamam]

I didn't mention anything about YouTube.

[charcircuit]

This thread is about how there are too many requests to third parties for the app. Half of them are for YouTube.

[aplummer]

See gov.uk for a good example

[ozlikethewizard]

For all our faults I am geniunely impressed by gov.uk. its not pretty, its not particularly fast, and its certainly not flashly, but I've never once not been able to find what I needed or have a flow not work.

[SV_BubbleTime]

Oh, sorry you missed Exlir and WASM, and rust and programming socks of course. Half credit.

[refulgentis]

Right, the White House is collecting data and sending it to Huawei, and overall collection rate is worse than any other app you’ve seen by a wide margin.

That makes me net more surprised after reading your comment.

You're not surprised the white house is worse than any other app you've seen by 20%?

[gruez]

>to Huawei

???

[commoner]

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47581532