[HN Gopher] I only care about the helpful notifications, not the...
___________________________________________________________________
I only care about the helpful notifications, not the promotional
ones
Author : otras
Score : 333 points
Date : 2022-06-05 16:00 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (alexanderell.is)
(TXT) w3m dump (alexanderell.is)
| nathanasmith wrote:
| It's a shame there isn't some kind of system wide filter for
| notifications using regular expressions or something. Probably a
| job for an Android ROM creator.
| anonymous_sorry wrote:
| Android apps can classify notifications into different categories
| that you can individually toggle. I haven't personally noticed a
| lot of abuse of this.
| dahart wrote:
| In email land, the terms for helpful vs promotional are
| "transactional email" for the helpful stuff (e.g.,
| https://mailchimp.com/help/about-transactional-email/) and
| "marketing email" for the promotional ones.
|
| There are channels to report abuse if it's bad, not to mention
| just leaving reviews and mentioning why.
| webmobdev wrote:
| Had similar ideas - I share the author's frustration in India,
| the delivery apps and banking apps are the worst culprits.
|
| I wonder if the regulators can be asked to extend the "Do Not
| Call" registry to include barring such app notifications? For
| example, the _National Do Not Call Registry_ in my country has
| now been renamed to _National Customer Preference Register
| (NCPR)_. This now gives indians more fine-grained options to
| choose what kind of marketing calls we want to bar or receive:
|
| > "Transactional message" means a message triggered by a
| transaction performed by the subscriber, who is also the
| sender's customer, provided such a message is sent within 30
| minutes of the transaction being performed and is directly
| related to it. Provided that the transaction may be a banking
| transaction, delivery of OTP, purchase of goods or services,
| etc. ... "Unsolicited commercial communication or UCC" means
| any commercial communication that is neither as per the consent
| nor as per registered preference(s) of recipient, but shall not
| include: (i)Any transactional message or transactional voice
| call ...
|
| Source: TRAI regulation -
| https://trai.gov.in/sites/default/files/DraftUCCRegulation29...
|
| They can extend this to mobile OS notifications and ask Google,
| Apple, Samsung etc. (mobile OS makers) to ensure that all
| promotional messages through such notifications are blocked,
| and only "transactional messages" are allowed.
| shostack wrote:
| I'm sad that phone notifications aren't in the same category of
| governance as email. The promotional vs transactional
| requirement could be used to good effect here with opt out and
| CAN-SPAM legislation.
| floren wrote:
| Expedia is really bad about calling all their promotions
| "transactional emails". You see, once upon a time in the
| distant past, I used Expedia, so based on that _transaction_
| surely I care deeply about how "A more rewarding travel
| experience is coming in February":
| http://jfloren.net/content/expedia.png
| kmod wrote:
| I'm not sure of the bindingness of this page [1], but the FTC
| says that transactional-vs-promotional is determined by what
| what a recipient "reasonably interpret[s]" it as, not what
| the sender says it is. Not that this prevents the kind of
| abuse that you mention, but I find if I send a email
| responding to the kind of email you mention and I politely
| explain how it is a violation of CAN-SPAM and if reported is
| a five-figure fine per email, then I magically get added to
| some sort of "do not send promotional emails that we call
| transactional" opt-out.
|
| [1] https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-
| act...
| fmajid wrote:
| Heh. I was woken up by an Uber greenwashing marketing
| notification. All notifications off (and in any case if I am
| waiting for a Uber I have the app on waiting for the countdown
| and I don't need the notifications anyway). If there were a
| viable competitor to them where I live, I would have deleted the
| app altogether and given them a 1-star rating.
|
| Apple's policies ban the use of push notifications for marketing
| purposes, but they don't enforce it nor do they provide a way for
| customers to report violation, so that policy is completely
| useless.
| deergomoo wrote:
| > Apple's policies ban the use of push notifications for
| marketing purposes
|
| Not anymore, this was rolled back a year or two ago
| unfortunately. About the same time Apple themselves started
| using push notifications for marketing.
| mawif wrote:
| I think the relevant rule is section 4.5.4 of the App Store
| Review Guidelines:
|
| > _4.5.4 Push Notifications must not be required for the app
| to function, and should not be used to send sensitive
| personal or confidential information. Push Notifications
| should not be used for promotions or direct marketing
| purposes unless customers have explicitly opted in to receive
| them via consent language displayed in your app's UI, and you
| provide a method in your app for a user to opt out from
| receiving such messages. Abuse of these services may result
| in revocation of your privileges._
|
| https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/
|
| So the language is weaker, but it should still be possible to
| disable marketing notifications.
|
| (Edit to add: and I report apps that don't provide that
| option, citing the above. So far, doing so hasn't achieved
| anything though.)
| fmajid wrote:
| I hadn't noticed, thanks for letting us now. Very poor
| decision (both rolling back the policy and spamming us with
| push notifications).
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| Whatever rule requires Hulu to display a little ad logo (I assume
| it's a rule) when they're on ad break, even the standard cable
| channel feeds, is great. It should apply to everything, including
| push notifications.
| kbos87 wrote:
| This is literally what drove me away from Facebook, completely.
| Their constant "redesigning" of notification and privacy settings
| was a veiled effort to force whatever notifications in front of
| me. There are certain notifications I want from you Facebook, but
| you made a grave miscalculation when you thought I'd put up with
| everything else you threw at me. So here I am, a Facebook user
| since 2007(?) who pretty much walked away in 2019 and has barely
| been back.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| User since 2006, ran away in 2006. Not been back. Dodged a
| bayraktar, there.
|
| *though i am somewhat annoyed that i cant use whatsapp, as a
| result. WA seems like a great app, just owned by a company i
| can't support.
| jrockway wrote:
| Every notification system eventually becomes email. What that
| means is that we probably need OS-level spam filters so that you
| can report things as spam. If the notification looks spammy based
| on the training, it simply won't show up. Marketers think they're
| reaching you, an army of software engineers remained employed to
| figure out how to refactor the API to send notifications with the
| V3 protocol or whatever unnecessary change the OS vendor made
| this week (driving up every other software engineer's salary;
| thank you!), but you don't have to be woken up by the latest not-
| actually-a-very-good-deal.
|
| Whether or not the notification was delivered or blocked by the
| filter probably shouldn't be fed back to the application, to
| stave off the inevitable workarounds. But people will test stuff
| on their own devices and find workarounds. "Your order has
| arrived! Tap for details." But when you tap it's just an ad. On
| the other hand, it would be nice for things like Pagerduty to
| know that all of their notifications were blocked and that they
| should escalate to the next person on the rotation.
|
| The "mark as spam" data should be fed back to the app stores, and
| if the app requested status notification privilege and not
| marketing notification privileges, their app is pulled until they
| fix it. (Cannot wait to read the whining about that. "I'm just
| trying to hustle like some blog post from 30 years ago said I
| should! <crying face emoji>")
|
| In the meantime, I don't really ever turn on app notifications.
| They usually email me, and what's great about email is I have the
| Spam folder and the Promotions tab, so I never see most of their
| communications.
| gingerlime wrote:
| There's an iOS feature called time-sensitive notifications (which
| eg Uber uses). Unfortunately it's a subset of notifications as a
| whole, so I can't disable notifications and allow only time-
| sensitive ones :-/
| bsedlm wrote:
| I don't wanna be opted-in by default into any notification
| generated by any automated process.
|
| only when a fellow human clicks (i.e. directly triggers) _one_
| action (intended to call my attention) should I be interrupted
| with a full notification by default.
|
| all notifications generated in bulk, by an automated script/bot,
| or as a side-effect of a human action need to be explicitly
| activated by me before they can interrupt me.
| jerieljan wrote:
| I highly recommend installing Buzzkill for those on Android.
|
| In addition to built-in per-channel settings, Buzzkill allows you
| to create rules to auto-dismiss or do certain actions depending
| on the title or description of the notification, using basic
| matching or regex.
|
| It also gives you a nicer view of notification history, with more
| days and scrubbing across time if you ever want to revisit past
| notifications.
|
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.samruston....
| ajolly wrote:
| I like buzzkill, also check out FilterBox, Spren, and
| Notification Organizer. (Or tasker for raw power)
|
| I find each of them have their own little quirks.
| microflash wrote:
| Buzzkill is a godsent and should be an OS feature. Setting
| rules on notifications, automated actions and a history has
| reduced the deluge of useless distractions for me.
|
| The app is proprietary and closed source though; it also uses
| Accessibility access. This might be a turn off for some threat
| models.
| pwpw wrote:
| I would love to help on building an open source alternative.
| Any clue on where to get started with documentation?
| ianbutler wrote:
| I was saying this yesterday, LinkedIn, as an example, sends me
| the most inane notifications as do many apps trying to steal my
| time. I pay LinkedIn 100 dollars a month, those notifications
| should serve me, not the other way around. I really don't care
| about some low substance content written by someone who I'm
| neither connected with nor follow.
| seqizz wrote:
| Imho, Linkedin is one of the apps (for non-recruiters ofc) you
| can just remove. Once-a-month visit to bulk-delete copy-pasted
| offers is more than enough.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I was on the fence about a premium account, but thanks for this
| info.
| kmonsen wrote:
| What's the draw of premium? Cannot see anything there that
| would be more then marginal useful for me.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| It's completely useless, don't waste your time. The UI is
| just as slow & terrible, all the dark patterns _and ads_
| are still there even if you pay.
| DoctorDabadedoo wrote:
| You're able to directly message people that are not your
| friends and see who saw your profile (no matter their
| privacy configuration, I believe). For me that's about it.
| Useful if you are job hunting, but nothing to go crazy
| over.
|
| Honestly, the only thing keeping me on LinkedIn is FOMO of
| that spectacular job that a recruiter might reach out
| about, but reality is that this doesn't happen at all for
| positions worth their salt.
| logifail wrote:
| > You're able to directly message people that are not
| your friends and see who saw your profile (no matter
| their privacy configuration, I believe)
|
| Haha. Sorry, but if someone really wants to see your
| LinkedIn profile _and_ wants to remain anonymous, then I
| doubt any "premium" subscription is going to help.
| bbarnett wrote:
| They claim all sorts of wondrous benefits, and have a free
| trial.
|
| Figured I'd try it and see, but not if it is going to be an
| abusive relationship.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I believe if you do too many searches in a month they force
| you onto premium.
| rlpb wrote:
| I deleted my LinkedIn account many years ago because of
| unwanted notifications and an inability to disable them.
|
| I haven't missed it.
| TedShiller wrote:
| I haven't been on LinkedIn for 15 years and it hasn't affected
| my career at all. Most people don't realize that you actually
| don't need LinkedIn.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Counterpoint anecdata, I was unemployed for a year, and got
| my first job interview the first week I set up LinkedIn.
| Stayed there 6 years and has led to my subsequent career.
|
| I dont believe you need LinkedIn premium at $60/month though
| moritonal wrote:
| You pay $100 a month for LinkedIn? Unless you're a recruiter
| I'm really wondering what the value is?
| ENGNR wrote:
| I noticed the same thing recently, I got a notification "there
| are xxx awaiting your attention!" and as a joke dared my
| product focused co-founder to open it and count how much
| useless crap was there. We were not disappointed. LinkedIn -
| this is some seriously brand destroying shit but thanks for the
| laughs
| gnicholas wrote:
| LinkedIn is surely one of the worst. They are constantly
| creating new categories of notifications, which you have to
| explicitly opt-out of. Guess what? If I didn't want any
| platform-initiated notifications (engagement hacks, not based
| on anyone trying to contact me or interacting with my content),
| then I probably don't want this new invented category of
| notification.
| gondo wrote:
| Revolut is doing this and it infuriates me. I want the payment
| notifications, not the promotional, gamification spam.
| pyrolistical wrote:
| Canadians can report this
| https://fightspam.gc.ca/eic/site/030.nsf/eng/home
|
| CASL isn't just for emails, it's for all forms of spam you didn't
| opt into
| gmfawcett wrote:
| Off-topic, but I haven't seen a .NSF URL in the wild for a
| _long_ time. Apparently, Canada is fighting spam with Lotus
| /Domino!
| polotics wrote:
| This post really lost me at: "and I'm sure they're getting that
| many more engagements because of it" clearly what spam
| notifications do is make me question having installed the app in
| the first place. For me this has led to many uninstalls.
| bambax wrote:
| I have very few apps, and all notifications turned off for all of
| them. I will check on new messages or info on my own time,
| thanks.
| coding123 wrote:
| First thing I do with all apps is disable all notifications for
| that app. The only exception is whatever app my workplace uses
| (Teams). For that I simply turn the ringer to silent so they
| can't vibrate the shit out of me. For those they just need to
| wait for me to look at my phone.
| spideymans wrote:
| Apple rescinding the rule that banned promotional notifications
| is one of the worst UX decisions they've ever made.
| Tepix wrote:
| Kaufda is guilty of this. When i complained a about their
| promotional push messages, they pretended not to know what i was
| talking about. I uninstalled the app which had been quite useful
| until that time.
| night-rider wrote:
| I only care about NO notifications. Disabling all notifications
| is the first step to more saner approaches to technology. I
| turned my digital life into a pull medium where I check SMS
| messages etc when I want to, and not having real-time
| notifications of every little event gives me more peace. It's a
| form of digital veganism that I employ. Turn your digital life
| into pull mediums instead of push.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| A more practical solution is to only let human-generated
| notifications through and disable everything else. Calls &
| texts (if you are lucky enough to not get spam, otherwise
| change your number or use your spam-free third-party messenger
| of choice) are OK, everything else is disabled.
| p49k wrote:
| The subject of the article is about apps bundling time
| sensitive notifications that you can't realistically disable
| with promotions.
|
| You can turn off most notifications for a calmer life, but when
| you order an Uber you need to know if it's arriving or if the
| driver sent you an important message.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Keeping the app in foreground or checking it every few
| minutes is usually not too big of a deal in my experience.
| technothrasher wrote:
| Granted I don't live in an urban area and so don't use these
| apps all the much, but typically when I want an Uber or to
| order something with Doordash, or whatever, I'll install the
| app only long enough to use the service, and then uninstall
| it. And my rule for apps that stay on my phone (and there are
| not many) is that they get one chance. The first promotion
| notification I get, either all notifications get disabled or
| the app gets uninstalled.
| theamk wrote:
| I think this only works when you are alone. Once you miss a few
| important notifications from your friends/spouse/kids/parents,
| like "the place A was closed, we went to B", you'll want to
| reconsider.
| samwillis wrote:
| Same here, have turned off all app notifications. Email set to
| only notify for a short list of about 10-15 people who I
| regularly communicate with.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I've been running with notifications disabled device-wide for
| at least a few years now (iOS's Do Not Disturb mode) and it's
| been great. No notifications, no texts, no phone calls. I use
| my device when I want to, not when a rando app developer or
| rando texter/caller wants me to use it. It's been all upside.
| My phone is back to being a tool I use and then put away,
| rather than me being its tool and doing its bidding.
| midislack wrote:
| Your smart phone is a store and you're the product. It's that
| simple.
| cdubzzz wrote:
| > Better yet, it would be great to have some sort of "disable
| marketing notifications" inside the app.
|
| Given the current state of app distribution I'd rather have this
| _outside_ the app. Add an OS level toggle to enable or disable
| marketing notifications (system wide or app specific), force apps
| to categorize their notifications, and provide a mechanism to
| report bad actors. This problem creates a bad experience for all
| users so seems like it's worth platform-level intervention.
| jraph wrote:
| This is one of the many aspect of why it is important to have
| control on your computing device. Fight for it!
|
| (And yes, if I can't find an open source app for a service, I
| won't use it. I'm fine and very happy in my life, I don't miss
| any specific thing, and yes, no useless notification indeed. Try
| it!)
| grose wrote:
| I've noticed this in social networks as well. If you don't get
| enough transactional notifications for a while they start making
| up fake ones like Twitter's "in case you missed this Tweet",
| Facebook's "[someone] posted for the first time in a while", all
| the while lighting up the notifications badge. Leads to a "boy
| who cried wolf" scenario in which I stop trusting notifications
| entirely and just ignore them, possibly missing out on actual
| useful ones.
|
| I really wish companies let us turn this kind of thing off, or
| better yet stopped trying to boost "engagement" numbers by
| violating your user's trust.
| dgellow wrote:
| Linkedin is just the worst company ever doing stuff like that,
| I try to disable all their notifications and almost never
| engage with anything there (and I check the platform maybe 3-4
| times a year max), and they continue to try to tell me some
| people more or less in my network are doing things I never
| cared about. God I hate this company.
| RedGreenBlack wrote:
| Yeah this has annoyed me for years. They have notifications
| for literally anything. I keep disabling notification types
| on LinkedIn and they just keep making new ones up
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| The linkedin website works fine on mobile unless you're a
| power user or something.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| In the case of Twitter this also permanently broke
| notifications for my account. It now shows exactly 2
| notifications all the time. Both tell me that someone I follow
| posted a tweet, as if I was too stupid to scroll down the feed
| myself.
|
| But in return I don't ever get any other notification. The only
| way to find out whether someone answered my tweet is to
| manually dig through my own profile.
|
| Needless to say, I don't use Twitter anymore. Because of this,
| and because 80% of content I saw was just a stream of pure
| negativity.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| This is one thing I actually like on android: you have fine
| gained control over not only which apps can send notifications
| but also which kinds of notifications a particular app can
| send.
|
| So it's usually easy to just turn off all the annoying ones,
| while keeping the useful ones.
| BonoboIO wrote:
| In that case i will go above and beyond to get rid of their
| ads. uBlock, DNS Filtering, iOS Jailbreaking ...
|
| Never used https://adnauseam.io/ ... but mhmmm maybe it's the
| next step.
|
| Install the extension, load Twitter end set up endless scroll
| or Puppeteer script. Adnauseam would click EVERY ad it sees.
| natly wrote:
| I think this self awareness to disable notifications if they
| abuse it mostly only occurs for engineering types or other
| people with a lot of self control. It remains a powerful
| engagement trick because it hooks into the brains of people
| with less mental stability, like people with adhd etc (which
| for all the mental health awareness tech platforms tries to
| align themselves with would appear to have the opposite
| effect).
| technothrasher wrote:
| I don't know if Facebook still does this, as I've completely
| nuked it from my life, but when I had an account I asked it to
| turn off all email notifications. But if I didn't log on to
| Facebook after about two weeks I would get an email saying they
| were concerned I would miss out and so they helpfully turned
| email notifications back on for me.
| wincy wrote:
| I didn't use Facebook for a few years and they sent me a
| completely fake account security notification. I was super
| mad about it.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| I have a folder on my phone called "Notification Jail" where
| all the misbehaving apps get ignored.
| UkrainianJew wrote:
| >I really wish companies let us turn this kind of thing off
|
| Well, if you are not paying for the service with your money,
| you are paying with your attention. And this is the mechanism
| to extract additional attention from you, and it works very
| well.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Disagreed. This garbage happens even with paid services, in
| fact the service in the article is a restaurant chain.
| MrStonedOne wrote:
| rapind wrote:
| Apple kept a notification badge on my settings icon for Apple
| Pay until I finally went in and opted out of it. Under the
| guise of "Finish setting up your iPhone".
|
| It's not a big deal I guess, but annoying and obviously
| promotional. Now I partially associate Apple with intentionally
| annoying.
| gnicholas wrote:
| There's also no way (that I've found) to turn off
| notifications if you have an Apple Card. It automatically
| sends you a notification the next day telling you how much
| you 'saved' via their cash back feature. This actually
| discourages me from using their card because I hate getting
| the notifications.
| mikestew wrote:
| You can turn off those notifications, just probably not in
| the manner you would expect:
|
| https://www.imore.com/how-to-enable-or-disable-apple-card-
| no...
|
| Which reminds me, I need to get with Apple Card support to
| find a workaround for the bug where I get notifications for
| my spouse's purchases (and vice versa) despite having
| toggled the switch enough times to have worn a dull spot on
| the screen. Thankfully we are a couple who don't really
| care about the purchases, per se, it is just fucking
| annoying.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Ah very cool, thanks! But it looks like this turns off
| notifications for 'Transactions'. Does that disable the
| next-day notification to tell you that you saved 57C/
| yesterday?
| deergomoo wrote:
| Apple's big push into services has been slowly but surely
| chipping away at the generally pleasant experience of using
| their platforms. The price of entry was always high, but once
| you were through the door you were never really upsold.
|
| Not so anymore. Numerous nags in settings to buy AppleCare or
| start a trial of some service or other. The App Store is
| particularly egregious: as well as search ads there are now
| occasional modal prompts to enable marketing notifications
| with my most hated dark pattern of all--only offering "yes"
| or "not now" as options.
| gopher_space wrote:
| The entire point of Apple, in my mind, has been their focus
| on user experience. It's weird seeing them lose their way
| every now and then. I wonder what's going on internally
| because no sane designer would sign off on some of these
| ideas.
|
| The App Store on my iphone is only useful for installing
| apps I've searched for externally. Browsing categories is
| buried as a search suggestion?
| [deleted]
| saghm wrote:
| This started happening enough on the Twitter app for me that I
| just ended up uninstalling the app. My account still exists,
| and maybe there are some real notifications there, but it's
| probably been close to a year since I actually checked.
| kayxspre wrote:
| It's actually possible to fine-tune it by category of
| notification (Settings > Notifications, either in app or on the
| web). I turned off Reminder, Friend Updates, and People You May
| Know, leaving only the notification on things I interact with
| or things friends brought to my attention.
| lostdog wrote:
| Lots of companies dump all notifications into the same
| bucket, either out of laziness, or purposefully to make it
| less likely you turn off their spam notifications (looking at
| you Oculus).
| kayxspre wrote:
| Facebook only appeared to divide notification into
| categories when its data misuse unfolds. Several years ago
| (if I recall correctly), turning off one broad category
| will indeed nuke the "nagging" notification, but also turn
| off legitimate ones as well.
| stormbrew wrote:
| It doesn't matter what you set any of these things to, if you
| leave your account idle for a while you'll start getting made
| up notifications again to try to draw you back in. Both
| Facebook and Twitter do this, though ime Facebook's tend to
| work better just because I have marginally more reason to
| care about any given person on my FB feed than the much more
| eclectic set of people my Twitter is connected to.
| fmajid wrote:
| That's because the social networks employ armies of industrial
| psychologists with PhDs who figured out that notifications
| generate a little squirt of dopamine, and are thus addictive,
| as opioids are just an approximation thereof. That's why they
| won't give you an option to turn off notifications, just as
| they won't let you take control of the ordering of your feed,
| or offer RSS feeds for it.
|
| There is literally _nothing_ on social networks worth
| notification. Disable them already.
| kshacker wrote:
| Funny I mentally read "psychopaths" when you said
| "psychologists" ... my mind was already set while reading the
| other comments, and something made me go back and re-read
| your comment to realize the difference :)
| fmajid wrote:
| Both apply to those who use their knowledge for
| manipulation and exploitation purposes.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| I'll hack site CSS to disable any nags.
|
| uBlock Origin's element remover is excellent for this, though
| I often go directly into CSS using Stylus, a CSS management
| extension for Firefox and other browsers.
|
| I also don't use any mainstream social media apps.
|
| Mastodon and Diaspora* limit notifications to other users'
| actions only.
| fmajid wrote:
| Well, I have my browser (Vivaldi) set to automatically
| block desktop notification requests without even asking
| (the default is to ask) but as you point out many sites
| will also show an obnoxious banner and yes, uBlock is a
| good solution to that.
|
| I'm surprised EasyList lets so many of these through, so I
| built my own (very few rules for now):
|
| https://majid.info/adblock.txt
| MandieD wrote:
| Since I couldn't turn off "in case you missed this Tweet,"
| without turning off everything including reply and DM
| notifications, I no longer get any.
|
| And use it a lot less now, so good job, Twitter!
| lysium wrote:
| I wish there was a fine grain control for _Teams_ notifications.
|
| The amount of messages I get that do not need my immediate
| attention and/or could have been an email is astounding.
|
| I turned off notifications for Teams as a result and hope that
| people will call me if it is really urgent.
| sumthinprofound wrote:
| Grubhub does this as well, so all of their notifications are
| disabled by me.
| teh64 wrote:
| While it is a quite a bit more work to get working correctly, I
| imagine you could cobble something together with iOs' focus modes
| [0] and shortcuts [1] automation (where shortcuts can change the
| focus mode). Just put everything you want all the time in allowed
| apps, and then disable the focus mode when the required
| notifications are needed.
|
| You can also automate "when app X is opened, select focus mode"
| [2], so maybe the workflow would be:
|
| When app with annoying notifications is opened (i.e. is needed),
| disable focus mode. Then reenable focus mode 1 hour later through
| automation.
|
| Still more annoying than having some kind of built in thing, but
| shortcuts does really enable fixing a lot of annoying things
| (especially in iOS[3]).
|
| [0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212608
|
| [1] https://support.apple.com/en-nz/guide/shortcuts/welcome/ios
|
| [2] https://www.howtogeek.com/676204/how-to-automatically-
| launch...
|
| [3] why doesn't the quick action for bluetooth turn off
| bluetooth? so annoying. So I wrote an shortcuts button, that I
| click instead.
| pronik wrote:
| I have a somewhat similar gripe about apps, which has some recent
| implications: there seems to be some school of thought for
| engagement, which suggests that something that's not used at
| least weekly is useless. For this reason Google started
| automatically removing permissions from apps I didn't use for
| some time and it's also suggested I could delete them "to save
| space" which is frankly quite stupid -- I have quite a lot of
| apps which I only intend to use when needed, but I need them
| installed and ready. A perfect example are emergency apps -- I do
| not intend for my car to break down every couple of weeks, but
| when it does, I need the emergency services app. I don't want to
| open the desaster warning app consciously, but I want it to warn
| me when something happens, be it today or in three years. Don't
| judge the app by its daily usage time please.
| hiq wrote:
| I think that's indeed the default behavior, but when I go to a
| certain app permissions, I have an option "remove permissions
| and free up space", if I untick this I expect the permissions
| to stay in place, is that not the case?
| twic wrote:
| Sadly, features aren't added to Android because they're good
| for users, they're added because they'll look good in someone's
| promotion packet.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| While Apple should be able to enforce this at an App Store level,
| it seems to me there's a pretty simple heuristic that could be
| applied as a per-app notification setting:
|
| _"Mute notifications if I haven't used this app in more than 24
| hours"_
|
| That ought to catch the majority of notification abuse, and to
| tighten it even further, the inactivity periods could be
| configurable (24, 8, 2 hours, etc).
| makecheck wrote:
| The only way to really deter this stuff is to make it cost the
| sender something _per spam_. Bonus points if the user can feed
| back into the system to discourage truly unpopular notifications.
| emsy wrote:
| Isn't the justification of Apple that they have a monopoly on the
| App Store so they can protect users from notification abuse? In
| reality this is not enforced at all and even Apple themselves
| will send you ads.
| tsuujin wrote:
| No? The walled garden is a safeguard against malicious apps,
| not against marketing shenanigans.
| emsy wrote:
| They explicitly state in their developer agreement not to use
| notifications for ads.
| tsuujin wrote:
| This changed a couple of years ago, apps can send you ads
| so long as you opt in, but what qualifies as opting in can
| be as simple as a bit of language during signup; it's
| pretty easy to bypass this.
|
| > 4.5.4 Push Notifications must not be required for the app
| to function, and should not be used to send sensitive
| personal or confidential information. Push Notifications
| should not be used for promotions or direct marketing
| purposes unless customers have explicitly opted in to
| receive them via consent language displayed in your app's
| UI, and you provide a method in your app for a user to opt
| out from receiving such messages. Abuse of these services
| may result in revocation of your privileges.
|
| From: https://www.imore.com/apples-updated-developer-
| guidelines-no...
| emsy wrote:
| I stand somewhat corrected, but you have to admit that
| rule has never really been enforced.
| tsuujin wrote:
| I think we'll need actual regulation before we see any
| enforcement, unfortunately. Because Apple takes a cut of
| app profits, they're incentivized to allow for scummy
| engagement practices.
|
| We need something like the CAN-SPAM (which as for emails)
| to classify transactional vs marketing/engagement
| notifications and a way to levy fines on violations.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| That rule (and plenty of other rules such as the privacy
| disclosures being incorrect) isn't enforced and I'm not
| even sure where to report such violations.
|
| App Store rules are only enforced when it's convenient for
| Apple or their partners.
| Juicyy wrote:
| Better yet, Apple sends me news notifications for apple news
| that you have to pay for.... Who the fuck thinks its a good
| idea to send you notifications blocked behind a paywall... cant
| even comprehend the logic in the microtransaction, pay to win,
| notifications, paywall bullshit we see in mobile, tech, gaming,
| etc. I have had enough. Literally just deleted all that stuff.
| All i need is VScode and youtube.
| gpfunke wrote:
| I think a couple others have said this already, but I know when I
| was sending out push notifications at my previous job, you would
| add a "channel" for the notification for this exact reason. Then
| users could block that specific channel without blocking the
| really useful ones (at least on Android)
| Havoc wrote:
| Yes. LinkedIn and Facebook being the worst. Even if there is
| nothing relevant they'll just make something BS up just to remind
| you that they still exist.
|
| Yes LinkedIn I know I've got 11 notifications waiting but I also
| know they'll all be more noise...and I know this without needing
| to check
| xnx wrote:
| Are there any Android utility apps that will route all
| notifications through a single proxy where I can apply my own
| app/category/keyword filters, and [ideally] inbox/archive of
| notifications?
|
| People criticize email, but I still find it the most user-
| friendly notification/messaging system. I wish for the type of
| control that I have in email over any other
| messaging/notification system (app alerts, Instagram messages,
| Slack notifications, etc.)
| chirag64 wrote:
| Yep, there is an app called AutoNotification that can help
| filter notifications similar to how one would in a Gmail
| filter.
| rutierut wrote:
| As someone who travels a bit I've got quite some food delivery
| and ride share apps on my phone. The marketing notifications are
| driving me crazy, I regularly miss relevant notifications because
| Grab, Uber, Uber Eats, Glovo, Bolt, and Cabify are all sending me
| almost daily notifications with some sort of cringe content
| trying to nudge me to take a cab/order food. Especially Uber Eats
| and Glovo are bad.
| clumpthump wrote:
| It's definitely annoying that users can't opt-in only to the
| types of notifications they want on installation, but Uber and
| Uber Eats are not guilty of what Starbucks is doing in the
| article (at least on Android); you can disable all
| notifications besides "Taking a Ride" and "Your Order"
| notifications.
| theamk wrote:
| I have a pretty good idea on how to fix this (and many similar)
| problems: "hibernate app" option. Its a new app state where app
| icon icon has some mark (like being semi-grayed out) and all the
| background app services are disabled (tracking, promotional
| popups, periodic wakeups, etc...). The app is only un-hibernated
| if user explicitly clicks on it, it cannot do it by itself. The
| app can be hibernated by long-press menu on app icon or
| notification.
|
| So the first time you get an ad notify, you click "hibernate" and
| you are good. And if it is time to make another order, app is
| woken up, so you cannot miss notifications by accident.
|
| Sure, it is not as good as having separate "show ads" toggle, but
| it requires no cooperation from app whatsoever,
| zamadatix wrote:
| For Android I think the only thing needed for this is for
| disabled apps to show as grayed out in the launcher instead of
| hidden. I wonder if that's information available to launchers
| or only available in the system app menu.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| On Android, paused apps turn gray on the home screen and in
| the app drawer. However there's sometimes a delay of ~10
| seconds before it happens
| hairofadog wrote:
| This is a great idea.
| caleb-troyer wrote:
| On Android, Shelter (available on F-Droid [0]) is a close
| implementation of this. Apps installed in the "shelter" (read:
| Android work profile) can be automatically frozen when not in
| use, and launcher shortcuts can be created to temporarily
| unfreeze and use the app. This doesn't require root, and frozen
| apps cannot run services, send notifications, or anything
| really. As a bonus, for the most part they don't even show up
| as installed when frozen and are completely isolated from main
| profile apps. The filesystem is separate however, but you can
| use an app that allows file sending via share contexts such as
| Phone Saver [1] to send files between your main profile and
| your shelter profile.
|
| [0]: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.typeblog.shelter/
|
| [1]:
| https://f-droid.org/en/packages/link.standen.michael.phonesa...
| ajolly wrote:
| Lots of ways to do this on Android. Ice Box is an example of an
| app that all help do it for you.
| aftbit wrote:
| Ice Box seems to require root fwiw.
| [deleted]
| tshaddox wrote:
| I have never looked into Shortcuts on iOS, but I wonder if
| something similar could be implemented there.
| cheriot wrote:
| This is doubly bad when the notification is on my watch. Looking
| at you, Uber.
|
| There's a fair number of apps I'd happily enable useful
| notifications on, but don't because they send marketing crap.
| Sausagemancer wrote:
| My Bluetooth Blood-pressure cuff does this. Useful notification:
| Reminding me to measure my blood pressure twice per day, giving
| me a notification that I can tap to begin a measurement.
|
| Not useful notifications: Telling me that I have a "new insight
| available", which when tapped takes me to a prompt to "upgrade to
| a new premium feature.
|
| I guess if you need to upsell me on a service after I've spent
| >$200 for your device I can use a different reminders app and be
| slightly inconvenienced twice a day.
| punnerud wrote:
| Any way to subscribe to the notifications into Python or similar?
| So I can run my own custom filters before I decide what and when
| the notification should be delivered. Could also use the
| notifications to trigger automations.
| astockwell wrote:
| This is an outstanding suggestion. Rife for abuse, but no more
| abuse than anything else.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I don't think there's any way to access iOS notifications
| outside the device. If the notifications you care about are
| also available via email you can disable the official app's
| notifications and use email rules to redirect _specific_ email
| notifications to something like Pushover, essentially rolling
| your own push notifications where you can use rules to control
| what gets through.
| prymitive wrote:
| I made the mistake of buying Eufy camera and the app is basically
| an sales channel spamming you with ads on every occasion. If you
| contact support and complain about it they will disable popus for
| you but the app is still full of spam and animated icons inviting
| you to buy something. They clearly have zero respect for
| customers.
| superb-owl wrote:
| It seems like every new communication channel follows the same
| basic pattern (phone, email, SMS, push notifications, ...). It
| starts with friend-to-friend communication, but quickly
| commercial entities realize there's an opportunity to connect
| with customers. They usually start with something small and
| helpful, but before long you're overrun with spam.
|
| I'm counting the days until my flashlight app tells me I've won a
| free cruise.
| znpy wrote:
| that's one of the reason i got rid of my samsung phone: it used
| to send random nonsense notifications, MULTIPLE TIMES A DAY.
|
| it would keep asking me to let samsung use my phone's cpu for
| whatever stuff they're doing, send multiple weather notification
| during the day (i didn't ever ask for them and now it's my job to
| go hunt for the appropriate setting to change to disable them? go
| f@@k yourself, you just lost a customer) and many more that i'm
| now thankfully forgetting.
| TedShiller wrote:
| Lyft does the same thing. I need the normal notifications ("Your
| driver will arrive in 2 minutes") but every few weeks they send
| me a promotional notification ("Rides are 20% off on Labor Day!")
| randomly.
| pfranz wrote:
| Which means I leave the app Offloaded when I'm not using it and
| may not go through the friction to reinstall when I need a
| ride.
|
| Another comment here pointed out you can change it under the
| obvious /s location: Settings > Privacy > Notification
| Preferences > Discounts and News.
| difosfor wrote:
| One of the downsides of living in a world where we don't pay for
| services but are instead ourselves the payment.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The problem is that this also happens to _paid_ products. You
| 'd think that if you already pay money they should leave you
| alone, and yet there's a product manager, marketing or "growth"
| specialist that needs to justify their salary so even paid
| products aren't immune to that.
| cproctor wrote:
| This is when you email the company's head of marketing and/or
| security expressing naive concern about hacking/phishing. "I
| received an email that looked like it's from your company, but I
| know it's not real because I didn't sign up for any of your
| lists."
| Nextgrid wrote:
| When I receive unsolicited marketing email I will often
| intentionally not unsubscribe and instead set up a rule (now
| that I know the sender address or some way to reliably identify
| their spam) to redirect any future messages to someone high up
| at their company or their GDPR data protection officer.
| hericium wrote:
| I wish iOS had some "allow notifications from this app for x
| minutes" option similar to "share location once".
|
| Uber is a good example of an app I would like to see
| notifications from, when using their service, but disabled them
| completely.
|
| Uber abuses this feature to show ad banners for scooters or food
| when I am not using their app and it's not even open (as in not
| present on the open applications list).
| gnicholas wrote:
| Uber is one of the worst. You can turn off all notifications
| unrelated to your existing rides. They hide this in the app
| under: Settings, Privacy, Notifications. Lyft has the same
| hidden structure.
| hericium wrote:
| Thanks! Will try it out.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Android let's you disable notifications by category. Since
| users disable notifications completely, Uber is pretty good
| at categorizing notifications so you can turn them off.
|
| I still do like promotional offers so I have those
| redirected to email :)
| el-salvador wrote:
| I've used Uber in several cities, so I get repetitive
| notifications targeting their different markets. Like
| irrelevant lunch discounts in other cities.
|
| They also have been sending me notifications for an Argentinan
| soccer-themed anti harassment campaign every couple of days.
|
| I went through their videos completely and the notification
| keeps showing. Its done in such a vertical video letterboxed in
| a horizontal video format that's hard to watch.
| frederikvs wrote:
| If an app gives me spammy promotional notifications, it either A)
| gets uninstalled (if I don't particularly care about the app), B)
| gets a 1-star review with a clear comment about the
| notifications, or C) all of the above.
|
| The app I use to pay for parking spots suddenly gave me a
| notification once, apparently to try and get me to park my car
| more often or something. I gave it a one-star review, never saw
| one of those notifications again :-) (Which reminds me, I should
| revise that review.)
| alkonaut wrote:
| The problem is with businesses that are in some other business
| than the app business. For example the coffee business. It
| doesn't matter how good/bad the app is, usually the app wasn't
| why you chose their business, it was location, quality of a
| product etc. And it's their app or no app.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| On Android, they _tried_ to improve this by adding notification
| channels[1] (aka categories). Channels are mandatory, and users
| can turn each channel on /off in system settings.
|
| The problem is few apps assign meaningful or useful channels.
| Instead:
|
| (1) Some apps use the dark UI pattern of putting important
| notifications and junk/spam notifications together in one
| channel. They use the ones you do want as leverage to make you
| see the ones you don't want.
|
| (2) With some apps, they just don't make an effort. For example,
| the JustWatch app has two channels: "Default" and
| "Miscellaneous". The KAYAK app has two channels; one is called
| "Offers & promotions", and the other is also called "Offers &
| promotions".
|
| (3) Defining useful, meaningful channels is actually a bit of a
| UI challenge. Some apps try but don't divide things up in a
| useful way. The Meetup app has a ton of channels, including 12 at
| the top level and 3 for each Meetup group that you're a member
| of. They made an effort, and it helps some, but it's a bit
| overwhelming.
|
| ---
|
| [1] https://developer.android.com/training/notify-user/channels
| civilized wrote:
| I ban an app from ever sending me any notification the moment it
| sends me an unwelcome one. But it sounds like this is not an
| option for some apps other people use.
| clumpthump wrote:
| I suspect some apps go too far in the other direction on purpose,
| having a large list of promotional notification types amidst
| useful ones so that people miss opting out of some or are too
| overwhelmed by the list that they decide not to bother, and
| whenever they add a "new" type of promotional notification, it's
| on by default until the user goes and disables it too.
| amenghra wrote:
| iOS feature request: only allow notifications for apps I used in
| the last 24h.
| Helmut10001 wrote:
| I have turned off all notifications, no sound on my phone either.
| If I happen to look at the phone while someone is calling, good -
| otherwise I'll call them back or write them.
| TedShiller wrote:
| That's a really interesting strategy. Thanks for the tip. What
| about emergency calls? But then I just realized, those are
| extremely uncommon.
| lozenge wrote:
| https://support.google.com/android/answer/9069335?hl=en-
| GB#z...
|
| > Under 'What can interrupt Do Not Disturb', tap People:
| Calls: Repeat callers. To let a call through if the same
| person calls twice in 15 minutes, turn on Allow repeat
| callers.
| TedShiller wrote:
| Hah, spammers take note: always call twice in 15 minutes!
| Easy for them to automate.
| Helmut10001 wrote:
| Nice, thanks! Maybe that could be a good addition, to catch
| the one exception in 10 years that really must get through.
| tintor wrote:
| It is time for email spam filters to be applied to notifications.
| navjack27 wrote:
| It's cool cuz on my Pixel 5 most of my notifications that I want
| I don't get in a timely fashion and the ones I don't want are
| just disabled anyway. I just want notifications to work at all.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I faced this issue while writing my application for online
| spaces...
|
| I noticed that I had written a feature called server
| notification, and was about to start using it to notify users of
| things which the server wanted them to know, but which they had
| not asked for.
|
| I decided to rename the feature internally to "server response
| notification", which implies that all of the notifications are in
| response to a user query. This helped me focus on what the
| feature should be used for.
| celeritascelery wrote:
| This is out of reach for most people, but what I would love is to
| be able to define a regex per app that will let me filter
| notifications. Give control back to the users.
| sourabhv wrote:
| These companies boast so much about their prowess in AI, but
| can't differentiate between a transactional and promotional
| message?
| dguo wrote:
| My rule is: if I get a single notification that I find useless,
| I'll immediately disable that notification channel (I'm on
| Android; I'm not sure if iOS has a concept of channel-specific
| settings) for that app. Even if the channel can include useful
| notifications, as the article discusses.
|
| If the app doesn't bother to categorize its notifications into
| channels at all, I turn off its notifications entirely, and I
| won't turn it back on.
|
| If something is important enough, I can always manually check on
| it. My attention is too valuable to me to waste it on useless
| notifications.
|
| I do want more control over my notifications in general. I use
| Google Apps Script to automatically process/triage my email, and
| I want to do something similar with notifications. I can probably
| do so using Tasker, but I haven't gotten around to it.
| furyofantares wrote:
| I used to do it roughly like this, then I noticed how much more
| pleasant my wife's experience is. She just has them all turned
| off.
| mrweasel wrote:
| By default I never allow notification. If I start to notice
| that it would have been helpful to get a notification from an
| app, I will see if that's something that can be enabled.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I have a similar rule, but sometimes it's really hard to figure
| out (1) whether the app distinguishes between different types
| of notifications, and (2) where the setting is to turn off the
| new nuisance notification type.
|
| IME, Lyft and Uber are the worst. For Lyft, their notification
| preferences are buried under "Privacy: Choose what data you
| share with us". Not the first place anyone would look!
| cuu508 wrote:
| On Android, long-press a notification, then tap on a gear
| icon. You will see a list of notification categories for that
| app.
| scarface74 wrote:
| You're assuming that the developer makes such a distinction
| when they send you a notification
| cuu508 wrote:
| From grandparent comment:
|
| > If the app doesn't bother to categorize its
| notifications into channels at all, I turn off its
| notifications entirely, and I won't turn it back on.
| lrem wrote:
| That's why Android has the system-wide pane for those. No
| space for (most of) dark patterns. And if someone goes out of
| their way to "accidentally" mess with that system (oops, this
| promotion went into the navigation category, silly me), they
| deserve to go all out silenced.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| That's entirely developer decided. Most are starting to
| recombine channels to get around the feature.
| lolinder wrote:
| The parent clearly knows that, hence their second point:
| "And if someone goes out of their way to "accidentally"
| mess with that system (oops, this promotion went into the
| navigation category, silly me), they deserve to go all
| out silenced."
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Accidentally or intentionally misclassifying
| notifications is not the same thing as getting rid of the
| categories entirely.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Lots of apps make you opt out, but it really isn't that hard
| to find. Most apps on my phone don't even get the right to
| notify me. I prefer pull rather than push as far as notices
| go, unless they're critical like from my bank/CC/gf :)
| mattlondon wrote:
| I do this too.
|
| If it is a commercial company (e.g. Starbucks from the article)
| then I sometimes make a point to act innocent and contact their
| support people to ask why I am not getting order update
| notifications after "turning off the ads" or whatever.
| Hopefully the message will get through.
| natly wrote:
| My rule is: Disable notifications immediately regardless, if I
| find myself wishing I had gotten a ping instead of opening the
| app to check, I turn it on (which never happens, it's off for
| everything).
| xahrepap wrote:
| I follow the same rule. But I will also then go one star review
| it.
|
| I will also one-star review any app that prompts me to review
| it by first asking me if I like it (sneaky sneaky!)
| Kiro wrote:
| That sounds harsh. I kindly ask if they want to leave a
| review to support me in my app. What's wrong with that?
| Haven't received any complaints and I got a lot of nice
| reviews I presume I wouldn't have gotten otherwise.
| karmakaze wrote:
| I'll go one step farther and uninstall it if I haven't used
| it recently or often.
| weego wrote:
| I'll go that one step further and cast my phone into a
| shallow grave, having salted the earth it's buried in so
| that nothing may grow there again.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I'll go that one step further and build a time machine
| and go back in time and kill myself before I have a
| chance to even install the app.
| earleybird wrote:
| "luxury" - sorry, wrong skit
| dredmorbius wrote:
| I blew up a planet once.
| [deleted]
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| I'll go one step further and try to bash it whenever I have
| a chance [0].
|
| [0] Yes Free Now I'm talking about you.
| Phlogistique wrote:
| For some reason I had never thought of doing that.
|
| Thanks, I will do so from now on!
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Oh yeah I definitely do that with the "rate our app" if I've
| not so much as done more than open it up lol
| faeriechangling wrote:
| Lol I do this too. If I see an "are you enjoying our app"
| banner I will immediately click yes, follow the link to the
| store, and then immediately 1 star. Even if I enjoy the app
| and use it daily.
|
| Companies that attempt to filter out negative feedback can
| pound sand.
| nomilk wrote:
| Useless notifications is a super dangerous game to play, since
| one lame "McDonalds has 25% off" *cough: Uber Eats* results in
| notifications being turned off and poorer outcomes for all
| parties from that moment on.
| resters wrote:
| Yes. Especially since the most useless ones seem to come when
| I'm driving.
| lozenge wrote:
| They are relying on 90% of people not knowing how to get to
| the notification settings. It's not dangerous, it's A/B
| tested...
| abacadaba wrote:
| guess im in the 10% of customers they lost. i know how to
| change settings but still easier to uninstall.
| Larrikin wrote:
| I've found that apps that properly set up channels on Android
| where your can easily block promotional notifications, don't
| abuse their notifications, and ones that don't put all their
| notifications through a couple different channels making it
| impossible to turn off only the ones you don't want. Amazon and
| Uber are examples of apps that abuse this.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| I just turned them off altogether. It turned out I can do
| well without them. If Uber is telling me the driver will be
| there in 4 minutes, I check my phone in ca. 4 minutes, it's
| not a big deal. On the other hand, getting a notification I
| haven't asked for is unacceptable as it steals my time. App
| creators think it is innocuous, but I have dozens of apps on
| my phone, and won't tolerate any user-hostile choices.
| robocat wrote:
| I install Uber when I need to use it, then deinstall it after
| pickup. If I forget to deinstall it, Uber kindly send me a
| notification reminder (random text with with a percent symbol
| within it), to remind me to deinstall it.
| wardedVibe wrote:
| Definitely stealing this idea, thanks
| abruzzi wrote:
| this is exactly what I do for most apps-install to use,
| remove after use. For Uber its easy since I only use Uber
| when I'm traveling in a country where I don't speak the
| language (Uber makes hailing rides in a foriegn country
| easy, though we used Yandex in Russia since Uber wasn't as
| common.) In some cases, I keep the app, but completely
| silence it.
| efreak wrote:
| at least on Android there's no need to completely uninstall
| it. you can disable the app with force stop; this should
| allow it to get updates, but shouldn't allow it to run
| again until you open it manually
| zbrozek wrote:
| I disable all notifications from an app at first strike.
| stormbrew wrote:
| > I'm on Android; I'm not sure if iOS has a concept of channel-
| specific settings
|
| Sadly iOS doesn't really have this in the same way :(
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Some apps like uber/lyft have a setting for app critical
| notices vs what amounts to ads tho
| izacus wrote:
| > My rule is: if I get a single notification that I find
| useless, I'll immediately disable that notification channel
| (I'm on Android; I'm not sure if iOS has a concept of channel-
| specific settings) for that app. Even if the channel can
| include useful notifications, as the article discusses.
|
| Well, the developers have started fighting against that by not
| splitting notifications into channels anymore. Now you just get
| "General" channel were basic functionality and spam can't be
| separated.
|
| The modern world of user abuse is great.
| throw1230 wrote:
| One strike and you're out rule works perfectly fine for me.
|
| If they think they can abuse my attention with stuff like
| this, I immediately uninstall and go on with my life.
| gpt5 wrote:
| I've been struggling with the Uber app and Uber Eats who
| has been sending me ads which I found no way to disable.
|
| My problem is that I do want notifications for when my
| driver has arrived.
| tbihl wrote:
| Unblock notifications only when you need them
| innocenat wrote:
| Uber Eat does different channel for notification though.
| Mine is set exactly as you described.
| gruez wrote:
| It's an option on android but not ios.
| novok wrote:
| Go to account -> settings -> privacy -> notifications and
| you can turn off all the marketing notifications on iOS
| too for Uber / Uber Eats.
| gruez wrote:
| That turns it off for the whole app, not only marketing
| stuff.
| bonniemuffin wrote:
| I deleted the Uber app and stopped using their service
| specifically because there was no way to turn off only
| their spammy marketing push notifications, and I didn't
| want to turn off all push and miss a ride, so there was
| no way for me to meaningfully use their service. It's ok,
| I have other options to get a ride.
| reflexco wrote:
| That's exactly why I stopped using Uber. It was annoying
| to not get notification when drivers arrive, but there's
| no way I'm giving them free access to make my pocket
| vibrate all day long.
| abacadaba wrote:
| same rule, and also why uber eats got uninstalled
| benmanns wrote:
| If you turn off notifications they will use text messages
| to contact you. I've never gotten a spam text message
| from them, which makes some sense as they're more
| regulated than push notifications.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| That's like the whole point of this article....
| gpvos wrote:
| You could stop using Uber and Uber Eats.
| LadyCailin wrote:
| You could also be a hermit and live in the woods. Thats
| not really the point though. For paid services, I think
| it's entirely reasonable to say that you don't want to
| see ads.
| bee_rider wrote:
| It is reasonable to say you don't want ads. Unfortunately
| Uber has decided to say "too bad, what are you going to
| do about it?"
| lmm wrote:
| As my friend says about salary, it's only a negotiation
| if you're prepared to walk away.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| I mean I went with "own a car and pick up food myself"
| instead of the whole hermitage thing, but to each their
| own
| criddell wrote:
| I wonder if you could write a Shortcut that, after an
| Uber ride is booked, notifications are enabled and once
| the ride ends, they are disabled again?
| dvtrn wrote:
| I just tried, unless I'm missing an update, Uber Eats
| doesn't even show up under the Apps that I can select
| from to build a shortcut for.
| Angostura wrote:
| > I do want notifications for when my driver has arrived.
|
| They can ring my doorbell or phone me.
| wardedVibe wrote:
| Try switching to lyft maybe?
| ericmay wrote:
| If Lyft doesn't do the same thing they eventually will.
| fragmede wrote:
| Hopefully by then more advanced notification controls
| will exist.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Maybe being less annoying can be part of their value
| proposition.
| distances wrote:
| I usually simply uninstall the app on the first clearly
| spammy notification. Why wouldn't I? It immediately sours the
| app image.
|
| If it's borderline I will first try silencing the channel
| like the parent commenter.
| izacus wrote:
| Those rules only work until you're required to have such
| app installed to do, for example, credit card payments.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Where i live, GDPR and related laws make it illegal to
| mix advertising permissions with functional permissions.
| So that's never going to happen.
| izacus wrote:
| I've spent plenty of time working on GDPR compliance in
| EU and I can directly tell you there's nothing in GDPR
| that would say anything like that.
|
| GDPR talks about data collection and says nothing about
| having your own business spam you with advertisement (as
| long as they don't collect data outside their GDPR
| restrictions).
| anticristi wrote:
| > Consent is presumed not to be freely given if it does
| not allow separate consent to be given to different
| personal data processing operations despite it being
| appropriate in the individual case [...]
|
| https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-43/
| scarface74 wrote:
| That has absolutely nothing to do with notifications and
| pop ups.
| dmkii wrote:
| You're right, but only if the company wouldn't track
| whether you've seen or even received that message. So
| yes, general or even contextual messages would be
| allowed, but "You haven't seen X in 9 days" would imply
| processing personal data for marketing purposes.
| [deleted]
| l33t2328 wrote:
| I don't see what this says about notifications
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Which can be solved by finding a competitor with less
| abusive practices.
| teddyh wrote:
| Not in a monopoly or oligopoly, which is the common case
| in markets with high barriers to entry.
| bee_rider wrote:
| If this a hypothetical? I can't think of any monopolies
| that I need to do business with that only do business
| through an app.
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| My bank's android app has more control over my account
| than any other way of interacting with them, including
| going into branches and posting forms. That's not
| strictly a monopoly but I'm on my fifth bank and they've
| all been similarly rubbish.
| why-el wrote:
| This is what my strategy is more or less, but for emails. If a
| startup sends me a "Welcome to X", I treat it as "Don't forget
| to unsubscribe from X".
| version_five wrote:
| This is a good idea. I almost always get caught by this. Last
| week I had to make Notion account for something, immediately
| started getting daily spam from them. It's the same
| everywhere, they think signing up is somehow a license to
| spam. It has the opposite effect, it destroys any good will
| towards the company.
|
| Slack is another big offender. Every time you sign up to a
| new channel you're back on a spam list for some reason. I
| don't know who is coaching these people, but like
| notifications, it's a big reason why I often just don't
| bother signing up for stuff
| duxup wrote:
| Same, I don't have time to dork with notifications I don't
| need.
|
| Once I get a bad notification I have no faith in an apps
| willingness to do what I want.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| This is also my policy - except:
|
| Uber just sent me a notification to celebrate pride month with
| Uber (by booking a car??). I don't see how to turn off these
| promotional notifications but I need my Uber notifications so
| I'm aware when my driver is outside. I'm still not sure if I
| should block all Uber notifications.
| aendruk wrote:
| Gig Car Share used to do this. I patiently responded to each
| incident with a support request politely asking them to stop
| the abuse. After a few months of 1:1 mapping from spam
| incident to customer support issue it eventually stopped.
| eastbound wrote:
| I do the same on the Nespresso site with the "Hey, I'm
| clippy, do you need help with your order?" covering the
| "Order" button. I systematically click on it and ask them
| to order by order. Then they explain how to close the chat,
| and I click on the next page, the chat opens, I ask them
| again to go away because I can't focus while the icon is
| bouncing in my page.
|
| They don't answer me anymore.
|
| As in: A corporate employee leaves a chat aside because
| it's too annoying.
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| It's under the "privacy" in account settings. I just disabled
| marketing notifications
| zwegner wrote:
| You can choose to get text messages instead for ride
| notifications. I do that and don't get any spam from them.
|
| Still get the stupid "try 1 month free trial" popups whenever
| I book a ride though, can't see how to turn those off.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > by booking a car??
|
| by hooking a car, of course
|
| *agressive eyebrow movements*
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| Wow that's cool, did you celebrate? (Block unless you are
| actively waiting for a car.)
| davidjfelix wrote:
| Spoiler - they probably know and don't want to destroy their
| reliable spam channel. I turn them off and either keep the
| app open when I've ordered a car, or temporarily turn them
| back on while ubering and turn them back off when I get a
| trash notification. This definitely strikes me as one of
| those comments you see on HN that is wildly impractical at
| scale, but it's what I do.
| shostack wrote:
| Which is why strict app store policy enforcement is the
| only way to really end this.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| That's my rule as well. I disable all notifications that are
| not an actual human that is trying to get in touch with me.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Even from your bank and credit cards?
| _moof wrote:
| If my bank or credit card really needs to get in touch with
| me at this very moment, they will call me.
| sonicggg wrote:
| I use a similar system for Slack notifications. Got an unwanted
| @here call? Mute channel entirely.
| [deleted]
| SpacePortKnight wrote:
| Lately I've been disabling notifications for almost all apps
| including Uber and food delivery apps. I can always open up the
| app to check the status when I want to. The only spam I've left
| on my phone is now the needless SMS.
| falcolas wrote:
| Something that amazes me is that United's app - freaking United
| FFS - is better behaved about this than most other apps.
| nraynaud wrote:
| Amazon notified me that they thought I might like to buy a new
| stove.
| wdr1 wrote:
| Do apps report back how often notifications are turned off?
|
| I'm wondering if the people who are spamming notification have
| any insight into the damage they're causing -- and if they did,
| if that would incentive better behavior.
| hackernewds wrote:
| One solution here is using an app like Daywise, that batches and
| delivers your notifications. Some are useful but doesn't need in
| the moment attention. Has massively reduced my screen time.
| hellisothers wrote:
| Technically Apple says if you want to send promotional
| notifications you have to ask for that permission explicitly and
| offer the user a way to turn just those notification types
| on/off. Maybe complain FWIW
| https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...
| meatmanek wrote:
| I'm a little surprised iOS doesn't have a way to report a
| notification as spam.
| ajkjk wrote:
| I always relish in uninstalling apps when this happens but I hope
| they have stats somewhere that show: "oh, we sent this annoying
| marketing notification and an uninstall happens", and I hope some
| analyst is finding that pattern in their data and telling people
| about it. But I have to assume the answer is, 'probably not',
| given that nothing seems to change.
| fmajid wrote:
| Apple's push notification API would actually return a status
| code to the app if the app was uninstalled (that required opt-
| in from the user, though). They no longer do it, I believe.
| pndy wrote:
| Well, you can always leave a review of an app if it does pukes
| such marketing notification, after you uninstall
|
| I tend to sort apps reviews by _worst_ and look what people don
| 't like about - that gives more information than mindless
| praising and chaffy purchased reviews.
| b3morales wrote:
| There's no uninstall event on iOS, and I believe the same is
| true of Android, so they won't see it directly. Disabling
| notifications is more likely to be noticed.
| aendruk wrote:
| When this happens I also make a point of leaving an appropriate
| review, not only as a more reliable method of closing the
| feedback loop but to provide a warning to other potential
| victims.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| You could always leave a nice honest review on the app store;
| that lets you be explicit and provides a clear signal.
| brk wrote:
| My general mindset is that I survived just fine before apps and
| notifications were a thing. If they provide truly useful
| information, I'll use them. If they become spammy or start trying
| to prod me to drive more engagement I'll disable, or delete,
| whatever is enabling that. If that means I delete the app, and
| possibly stop using the service altogether, so be it, I'm doing
| just fine.
| karamanolev wrote:
| Many people here express that kind of sentiment and I find it
| either irrationally rebellious or just false. We all survived
| just fine before smartphones, internet, electricity and so on.
| Does it mean we can just delete and cancel big stuff over small
| annoyances? We'll end up deleting most of our lives. I don't
| find marketing notifications somehow more egregious than the
| million other anti-consumer behaviors companies show. It's a
| much better approach to fight those in a more targeted fashion,
| while still using the services and products we like or need.
|
| Please keep in mind that need is almost never "I will not
| survive (I will die) without it", but rather "My life is so
| much better with it, that a substantial investment in
| time/money/energy/suffering of annoyances is worth it".
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