
iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry - clairity
https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/01/13/app-tracking-alert-in-ios-13-has-dramatically-cut-location-data-flow-to-ad-industry
======
Waterluvian
I'm probably saying the complete obvious, but Apple can completely crush
Google if they execute this angle properly.

Google has no choice but to support ads. They're an ad company. Apple has to
keep hammering how bad the ad and privacy experiences are with Android. Make
iOS an absolute delight to use in contrast.

I'd pay a premium for that. Android has done a great job making me want an iOS
device again, these last ten years.

~~~
otachack
Sure, but Google/Android has added fine grain GPS permissions in Android 10+
so we have the option to say "just track when using app" instead of "no" or
"all the time".

The problem, now, is rolling it out due to fragmentation.

~~~
2ion
It is almost irrelevant for existing users what has been added in Android
version n + 1, because they will never get updated to n + 1. The joys of the
Android vendor ecosystem. Even very expensive phones like Sony get about 1
(mid) or 2 (high-end) major upgrade only, and that's still not guaranteed.
Project Treble did nothing to fix this.

~~~
arkh
> The joys of the Android vendor ecosystem.

Even when going with official Google phones: my Nexus 5 is way out of date OS-
wise.

~~~
pta2002
Your Nexus 5 came out 7 years ago, it's unreasonable to expect that the latest
Android would even run properly on it when the rest of the world has moved on.

~~~
diffeomorphism
Why? A 7 year old midrange PC or laptop will run latest Windows or Linux just
fine.

------
tomlockwood
> A drop in advertiser spending is likely to occur from small or medium-sized
> advertisers, Kasamias believes, as they are clients "where cost efficiency
> is paramount and there is a physical footprint, as targeting the right user
> at the right time will become more difficult."

Frankly, what a load of horse shit.

The reason for the drop in spend isn't the lack of targeting potential. Ad
companies talk about this, because it sounds less creepy than what's really
going on. What marketing departments in companies want from location data, is
the ability to attribute sales to campaigns. They carpet bomb everyone they
can with ads, and then if someone coincidentally even brushes past a store on
their commute, they claim that the customer visited a store.

It's absolute arcane crap. They have no incentive to make targeting better if
tracking is pervasive, because they can wildly gesticulate at one datapoint
that slimily suggests the customer was effected by the ad. Losing location
tracking data reduces the effectiveness of attribution, for huge enterprises,
who target everyone.

ed: I wrote a little blog about this in June -
[https://lockwood.dev/advertising/2019/06/07/adtech-
sucks.htm...](https://lockwood.dev/advertising/2019/06/07/adtech-sucks.html)

~~~
Gatsky
Interesting idea.

I have noticed that after I buy something I start seeing ads for the exact
item, which I have never seen before. These aren’t things you buy more than
once.

I always thought it was pretty dumb if you are serving ads for something
someone just bought... but maybe they do it because some small % of people
will click on it and they can claim the ad was associated with the sale in
some hand-wavy way. Or maybe people are just more likely to click on these
post-sale ads, and that’s all that matters.

~~~
tomlockwood
I think you're right.

This is a function of Marketing departments wanting to create large audiences.
Large audiences mean more chance to attribute a sale, and also more impressive
sounding campaigns.

The technical and time cost of implementing something that removes people who
have made purchases from the audience (probably 0.001% of an audience) is much
higher than simply adding someone who visited your website (lets say 5% of the
audience) to the audience. If your product is reasonably ok, your largest
group of customers is often your previous customers, so attributing the ads
those previous customers see to their next purchase is logical for marketers.

------
dpkonofa
My favorite thing about these features is the number of apps that it’s
reminded me to uninstall completely from my devices. The number of apps that I
initially installed months ago that didn’t have any of this that suddenly
developed tracking notifications is staggering. I never would have known
either since the updates happen silently in the background.

Great features.

~~~
misiti3780
where are you seeing the notifications ? I installed the update and just
clicked "use location only while using app" for everything

~~~
dpkonofa
They'll usually pop up unexpectedly and say something like "Data Leaking App
has used your location while running in the background 3 times in the last 24
hours. Do you want to continue allowing this?" and it'll give me a prompt to
disable location services for that app completely, allow while the app is in
the background, while it's in focus, or allow always. Depending on what
permissions the app actually needs, the prompt is slightly different each
time.

It's a new feature due to the more fine-grained permissions that are allowed
now on iOS. It prevents apps that you may have previously allowed location
access to (when it was just binary) from adding all these new "features" to
use your location in ways that weren't disclosed that way initially.

~~~
misiti3780
interesting - i have not seen that yet, but maybe i dont have apps doing that.
i dont have uber on my phone but I have lyft, Im surprised I have not seen it
from them.

------
mikestew
And it’s not just location data. I am amazed at how many apps want Bluetooth,
too. Umm, there isn’t a single listed feature that indicates a need for BT,
why are you asking? Oh, so you can use that as a tracking vector, too. Well,
not only do you not get BT, you don’t get to live on my phone anymore, either.

As for the advertisers, boo-hoo. You raised a finger (or two, depending on
locale) to “do not track”, you think there wasn’t a hammer that was going to
fall after you were asked politely?

~~~
ASalazarMX
Would the situation be different if Apple's biggest rival wasn't basically an
advertising and data mining company?

I wouldn't put it below Apple to profit from advertising control if Google
didn't have an iron grip on it.

~~~
mikestew
And if a frog had wings it wouldn’t bump its ass when it hops. But in our
world of ass-bumping frogs, that _is_ our current situation. Beyond that,
we’re guessing at motives from Column A, and hypotheticals from Column B.

~~~
mobilemidget
Heh! :D I never heard frog/wings phrase before, made me laugh.

This frog probably did though, saw bit on tv last week, and thanks to the old
data miner (google searched it).

[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/amphibians/w/wall...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/amphibians/w/wallaces-
flying-frog/)

I prematurely agree, it's not real wings, but bumps its ass a lot less
compared to other frogs.

------
freehunter
On the other hand Apple has forced apps to use location data for purposes it
should not be used for. Termius, for example, is my favorite iOS SSH app. But
according to them, they can’t keep an SSH session running in the background
unless they’re constantly tracking your location data. And somehow Apple
approved this usage of location data.

I don’t want to give Termius my location. I don’t want them tracking me
everywhere I go. But apparently that’s the only way they can keep my SSH
session alive when I need to switch to Safari for a few minutes?

~~~
lilyball
Absent memory pressure, apps can stay open for up to 10 minutes in the
background.

The correct solution here is for the app to request background processing and
to schedule a local notification in 9 minutes saying that the app is about to
run out of background time and pause (and then clean up the notification if
the user returns to the app before it fires). This means you're not abusing
anything, and it lets the user return before the connection is killed in order
to keep it alive.

This also means if the user never returns, the app will naturally shut down
the connection after 10 minutes instead of keeping it open indefinitely.

~~~
cerberusss
Are you sure about that? Especially in iOS 13, killing apps seems to have
gotten a bit more agressive.

~~~
freehunter
Yeah on iOS 13 I get Safari tabs reloading if I toggle between them. Just
switching to one tab and back to the other will sometimes completely reload
the page.

iPadOS was such a major leap forward for the iPad and there's not many
features left I _need_ to use it as a laptop replacement... but the aggressive
app and tab killing ruins everything. I've never said this about iOS devices
before, but it's time to start putting more RAM in these machines.

------
novok
The alert is annoying although for apps you want to have always on location
tracking although, like some life logging apps. (Arc, etc)

It's like OS doesn't want to accept there are apps you want always on location
tracking on and for it to stop annoying you about it.

~~~
duskwuff
Yeah, I'm a little annoyed that there isn't an option for "no really, always
allow". I understand that there's good privacy reasons to keep asking -- but
I'm quite aware that a weather app will need access to my location, and I'm
okay with that.

~~~
goalieca
You can choose the weather location manually. I have a list of cities and
default to the one I live in. There’s absolutely no reason for the weather app
to know my location down to the square metre.

~~~
derefr
When you choose a weather location manually, you actually get a less fine-
grained report than the one you get from a GPS-resolved location. Basically,
you get weather for "the closest weather station to the geographic centre of
the named city" rather than "the closest weather station to you."

This can be a big deal if your city has a large altitude range, such that
going a few miles east means the difference between clouds vs. fog, or rain
vs. snow; or if your city is coastal, such that going a few miles inland can
mean rain vs. sun, and can make a dozen degrees' difference in temperature.
(And, in some cities, you have _both_ problems. Yay Vancouver!)

~~~
reaperducer
Why not use a ZIP/postal code?

~~~
leesalminen
My ZIP code has a 4,000ft altitude change. Weather at the top is very
different from the bottom.

~~~
goalieca
you sir are a corner case.

------
mikeryan
Over the years I've considered switching to Android a few times but Apple's
really locking in as my preferred device from their privacy work.

Not sure this moves the needle with consumers but it does for me.

~~~
jccooper
The article is from Apple Insider, so I guess it's no surprise they don't
mention it, but Android 10 has the same functionality, including reminders and
per-app 3-way location tracking settings (always on, on with app open, off).

~~~
merpnderp
Granted it's been quite some time, but one of the reasons I switched to iOS
from Android was Facebook kept "accidentally" exploiting bugs in Android and
Google never did anything about it. At the time Facebook wasn't even one of
the apps you could delete from your phone. Hopefully Android is better now.

~~~
tialaramex
> one of the reasons I switched to iOS from Android was Facebook kept
> "accidentally" exploiting bugs in Android and Google never did anything
> about it. At the time Facebook wasn't even one of the apps you could delete
> from your phone. Hopefully Android is better now

Um? What?

None of my Android phones, going back a great many years, had Facebook. So
sure, I couldn't delete it - because it wasn't there.

~~~
fierarul
My guess is you buy expensive/vanilla-OS Android phones. Lots of other Android
phones have Facebook apps that can't be deleted.

~~~
Krasnol
The cheapest western Android phones like by Motorola, Nokia or Xiaomi (the
around 150€ models) don't have this and you can uninstall everything that IS
on there.

Actually the expansive ones like Samsung are the really bloated ones.

~~~
fierarul
Maybe I should have said non-mainstream ones. I never saw an Android One phone
unless it was specifically bought for pure Android.

------
jonny383
If you're running Android, I suggest you install one of the open source
"firewall"s available on FDroid.

Even if you don't plan on using it, make yourself aware of the sheer number of
requests being sent _constantly_ from not only your applications, but by
Android system services themselves.

I'm not saying these requests are always related to ad tracking, but you can't
argue there's a lot of information constantly being sent back an forth.

Pro-tip: Your battery life will possibly double running a software firewall on
Android...

~~~
n0rbwah
Any app you've got in mind? The only one on
[https://search.f-droid.org/?q=firewall](https://search.f-droid.org/?q=firewall)
doesn't seem to be of interest for that purpose.

------
lalos
Next step is to download Lockdown, open source and on device firewall. It also
offers a VPN with an in-app purchase (kinda confusing when you are setting it
up), but for free you get the firewall only. Easy to enable and block known
ad-trackers (including FB sdk and Google Ads). Highly recommend. It's also
made by ex Apple engineers, in case that helps for building trustworthiness.

[https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lockdown-
apps/id1469783711](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lockdown-apps/id1469783711)

[https://github.com/confirmedcode/lockdown-
ios](https://github.com/confirmedcode/lockdown-ios)

~~~
cremp
Maybe I'm just skeptical and a cynic, but...

> VPN with an in-app purchase

Lets pay for a product, and they have the ability to sell that data.

I get, acting like a pi-hole and what-not but, a VPN for that task seems
overkill.

~~~
Cynddl
iOS requires a VPN profile (even a local VPN) for ruled-based adblocking. This
is what AdGuard Pro [0] does for adblocking.

This does not mean that your data goes through a VPN server.

[0] [https://adguard.com/en/adguard-ios-
pro/overview.html](https://adguard.com/en/adguard-ios-pro/overview.html)

------
overgard
Here’s the thing: before all this privacy invading tracking nonsense
advertising was a perfectly healthy business. Yes, it’s harder to know if your
campaign worked but that didn’t stop people from advertising. I have zero
sympathy for the ad industry complaining because of this.

------
coreai
On the other hand recently I restored my iPhone as new. The default settings
may give users prompts to disable tracking but Siri is now a big tracker
itself. Siri now learns from apps how you use them by default. While this may
not be advertising and data may be on your device or with a trusted company
like Apple, the idea of privacy should be that by default everything is opt in
only. Who’s to say Apple is tailoring your iPhone behaviour ‘to your needs’
when in reality they are just trying to make you invest more into their
ecosystem by learning from you ? That might sound like that’s helpful and
might make the experience better but the main idea of tracking is still the
same.

------
classified
> ...forcing advertisers to use inefficient data sources to pinpoint users.

They should have said, "to pinpoint users against their will". If the user
wanted to be pinpointed, they would allow location tracking in that app.

------
hinkley
The thing is... we still do adaptations of Shakespeare, because human behavior
hasn't changed all that profoundly in 600 years.

By the time we actually have privacy again, there will be enough information
out there to mine about how people reacted five, ten years ago for the old
data to continue to retain value. It'll just be repackaged and re-interpreted
over and over again.

The coffee shop may no longer know that you also like kayaks, or bulldogs, but
they might not need information like that to peg your preferences based on
what stereotypes you fit with the information they do have.

------
luhn
One thing I wish iOS supported is allowing apps to access approximate location
data. There's a lot of apps that bring value based on location, but I don't
want to give them precise GPS data.

------
cglong
This feature sounds great on paper, but what's always bugged me is that this
only applies to third-party apps. Apple's own location tracking apps (Maps,
Find My) aren't subjected to never-ending scary pop-up messages like their
competitors.

------
mhb
That's swell. It would also be great if there was a single button on the
Control Center that would allow me to toggle global location on/off instead of
how it is which is multiple clicks, scroll and confirmation.

------
sigwinch28
Although it doesn't stop DNS over HTTPS, I use a DNS sinkhole on my home
network and then I use wireguard to VPN into home when I'm not connected to my
home WiFi.

The Wireguard iOS app allows you to automatically connect to your configured
interfaces based on whether you're using cellular data, connected to specific
SSIDs, or disconnected from specific SSIDs.

The only downside I have found to this approach so far is that it can break
captive portals on public WiFi networks, which I will just disconnect from if
I have a reasonable 4G signal.

------
shivam_mani
That's great. Android also has this feature for couple of months now.

What's great it shows list of apps that use location in background so that you
can disable all permissions in go.

------
code4tee
Apple is clearly taking a position that some of the other big players can’t,
and all indications are that they will squeeze this play very hard.

The likes of Google have rough waters ahead. Advertising on the internet is
obviously here to say but the future of targeted ads based on all this
tracking data is clearly looking very shaky.

Google and other companies have likely not done enough to diversify their
business models to weather the coming storm without a lot of hurt.

------
mesozoic
Great step in the right direction.

------
rpastuszak
TL;DR:

\- 80% of iOS 13 users disabled background location tracking \- vendors still
report having collected more location-based data than a year before, but \-
the quality of data has decreased (vendors are ofsetting GPS data with geo ip
lookups)

I didn't find the UX and the initial permission/notification spam that
annoying, as I've learned more about what's happening on my phone. Wondering
if this is a shared sentiment or just my bias.

------
bhouston
My Android phone started telling me about background location requests about 2
weeks ago as well with the option to block. It is a great feature.

------
bilekas
> The quality of that data is still a problem, as ad buyers notice it is of a
> lower quality than data that was previously available

Not a problem at all.

------
krisgenre
To be fair I get a very similar notification when an app requests location
data in the background in Android 10 too.

------
jammygit
What sort of privacy protections does purism offer when you use librem apps?
Anyone experiment with this so far?

------
throwaway55554
Replace each occurrence of “location data” with, say, “cocain”.

> Despite the reduced amount of cocain available, the amount that is still
> available to use is more valuable, while the market for cocain continues to
> thrive.

I mean it’s disturbing.

~~~
scarejunba
Hey, good one, mate. Now let's try the First Amendment. I'm going to try
replacing "speech" with "cocaine".

> _Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
> prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of cocaine,
> or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
> petition the Government for a redress of grievances._

Good god. This is immeasurably disturbing. Forsooth, we must ban the freedom
of speech!

~~~
throwaway55554
Are you somehow trying to equate ad companies hoovering up our location data
with the first amendment?

I was simply trying to convey how addicted they are to that data.

~~~
scarejunba
You can make everyone look addicted to something by replacing something with
cocaine. It's because all the bad parts come from the fact that you're
replacing something with cocaine

------
JohnFen
Excellent work, Apple! Keep it up!

------
wewake
Apple already collects all the data of their users heavily and moves like
these are simply meant to annoy their competitors (mostly Google) and keep the
data to themselves while looking like a good kid in the valley.

The number of gullible people aka Apple fanboys is staggering here who
actually think Apple is trying to _save_ their privacy from advertisers after
reading this highly biased article. Hah.

~~~
cerberusss
What makes you so sure about that?

~~~
wewake
Consider [1] and [2] but you can find plenty more.

[1]
[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/01/apple...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/01/apples-
hypocritical-defense-data-privacy/581680/) [2]
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2019/12/04/appl...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2019/12/04/apple-
iphone-11-iphone-11-pro-location-privacy-issue)

~~~
cerberusss
I just read the first article, but I find the problem quite hard, actually.

The Atlantic article seems to say that Apple can do more, because: Safari
defaults to Google (Tim Cook claims because it's the best search engine), plus
they allow Google and Facebook apps, especially Google Maps. You'd rather they
didn't?

The second article, from Krebs on Security, says that the location is
collected by Apple for "a new short-range technology that lets iPhone 11 users
share files locally with other nearby phones that support this feature, and
that a future version of its mobile operating system will allow users to
disable it".

I think it's far more nuanced than you state. However, I do agree with you
that Safari should not default to Google.

------
xs83
As someone who works in this space I see this from an alternative angle. Yes
we use data like this in order to advertise to you, No Apple is no better than
Google at how they approach this - they are just walling you further into
their walled garden.

Google uses your location information to track your locations in order to
provide better (more relevant) advertisements through their own ad platform.

Apple does exactly the same but because it doesn't have it's own ad platform
this gets sent to their "Approved Partners" who do it on their behalf.

Stopping 3rd parties from being able to use this data simply tightens the
circle, the data is anonymous (for the most part) and while there are
companies that exist out there to tie this data to an actual person most
companies like ours have no need to do so.

Likewise what you will start seeing off the back of this is a decrease in
advert quality.

Like anyone - I despise adverts, but if I HAVE to see them I at least want
them to be relevant products that I am interested in. Soon the only people who
will be able to provide those insights will be Apple Partners or Google.

~~~
egdod
> Apple does exactly the same but because it doesn't have it's own ad platform
> this gets sent to their "Approved Partners" who do it on their behalf.

Apple sends my location information to third parties? Citation needed.

~~~
macintux
I just looked. They do, but they share it anonymously unless you consent
otherwise.

[https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-
ww/](https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww/)

See "Location-Based Services" near the bottom.

~~~
xenospn
I'm assuming this is for Maps/address resolution data and such, and not real
time location information that can be used to identify a single user.

~~~
xs83
No one identifies a "User" (in a personal sense), everything goes via the IDFA
or AAID, this is a unique identifier that represents your device. Real time
location is used - it specifies it there, I am really not sure why people
think Apple is more altruistic with this data than Google.

