[HN Gopher] Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. p...
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Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy
Author : aquir
Score : 145 points
Date : 2024-12-30 11:21 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| ParanoidShroom wrote:
| Can we see the interoperability requests that meta submitted?
| That would clarify if the shade is legit.
| mrweasel wrote:
| While I don't trust Meta, at all, I can see some reasons for
| legitimate requests. This could for API access so that the Meta
| VR headset could work as a substitute for Apples own, in some
| cases, or Facebook Messenger and iMessage interoperability. I
| sort of doubt that this is what Meta is trying for, but that
| would reasonable.
|
| It's probably a bit of both. One part Apple being monopolistic
| jerks and one part Meta wanting to hoover up even more private
| data. One issue I can see is that the EU would side with Meta,
| knowing that the EU privacy laws will protect its citizens, but
| Apple has to consider the ramification for all users, including
| those not protect be the GDPR. So Apple is forced to open up
| and Meta will start using the opening to suck up private
| information on its American users.
| F7F7F7 wrote:
| Apple has shown recently that they are more than OK giving
| Europeans and some parts of Asia a different iOS experience
| than the rest of us.
|
| If they are "forced to open up" in the EU it doesn't mean
| they will here.
| VertanaNinjai wrote:
| From another comment here.
|
| https://developer.apple.com/support/downloads/DMA-Interopera...
| aurareturn wrote:
| Meta understands that in an AI agentic world, having access at
| the OS level is crucial.
|
| The AI becomes significantly more useful if it understands your
| digital life more. Only Apple has OS level access for agentic AI
| but Meta wants it too.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| > The AI becomes significantly more useful if it understands
| your digital life more.
|
| "Useful" is misleading. It should be "useful for the big corps
| for entrenching you further into proprietary technology so that
| they can take advantage of you later".
| reactordev wrote:
| All so they can better target ads to you. Who needs cookies?
| pretext-1 wrote:
| > for entrenching you further into proprietary technology
|
| But isn't this already the case right now? In my opinion this
| argument is kind of backwards because the lack of (or access
| to) APIs is precisely what's preventing us from having
| alternatives!
|
| Siri is proprietary, closed source, big corp, etc.
|
| Want an open source, community based, interoperable, fully
| local, etc. assistant/AI? It cannot exist in today's world
| simply because it requires what Meta asks for.
|
| I dislike Meta very much but I refuse to believe that
| creating or opening up such APIs would foster ,,entrenching
| you further into proprietary technology".
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| > But isn't this already the case right now? In my opinion
| this argument is kind of backwards because the lack of (or
| access to) APIs is precisely what's preventing us from
| having alternatives!
|
| Yes, it is. The entrenchment is an ongoing process designed
| to give us short-term benefits that appear harmless. But
| they slowly add up and produce an ecosystem that is
| actively harmful and not much better than before (on
| average).
|
| By the way, I don't argue for or against Meta having access
| to APIs. I am against Meta entirely -- and the only logical
| answer to them is to dismantle them.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > Siri is proprietary, closed source, big corp, etc.
|
| Yes, and because of that, it's the only voice assistant I
| want. I do not want a hyper-intelligent "friend that knows
| everything about me" because that, without fail, is being
| sold to me by companies who will need access to every last
| bit of data about me and my life, who will then host that
| data somewhere, with some level of security, which I'm not
| involved in and do not control. And tbh, given my thoughts
| about how users approach tech, I don't want that for other
| people either.
|
| Putting aside my feelings about surveillance capitalism and
| how inherently exploitative and inhumane it is, with full
| knowledge that all my objections under that umbrella
| already, for me, constitute a wide and thoroughly
| researched opinion as to why this shit is horrific for
| privacy on it's face, but putting it aside:
|
| If companies want access to every last drop of information,
| every last data point, even assuming an altruistic "we just
| want to make the best AI assistant we can" against all
| evidence to the contrary: then there needs to be set, and
| severe consequences for data breaches for these companies.
| No more of this "we put up a blog post about it and
| security researchers got an interview with CNN" no, fuck
| that shit. If Meta has a breach in it's AI product and as a
| result of that, whatever hacker org gets the full spread on
| let's say 5,000 individuals? Then those 5,000 individuals
| need to be entitled to damages. Firstly anything that
| impacts their lives needs to be unwound completely; new
| SSN, any money taken restored, help moving if required,
| whatever. Secondly they need to be compensated for the
| emotional toil of spending weeks or months sifting
| paperwork, sending letters, attending court dates to unwind
| whatever is done with their identity, and Meta is
| responsible for ALL of that.
|
| If these companies want effectively root access to my life
| to provide these services, then I don't think it's
| unreasonable to say they need to be legally and financially
| responsible if their negligence causes people to get
| exposed. And if they're not prepared to take on that
| liability, then perhaps an AI assistant that knows
| everything about you is just a product that cannot be made.
|
| I don't think this is an unreasonable view.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| At the very least, for apps that require this much access, such
| "interoperability" should be off by default with a big warning
| that says:
|
| [ ] Check here if you want to share all your data (or something
| more precise) with Meta. Warning: possibly insecure. Use at your
| own risk.
| doodlesdev wrote:
| Every user would just check that option and press yes. The
| reality is that most users don't ever read any message the
| phone gives to them, they just treat it like any other popup
| and press yes. Take a look at any normal person using a phone
| when a permission notification appears or an error appears:
| they won't even read it, just press any button that closes it
| as fast as possible.
|
| There's good reason to not have this prompt and not give these
| abilities to applications. Apple's reason to oppose the DMA and
| Meta here might be different, though.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| > Every user would just check that option and press yes.
|
| Not if it's available in the developer options, or has more
| other sorts of friction to check the box. Or if it has a red
| warning label with the phrase "may increase the chance of
| hackers stealing your data and impersonating you".
|
| One just has to make it unattractive enough to most.
| 3874744848 wrote:
| This is the heart of the issue though. Most users don't
| care unless you purposefully go out of your way to scare
| them with enough melodrama and dark patterns as to border
| on outright dishonesty. It's not an issue of them being
| informed, they just genuinely do not care about the risk
| when the actor is a familiar megacorp because their
| viewpoint is that if billions of dollars can't keep the
| data safe then it was never going to be genuinely safe
| anyway.
| edude03 wrote:
| And of course - often apps ask for permissions they don't
| need at opprotune time ie "enable development mode to get
| 100 more gems" or "enable notifications to use this app"
| HPsquared wrote:
| Especially if the person already uses Messenger or
| WhatsApp for personal conversations etc. Meta already has
| control over their important data at that point (chat
| logs and phone calls, probably location history). What
| more could be on the device other than web browsing and
| photos. It's the same thing with trusting Microsoft or
| Google - they already have access to all your data via
| control of the entire operating system and could in
| theory do anything with it. So users have to trust them
| to psychologically be ok with using those devices at all.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| If that is truly a foregone conclusion then we should
| eradicate the megacorps, not pander to them or negotiate
| with them.
| 3874744848 wrote:
| Why? Not philosophically why but genuinely why? The
| consumer isn't less for their choice, if they saw people
| suffering damage they found concerning they'd actually be
| hesitant. And at the same time it's not like equivalent
| open solutions are going to emerge, we've had decades of
| cyber-activist products meant to 'empower' users by
| providing similar functionality to the commercial
| products of their time and they almost never catch on and
| if they do they reach a critical mass where they just
| evolve into data hungry companies themselves. If users
| would rather pay with data than money maybe the right
| solution is just to make sure there's simply an opt-in
| point at all rather than implementing some pointless
| thicket of UI weeds for them to wade through just to make
| their device do what they want.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| 1. Corporations are too powerful and responsible for too
| much tragedy of the commons, especially with regard to
| global trade.
|
| 2. The end goal of corporations is ultimate wealth
| concentration and the destruction of local economies.
|
| 3. Corporations combined with technology means too much
| technological growth at too fast a pace
|
| The world would be better off without the biggest 10 of
| them for sure.
| Zak wrote:
| If a user wants to turn on a clearly labeled setting to
| share a bunch of data with Meta, it should not be Apple's
| role to stop them even if you and I might think that's a
| stupid thing to do. Android's solution for more dangerous
| permissions is to make the user open the settings app and
| pick the apps to grant it to from a list, which seems
| like the right amount of friction to kick people out of
| autopilot and make them actively decide whether that's
| something they want to do.
|
| If it's anyone's job to limit how Meta can collect and
| use data despite the express consent of the user, it's
| governments, not Apple.
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| I think we saw how well this approach worked with the
| cookie popups post GDPR. It doesn't really work. At this
| point I feel most people have some idea of how their data
| is used and sold and if they continue to use Meta apps, its
| because they think the tradeoff is worth it. There are
| either no alternatives or strong network effects that make
| Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp etc a worthwhile choice in
| many cases and we know it.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| The problem with the cookies thing though is that it
| didn't mandate that websites should work well WITHOUT
| cookies. The cookie popups aren't bad but often the only
| option is "necessary cookies". We should have a "no
| cookies" option, too.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| That would address a very different need, though:
| accessibility vs. data protection.
| watermelon0 wrote:
| There are necessary cookies for sites to operate. For
| example, you need a cookie for authentication or a
| server-side e-commerce basket.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| True. But those sites should only enable them when you
| decide to create an account/login.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| Sadly, I think you're right. I recently got one of those
| "Can we share your data with our partners" popups and the
| number of partners it declared (in a tiny font) was...
| *1,583*. People either do not notice this stuff or just
| do not care.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I found MIUI's solution to this quite well designed, even if
| it's a little infuriating when altering permissions for a
| list of apps. There's a big red warning with a user friendly
| description of the danger and a countdown to prevent quick
| click through, locked behind an "I accept the risk" checkbox.
| You need to read at least one UI element that says "danger"
| before you can complete the interaction.
|
| If such popups were introduced in iOS, they should be
| universal, of course, and the same danger prompts should show
| for Apple's software as for their competitors. Apple won't do
| that (outside of the EU) but it'd be a solution to the data
| hunger without compromising market accessibility too much.
|
| A good alternative would be for Apple to remove APIs
| entirely, including for themselves. If they consider some
| data and some interactivity to be too dangerous for users,
| perhaps they shouldn't be messing with it either.
|
| Apple makes a habit out of exaggerating the dangers of
| complying with any regulation. Just a bit of fear mongering
| gets their fans in a state where they'll maintain Apple's
| walled garden even when they stand to benefit from it being
| opened up.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| "Effective but infuriating" UI treatments aren't good
| enough for consumer electronics. Do you remember the UAC
| popups in Windows Vista, and how that got turned into a
| punchline on late-night standup and even in Apple's own TV
| ads? Apple even did a little bit of this with the new
| filesystem permissions upon upgrading to (I think) Sierra,
| and got pilloried for it, even by experienced technology
| users. The thing you're talking about would be many times
| more invasive.
|
| > A good alternative would be for Apple to remove APIs
| entirely, including for themselves. If they consider some
| data and some interactivity to be too dangerous for users,
| perhaps they shouldn't be messing with it either.
|
| I don't want this and it doesn't make any sense. I _trust_
| Apple as a vendor in a way I don't trust third-party
| developers (or else I wouldn't have purchased an iPhone),
| and it's entirely reasonable to grant them permissions I
| don't grant anybody else. Removing those entirely makes my
| phone considerably less useful.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > The reality is that most users don't ever read any message
| the phone gives to them, they just treat it like any other
| popup and press yes.
|
| The only part I disagree with is that it's limited to phones,
| it absolutely isn't. It's any computing device, be it a
| general purpose PC, a tablet, a phone, your car's
| infotainment system, what have you.
|
| The large majority of the population does not understand how
| these devices work, and what kinds of problems they can
| create if used unsafely, and they don't care to know. And
| like, I get why: life is complicated enough as it is. Simple
| fact is when Joe Consumer pulls a new TV out of it's box and
| it comes with the contrast and color saturation through the
| ceiling so everything looks like shit, and motion smoothing
| is adding 60ms of delay to the response of connected
| hardware, he's fine with that. I don't like that for him, and
| I wish he wasn't, but most people just don't care. Most
| people want to speed run whatever damn things they gotta
| click to make the stupid light and noise machine do what they
| need it to do, so they can resume their idle time.
|
| That's why if we actually want to make progress on reigning
| in these socially corrosive services, we need not just
| options, but a set of default settings, mandated by law, that
| respects user privacy. As a user of electricity, I do not
| need to be informed about how electricity works to safely use
| my outlets. As a user of water, I do not need to be informed
| about how plumbing works to safely take a shower. I shouldn't
| need to know jack about smartphones or computers either in
| order to not have my personal information used to sell me
| gross new flavors of Coke.
| smolder wrote:
| "Every user would check that option" is obviously incorrect.
| When given the option not to share information, a great deal
| choose not to. I won't pull a percentage out of thin air, but
| peoples tendency towards "deny" when given the option is the
| reason for a lot of the dark patterns that exist (e.g.
| spamming address book permission dialogs, non-compliant
| cookie dialogs) and for spying as much as possible without
| permission. Asking permission for things that might be
| considered invasive is still the ethical thing to do, and in
| the early days of computing before the profit motive became
| overwhelming, developers tended to do the ethical thing,
| unlike today.
| threeseed wrote:
| We have decades of experience going back to Vista that this
| does not work.
|
| Users trust companies like Apple, Google etc not to place them
| in harm's way.
|
| And so when prompts like this are shown they will quite happily
| approve without even reading the words.
| jsnell wrote:
| Only if Apple's uses of that data have to go through the same
| flow, with equally scary text.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| I would support that, too.
| joseda-hg wrote:
| I get a similar warning (Complete with red symbols and forced
| waiting so you're "forced" to read) when installing external
| APK's on Android While it feels like something Apple wouldn't
| do, it's a workable solution
| oefrha wrote:
| The Reuters report on this is much more detailed:
| https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-slams-metas-numerou...
|
| And yes, Meta isn't denying requesting everything under the sun.
| Their only retort is Apple's privacy concerns are anticompetitive
| excuses. Two things can be true: Apple is only protecting their
| own interests, and Meta is a terrible would-be guardian of all
| the data they're requesting.
| tempodox wrote:
| The rename from Facebook didn't change the base nature of that
| company. Their product is selling user data. All their other
| "products" are just suction pipes for hoovering up that data.
| paldepind2 wrote:
| > All their other "products" are just suction pipes for
| hoovering up that data.
|
| I don't think that's true for their VR/MR hardware. That's
| Meta's attempt to get a product that is _not_ like that, but
| which instead gets them in a position similar to where Google
| and Apple are for phones. I.e., where they own the platform
| and can profit off of that.
| mort96 wrote:
| Dude they tried to force you to log in with your Facebook
| account to use your hardware. Everything made by that
| wretched company is tainted.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Did they back off of that? I have an older oculus I can
| dig out if I can safely walk its data off from Meta
| plagiarist wrote:
| The last time I complained about this someone mentioned
| they "only" force a Meta account and not a whole Facebook
| identity.
|
| That's a distinction without a difference to me. I will
| not be purchasing hardware that requires a cloud account.
| Especially not a peripheral.
| aoanevdus wrote:
| Xbox is pretty popular while requiring a Microsoft
| account.
| paldepind2 wrote:
| That's true, but then, I'm not saying that the Quest is
| an offline-only device without cloud features. I'm saying
| that Meta didn't invest $63 billion just to create a
| "suction pipe for hoovering up that data". They have much
| bigger ambitions than that.
| mort96 wrote:
| If they have other ambitions, those ambitions haven't
| materialised yet. Selling decent hardware at a loss and
| profiting from hoovering up user data is all Facebook has
| accomplished with the Quest so far from what I can see.
| ADeerAppeared wrote:
| > I don't think that's true for their VR/MR hardware.
|
| They literally record the cameras and 'screen', then send
| it off to their servers.
|
| The VR hardware absolutely spies on you. Even if you tell
| it not to, it still shows up in the mobile app.
| paldepind2 wrote:
| And in what way are they then selling that data (which is
| what the person I replied to talked about)? Just the fact
| that the data is being sent to a server doesn't mean
| much. Tons of modern products relies on literally
| recording your data and sending it off to a server.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| They literally don't.
| tempodox wrote:
| Owning the platform + selling user data = double the
| profits.
|
| You seriously think they will pass on this golden
| opportunity?
| bun_at_work wrote:
| That's true - their revenue from VR/MR hardware is less
| than 2.5% of revenue though. Meanwhile, ads make up the
| other 97.5% of their revenue. 97.5% of everything Meta does
| is to hoover the data and sell it. It's effectively their
| entire business, while VR/MR stuff is a little side
| project.
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| Also Apple's own apps request permissions the same way third
| party apps do
| oefrha wrote:
| They certainly don't. We're talking about apps like Phone,
| Messages, Photos, Files and system stuff like app tracking
| (Screen Time etc.).
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| When you first set up an iPhone (and other hardware like
| AirPods, for example) you are asked whether to share
| anonymized usage data with Apple. Saying "No" at that
| screen turns off a whole swath of data collection.
|
| I wonder what specific examples you are aware of that are
| not disabled in this manner?
| oefrha wrote:
| No one's talking about "anonymous usage data". The topic
| at question is primary data available to first party apps
| (even if they remain on device), often synced to iCloud
| and available to say, Siri. I'm sure I accepted a bunch
| of EULAs when turning on iCloud and Siri, but Facebook
| will argue they've shown you their EULA too. That's not
| "request permissions the same way third party apps do",
| and some of the data can't even be requested through
| normal permission prompts, which is why Meta is forcing
| Apple's hand with the EU stuff.
| F7F7F7 wrote:
| This argument is silly and goes well beyond the spirit of
| the EU law.
|
| As if Meta has to suddenly show Apple all of its goods
| now too. Giving Apple access to all Facebook or Instagram
| data and letting them decide where to draw the line.
|
| Stop letting the distaste for Apple effect reason and
| sanity.
| luckylion wrote:
| > Giving Apple access to all Facebook or Instagram data
| and letting them decide where to draw the line.
|
| Meta is running an app store on Instagram that Apple is
| using?
| mdhb wrote:
| Apple turned on a "feature" without announcing it that
| would send data about every single on your private photos
| to their servers recently.
|
| https://bsky.app/profile/matthewdgreen.bsky.social/post/3
| lef...
| F7F7F7 wrote:
| And...?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, I suspect this AI thing is going to be a fork in
| the road for Apple. The buzz is that AI is amazing and
| with everyone tripping over themselves to add it to their
| products, marketing is going to be asking for things
| quickly and dismissing any pushback on perceived privacy.
|
| If enough blogs expose these things (if they are actual
| privacy concerns -- I mean I am already storing the
| photos themselves on Apple's iCloud, so) then I expect
| Apple to back off and make the feature opt-in in an
| upcoming release.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I just got a new iPhone two weeks ago (corporate mandated:(.
|
| I don't recall messages, photos, apple maps, notes, camera,
| calendar etc asking me detailed permissions. I think health
| did ask for some.
|
| Installing equivalent Facebook messenger, Google photos,
| Google calendar, etc also of course did.
|
| (Greediest award goes to whatsapp which basically doesn't
| work unless you grant it full access to contacts boo)
| oefrha wrote:
| I had to contact someone in Europe so I started using
| WhatsApp. It does work without granting access to contacts,
| but it seems I can't even assign a name to a number without
| the contacts permission, so thousands of messages later the
| contact is still a bare number. Really scummy behavior. I
| probably would have caved if I had a number of contacts.
| And no iPad app, wtf.
| jlokier wrote:
| WhatsApp on Android has the same behaviour. Most of my
| conversations show as a bare phone number because I
| decided not to give it all my contacts.
|
| However, WhatsApp groups show a name, so that's a
| workaround if you are using WhatsApp with someone you
| know well: Make a group for the two of you.
|
| When a friend went to install WhatsApp for their iPad,
| they succeeded!
|
| Then they said it wasn't working properly. Unfortunately
| that's because app store search brought up misleading
| third-party WhatsApp apps for the iPad. If you weren't
| paying attention, it was too easy to think you were
| installing the official app from WhatsApp. I didn't
| notice the app was third-party at first either, and I was
| very surprised to find no app at all from WhatsApp itself
| on closer inspection, amidst a page of search resulrs all
| claiming to be it.
| oefrha wrote:
| I would have settled for something like the Instagram
| "iPad app": a phone-sized rectangle in the middle of a
| black background. Alas, they don't even allow that, hence
| all the fake crap you can easily download by mistake. And
| the web app is pretty bad on iPads, thanks in no small
| part to Apple.
| gruez wrote:
| >WhatsApp on Android has the same behaviour. Most of my
| conversations show as a bare phone number because I
| decided not to give it all my contacts.
|
| It was actually worse (at least as of a few years ago)
| because they didn't allow you to manually input phone
| numbers. You either need the other party to message you
| first, or use a wa.me deeplink (eg. wa.me/12125551234).
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Can you initiate a conversation? My experience with
| WhatsApp is that if I don't give it access to contacts,
| other people have to initiate conversation. I cannot just
| tell it to start a chat with phone 123 456 7890 (this is
| on Android).
|
| I guess it's debatable whether that's categorized as "it
| works" :>
| oefrha wrote:
| I can "enter a phone number to start a new chat" on iOS,
| with a big warning about contacts on top.
| mort96 wrote:
| Apple chooses to ask the user for permission about certain
| things, but they're not beholden to that "like any other
| app". No app can e.g use your microphone in the background to
| listen for trigger words, no other app can analyse your
| photos for search without a permission dialog, no other app
| can transmit nearby BSSIDs + GPS location in the background
| for the purposes of building a location services system.
| Apple does all these things. Apple is absolutely not doing
| things "like third party apps do".
| paxys wrote:
| No they don't. It is literally impossible to create
| competitors for Apple's native apps and companion
| devices/accessories no matter how many permission prompts the
| user approves. That is what this entire complaint is about.
| crest wrote:
| Apple shouldn't be allowed to lock down APIs between system
| components to give themselves a competitive advantage, but that
| doesn't mean Meta should be allowed decide if they're getting
| that access. Let Apple offer users the option: allow once,
| allow permanently, refuse, or _fake empty responses_ without
| telling the app.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > Let Apple offer users the option
|
| That's easy to say, and much more difficult to implement than
| it sounds.
|
| Careful: There's a lot of nuance in how these kinds of
| options are presented to the user. Depending on how they're
| designed, "the general public" will default to yes or no; or
| get frustrated / overwhelmed with pedantic permission
| dialogs.
|
| Thus, part of "Let Apple offer users the option" is a
| commitment to studying how that option is presented, and the
| overall implications of such an option.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| The thing is, at _some point_ users _must_ become
| comfortable with "pedantic permission dialogs." Users
| _must_ take responsibility for knowing how software works
| and the motivations of its creators. Trying to outsource
| those decisions to corporations and government simply isn
| 't working. Since computer users (I include phone users in
| that definition) can no longer trust software developers
| (Apple, Meta, etc.) to be _ethically_ trustworthy (think:
| high-trust society devolving to low-trust society), users
| must take this burden upon themselves; if they refuse to,
| then the battle is already lost no matter what
| globogiantmegacorp "wins."
| riversflow wrote:
| > Trying to outsource those decisions to corporations and
| government simply isn't working
|
| I don't follow. What is wrong with the status quo?
| inetknght wrote:
| > _What is wrong with the status quo?_
|
| Businesses are deciding who lives and who dies, instead
| of people being allowed to have their own choice in the
| matter. These businesses make decisions based on data
| stolen from users. If the data were on paper in a
| person's home, it would be considered private and
| inaccessible.
|
| Why should a company decide that they should have access
| to your every move and every data, just because you
| purchased something from them? Why should a company
| decide what you're allowed to do with your device? A
| business shouldn't be permitted to decide these decisions
| for you without your _fully informed consent_.
|
| That's what's wrong with the status quo.
| nox101 wrote:
| It's funny, you're first sentence "Businesses are
| deciding who lives and who dies, instead of people being
| allowed to have their own choice in the matter" to me
| meant "Apple deciding who can and can not do business
| with users of iPhones"
|
| The status quo is that Apple has this power on top of the
| power to collect 30% for all digital transactions (or be
| denied on the store) and the power to force Apple Pay
| support to be required (or be denied on the store). Apple
| also has the power to collect all the data but deny it to
| others.
|
| That's the status quo that the EU is addressing.
|
| Note: I don't want FB to have my data. I also don't want
| Apple to have those powers enumerated above.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _The status quo is_ ...
|
| > _That 's the status quo that the EU is addressing._
|
| > _Note: I don 't want FB to have my data. I also don't
| want Apple to have those powers enumerated above._
|
| Yes, and I concur.
| nyclounge wrote:
| >Note: I don't want FB to have my data. I also don't want
| Apple to have those powers enumerated above.
|
| In an ideal world that would be great. However, right now
| it is either Apple of Google when it comes to smart
| devices for average consumers. Kinda like political
| dichotomy in US politics.
|
| Democracy will not function with an educated public. And
| dumbing down choices are just a way to get give power to
| megacorp and political institutions.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _Democracy will not function with an educated public._
|
| What makes you think that?
|
| > _dumbing down choices are just a way to get give power
| to megacorp and political institutions_
|
| Yes, and an educated public would find better ways to
| convey the same information because they can use their
| education to build a new thing, or build regulations or
| laws where they see a need, or build defenses against
| adversaries without sacrificing privacy. You can't do
| that with your local public (eg, citizens) if your
| citizens aren't able to comprehend the problems they're
| encountering.
| bun_at_work wrote:
| > Users must take responsibility for knowing how software
| works and the motivations of its creators.
|
| This doesn't seem reasonable. Let's try to apply the
| logic elsewhere:
|
| > Patients must take responsibility for knowing how
| medicine works and motivations of its
| creators/prescribers.
|
| Requiring everyone to have deep technical knowledge about
| anything they use would prevent everyone from using more
| than the things they are experts in. So, there needs to
| be either a technological regression, or something to
| help defend users from unethical practices. The only
| entity really in a position to do that is a government,
| for better or worse.
| beeflet wrote:
| > Patients must take responsibility for knowing how
| medicine works and motivations of its
| creators/prescribers.
|
| This is true. If you blindly trust whatever your doctor
| says, you are going to have a bad time in the current
| medical system. Doctors are incentivized to push pills
| because they get kickbacks from the pharma industry. This
| is pretty well known
| (https://www.propublica.org/article/doctors-prescribe-
| more-of...)
|
| When it comes to Elective surgeries, perscriptions. etc.
| you need to do your own research to how these things work
| and make an informed decision for yourself. Ultimately,
| if you're an adult, you are responsible for your own body
| and your own equipment.
|
| It's not a matter of deep technical knowledge, it's
| shallow technical knowledge and political knowledge of
| what institutions are trustworthy.
| Yeul wrote:
| You mean like on Android? Hell nowadays you can choose
| "approximate location" instead of tracking people. App
| permissions have come a long way.
| gruez wrote:
| >You mean like on Android? Hell nowadays you can choose
| "approximate location" instead of tracking people.
|
| Apps can and do detect this and deny access certain
| features. For instance the mcdonalds app won't give you
| offers if you choose approximate location.
| paxys wrote:
| And there's nothing wrong with that. If users don't have
| the will power to close and delete the app when faced
| with such a situation then that's on them. An adult has
| the right to decide that their privacy is worth a 50 cent
| discount off a shitty burger.
| briankelly wrote:
| All fun and games until the grocery app does the same.
| mort96 wrote:
| Users will be faced with a dialog saying "to use Facebook,
| you must accept XYZ", and their only options will be to
| accept or to not use the app. Facebook will detect empty or
| fake data and lock the user out unless they acquiesce.
| twoodfin wrote:
| Apple routinely rejects apps that try tactics like this.
| Otherwise it'd be an easy way around the "Ask App Not To
| Track" prompt.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| I don't know man?
|
| I have to think if Apple were mandated to be more open to
| competitors they would not be allowed to reject apps on
| this basis.
|
| This problem is just multifaceted and far reaching. Not
| sure how to go about solving it?
| gruez wrote:
| >Apple routinely rejects apps that try tactics like this.
|
| This is going to be irrelevant in the EU once sideloading
| gets popular.
| dvdkon wrote:
| Thankfully the EU also has legislation that makes "share
| data to use" tactics illegal, so this shouldn't be a
| problem.
| gruez wrote:
| How are you going to enforce this against app developers
| outside of the EU?
| silvestrov wrote:
| Facebook likes getting some of that sweet money from EU
| advertisers.
|
| EU can block payments from EU to Facebook.
| gruez wrote:
| Different threat model. You're thinking of big tech
| companies like Meta, who are big enough to warrant
| regulatory attention. I'm thinking of fly-by-night shady
| app developers that make
| flashlight/weather/"security"/IoT/game apps, that fly
| under the radar because they're too small.
| notpushkin wrote:
| Not really the kind of apps people would sideload?
| gruez wrote:
| People might not sideload a flashlight app, but they're
| probably going to sideload an IoT app (especially if they
| bought the corresponding product first) and games
| (especially if their friends are peer pressuring them
| into it).
| nrabulinski wrote:
| Then the EU can stop them from selling their products to
| EU customers, since as soon as you're providing services
| to EU customers you're obliged to play by EU rules
| gruez wrote:
| >Then the EU can stop them from selling their products to
| EU customers
|
| So you want the EU to play whack-a-mole with fly by night
| IoT vendors, some of which might be shipping directly
| from China? Or do you want to fix this with even more
| regulation, like requiring licenses to import IoT
| products or whatever?
| worik wrote:
| > So you want the EU to play whack-a-mole with fly by
| night IoT vendors
|
| Yes
|
| Like they do with other online criminals
| gruez wrote:
| Yeah, I'm sure the EU sending angry letters to nameless
| IoT company in shenzhen is going to be very effective.
| ben_w wrote:
| The reason I would rather we'd kept walled gardens
| (plural is fine, given that monopolies are also bad) is
| that I expect such apps will quickly become sideloaded
| soon after it becomes possible.
|
| We shall see -- that may simply be a security mindset
| paranoia on my part.
| Bobbyddxxd wrote:
| Anti free choice mindset.
| ben_w wrote:
| Truly free choice is an illusion; the best we can do is a
| force of law to keep players from tilting the playing
| field in their own favour.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Once side loading is available, the stupids will do it
| for "freedom" or whatever.
|
| Regulating the AppStore makes sense. Proliferating lots
| of them is the most inane policy decision ever.
| LexGray wrote:
| Exactly the type of apps people would sideload. Little
| things that somehow violate App Store rules abusing APIs,
| lying about app capability, just being ethically dubious.
|
| Use flash to create seizures, nudity people realtime,
| hack your ex, damage the device, cheat at games, spam
| your enemies, etc.
|
| There is an infinite use case for tiny malicious apps
| finding malicious or gullible users and with side loading
| there are going to be stores created to appear very
| legitimate when their intentions are actually illegal.
|
| I think the EU has very noble intentions while completely
| failing to understand that society is a wreck and a lot
| of money is made through extortion and fraud. Their
| apparent fix is to make the OS developers still
| responsible for what is installed while taking away
| funding for it. I am guessing the end game is more taxes
| and government intrusion on private devices to fix the
| problems they are purposely creating.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Android is way more popular in the EU than iPhone, allows
| sideloading, and I am not aware of these issues being
| rampant with it ?
| ben_w wrote:
| While sideloading is possible on Android, it appears to
| be sufficiently difficult that Google isn't effective
| with the argument that this makes them "not a monopoly".
|
| As a tech person I find this weird, but then I remember
| the relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2501/
| toast0 wrote:
| To a first approximation, the small apps don't matter
| because they're small.
|
| If that doesn't work, set up a deposit requirement like
| Apple wanted for the 3rd party stores and then walked
| back. Do something wrong, lose the deposit and the
| entitlements.
| yunohn wrote:
| In a discussion thread about Meta (which follows EU law)
| launching an app in the EU using their alt App Store
| laws; why would you further move the goalpost just for
| arguments sake?
| gruez wrote:
| >In a discussion thread about Meta
|
| 1. characterizing this as a "discussion thread about
| Meta" is a stretch. While the OP is about meta
| specifically, it's fairly obvious that as of a comments
| up, the discussion is about the behaviors of app
| developers in general, rather than what Meta is
| specifically doing.
|
| 2. Discussing unintended side effects isn't "moving the
| goalposts". If we're talking about the student debt
| crisis, and someone brings up the idea of student loan
| forgiveness, it's not "moving the goalposts" to bring up
| concerns about inflation.
| ben_w wrote:
| Fines equivalent to 10% of global revenue, and
| extradition orders.
| wyldberry wrote:
| Imagine a country extraditing their app developer to the
| EU of all place lmao.
| worik wrote:
| Yes
|
| Imagine it. Fear it!
| dvdkon wrote:
| Unless I'm missing something, Apple only has to provide
| these new requested APIs to users in the EU. I presume
| Apple will keep everything as-is in other countries, just
| like with app sideloading.
| axkdev wrote:
| Citation? I think this is not true. The EU law seems to
| just require explicit consent. So websites and apps can
| ask whether user wants to share data to keep using them
| for free or pay a subscription fee.
| silvanocerza wrote:
| Article 7.4 and recital 43 of GDPR cover that.
|
| Article 7 https://gdpr-info.eu/art-7-gdpr/
|
| Recital 43 https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-43/
|
| Those two in combination stop companies processing data
| for unrelated task to the services they provide. And it's
| indeed true and already been applied, see this:
| https://www.digitalguardian.com/blog/google-
| fined-57m-data-p...
| dvdkon wrote:
| A "consent or pay" model is sadly widely used, but it's
| at least very controversial and probably illegal. No data
| protection agency has gone on record to say it's
| definitely illegal and no fines have been given out IIRC,
| but the EDPB had some tactfully negative things to say
| about it [0], and the Czech DPA has ordered at least one
| company to cease the practice in a preliminary ruling
| [1]. (Which the company seems to be completely ignoring,
| as is sadly common.)
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consent_or_pay [1]:
| https://uoou.gov.cz/urad/povinne-zverejnovane-
| informace/svob...
| ImJamal wrote:
| What makes you think it will get popular? Android has had
| it forever and almost nobody uses it.
| Bobbyddxxd wrote:
| For the people who choose to sideload, yes. How's that an
| issue?
| briandear wrote:
| Why would a normal person want to sideload?
| beeflet wrote:
| I sideload on android because the apps on f-droid are
| better than google play. So I would imagine the same
| would apply to iOS. With sideloading you can run open-
| source software that works in a straightforward way and
| isn't intentionally crippled so that it can be monetized.
|
| The last time I used iOS I found the app store quality
| was also really bad. People listing "free apps" that
| immediately require you to start an expensive monthly
| subscription to use. The effect on the mobile games
| industry has been so disastrous that people would rather
| carry an entirely separate mobile device on them just to
| play "real games".
|
| On google play or the app store you can play a mobile
| version of minecraft with microtransactions for $7. With
| sideloading you can just play a full version of the more
| popular java edition PC game, for free.
| (pojavlauncherteam.github.io). I think that sums up the
| sideloading experience.
| rpdillon wrote:
| Because it's crazy to think that the two dominant app
| stores are going to have policies that exactly match
| people's needs, and that they'll implement those policies
| competently.
|
| Syncing files with Syncthing is no longer possible on
| Android because the Android team won't fix the
| performance of storage access framework, for example.
| This is 100% on Google, not Syncthing.
|
| But I can still use SyncThing-fork because it's on
| FDroid. Similarly for the Fossify apps, Quillnote,
| KeepassDX, Privacy Browser, and dozens of others.
|
| Apple will never put in the effort to make a community
| that thrives on sharing open source apps that are not
| profit driven. It's simply not in their DNA. And I don't
| want to have to live in a world where every developer
| that wants to make a mobile app has to pay a tithe to the
| overlords of Google and Apple. They will always claim
| that they're fixing security problems by acting as an
| intermediary, but there's no way for them to do that
| without replacing my choices with theirs, and nothing in
| Google's or Apple's decision-making history indicates
| they're better equipped to make decisions governing my
| machines than I am.
|
| So why would a normal person want to sideload? Because
| they don't want Google and Apple telling them what
| software they can install on devices they purchased.
| saurik wrote:
| I have often used phones without bothering to
| comprehensively fill out an address book, and should
| everyone be required to own random network devices or even
| to take a lot of photos? The only data I can think of which
| maybe you could "detect" is fake would be the user's
| extremely course location, but that's only because you
| might be able to guess at it yourself, at which point the
| device's data isn't even relevant anymore.
|
| This idea that apps are going to strong arm data out of
| users seems like one of those talking points which sounds
| good but doesn't pen out, but somehow _simultaneously_ is
| used to prevent users from being able to increase either
| their freedom _or their privacy_. The status quo sucks, and
| is in the best interests of both overlords: Facebook knows
| if it has permission or not, and Apple can claim the only
| reason they won 't abuse this knowledge is if you allow
| them curation control.
| brudgers wrote:
| These days, that's true for pretty much
| everything...including my Android Phone and my iPhone and
| much software on my laptop. Hell, it's true for a lot of
| websites too.
|
| Not saying it doesn't suck, only that it is very ordinary
| and ubiquitous.
| franczesko wrote:
| We need devices fully under control of users. Neither Apple,
| nor Meta should be able to sniff aground once the device
| lands in costumer's hands
| mulmen wrote:
| > or fake empty responses without telling the app.
|
| I thought the value proposition of the walled garden was that
| no app was malicious so this is a non-issue.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| > Meta is a terrible would-be guardian of all the data they're
| requesting.
|
| Do you have any examples of Meta misusing this sort of data in
| the last 7 years?
| marketingtech wrote:
| Meta's request for interoperability is regarding their hardware,
| not their flagship apps, if you take it at face value.
|
| They want their glasses and headsets to integrate as tightly as
| an Apple Watch or Vision Pro to show messages and other
| notifications, connect to WiFi, and share files with an iPhone,
| but Apple uses private APIs for their own devices. Meta says that
| is anticompetitive and the APIs should be public.
|
| Apple lays out their rebuttal in detail here and it's clear Meta
| asked for everything in the hopes that Apple will settle for some
| of these things:
| https://developer.apple.com/support/downloads/DMA-Interopera...
| F7F7F7 wrote:
| As someone who's personally worked on dozens of M&A driven
| vertical integrations and "ecosystems" (lol)...interoperability
| is inherent to being a first party.
|
| 3rd parties aren't going to get the same access or treatment
| for a number of reasons...many of which Apple has outlined.
| marketingtech wrote:
| There are several reasons for a platform to not want to offer
| 3p interop, from security to privacy to competition, but the
| DMA is targeted EU regulation to mandate interop specifically
| for the big tech cos' platforms and this is one of the first
| major tests of the law.
| ksec wrote:
| >Meta's request for interoperability is regarding their
| hardware, not their flagship apps, if you take it at face
| value.
|
| >They want their glasses and headsets to integrate as tightly
| as an Apple Watch or Vision Pro
|
| Not agreeing or disagreeing but that makes much more sense.
| yapyap wrote:
| Everyone wants more access to your (i)Phone
| amelius wrote:
| Apple's iPhone.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| If Meta is successful in gaining access to iPhone user data, will
| this be exclusive to Meta or would Apple be required to open
| access more broadly?
| marketingtech wrote:
| More broadly, but not unconditionally. They can apply
| reasonable (definition of that can be another point of
| contention) restrictions via their app review process as long
| as the restrictions are applied consistently to all applicants.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Here are some of Meta's ask according to Apple...
|
| https://developer.apple.com/support/downloads/DMA-Interopera...
| AirPlay Continuity Camera App Intents Devices
| connected with Bluetooth Apple Notification Center Service
| iPhone Mirroring CarPlay Connectivity to all of a
| user's Apple devices Messaging Wi-Fi networks and
| properties
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Wow.
|
| I mean, where does a company get the balls to demand total
| access like this to the phones, networks and data of every
| phone in the US? These companies have _zero_ fear of us as a
| people.
|
| (They have zero respect for us as well, but that's another
| issue.)
| gruez wrote:
| I'm not sure how you read the above list and got the
| impression that meta wanted "total access like this to the
| phones, networks and data of every phone in the US".
| "Connectivity to all of a user's Apple devices" probably
| means mDNS access for device discovery, rather than root
| access on all devices or whatever. Same for "Wi-Fi networks
| and properties". They probably want a list of wifi networks
| so they can connect to them, rather than low level access so
| they can run packet captures or whatever. Yes, even the
| limited access described above presents privacy issues, but
| there's no need to be hyperbolic and characterize it as
| "total access".
| VertanaNinjai wrote:
| "Probably" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. I'm not
| sure why Meta deserves the benefit of the doubt with a
| horrible privacy track record as shown in multiple judicial
| districts throughout the globe.
| br0wnr1c3 wrote:
| I think one of my personal issues with allowing Meta to access
| these private APIs is that they may not take "don't allow" for an
| answer.
|
| I have WhatsApp to talk to some family and I recently disabled
| allowing all contacts in iOS 18. WhatsApp now has a persistent
| notification at the top of messages to "Allow All Contacts".
|
| If Apple allows users to choose whether or not to give Meta
| access, and users choose "no", Meta can lock them out of the
| service entirely (e.g., "you can't use this Meta Quest headset
| without allowing access to your messages").
|
| That being said, Apple is definitely fighting for its own
| interests here as well. It would obviously benefit them to sell
| their own watches, headsets, earbuds, etc.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Here's the thing, take a look at just a _bit_ of what Meta is
| demanding:
|
| *AirPlay Continuity Camera
|
| *App Intents
|
| *Devices connected with Bluetooth
|
| *Apple Notification Center Service
|
| *iPhone Mirroring
|
| *CarPlay
|
| *Connectivity to all of a user's Apple devices
|
| *Messaging
|
| *Wi-Fi networks and properties
|
| Now ignoring the obvious societal dangers in this request. (I
| mean really? Should you be using a Meta headset while you're
| driving?) The scope of data that they are asking for is
| breathtaking. All the data, wifi, messages and notifications of
| not only every iphone in the US, but all of the user's other
| devices as well. To potentially include their cars.
|
| We need to really think deeply about how we set up access to
| Apple data and APIs. Requests like this are putting me more in
| the "deny all requests" camp. If tech companies can't be at
| least a _little_ more reasonable, then I don 't think they
| should have access to our data.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| > Should you be using a Meta headset while you're driving?
|
| The Meta HUD glasses seem like they're definitely designed to
| be used while driving, and provide a safer way to access info
| like notifications than looking down at your iPhone. That
| isn't "Apple data and APIs" this is a notification that
| someone needs to display on their HUD.
|
| Really, the fact that Apple doesn't want to allow this sort
| of thing pretty clearly demonstrates they're acting in bad
| faith.
| saurik wrote:
| > I have WhatsApp to talk to some family and I recently
| disabled allowing all contacts in iOS 18. WhatsApp now has a
| persistent notification at the top of messages to "Allow All
| Contacts".
|
| If this is still possible, then Apple fucked up the
| implementation of this feature, as clearly there should be no
| way to differentiate not having bothered to fill out a ton of
| contacts and having limited access for an app to see your
| contacts; and since this is so obviously easy to do correctly,
| it frankly sounds actively malicious: there is a set --
| probably a very small set -- of engineers and product managers
| who chose to build this incorrectly, in order to continue to
| maintain the status quo of the proxy war between Apple and
| Meta, to our detriment.
| comex wrote:
| It's part of the API:
|
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/contacts/cnauthori.
| ..
|
| The documentation for ContactAccessButton suggests only
| presenting it if you have limited access:
|
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/contactsui/contact.
| ..
|
| edit: but that's intended to be used specifically to respond
| to a contact search. I don't use WhatsApp, but a "persistent
| notification" sounds unrelated to ContactAccessButton.
| jaredklewis wrote:
| No? For this particular case if the api exposed a bunch of
| bogus contacts then the WhatsApp app would be displaying and
| autocompleting non-existent contacts to the user throughout
| the UI, which would be a horrible UX.
|
| There are cases where you can fake data and cases where you
| need to be able to block access and the apps should respect
| that.
| skydhash wrote:
| > _If this is still possible, then Apple fucked up the
| implementation of this feature, as clearly there should be no
| way to differentiate not having bothered to fill out a ton of
| contacts and having limited access for an app to see your
| contacts_
|
| If you only allow a subset of your contact, WhatsApp proceeds
| to not display contact information for everyone and to
| disable the whole status feature.
| esafak wrote:
| Does anyone think Meta would give users the option to deny such
| a request and work properly? It's not a difficult question.
| yrcyrc wrote:
| I got rid of all of Facebook and Google apps and services years
| ago I really hope they won't get anything as they clearly can't
| be trusted with any data. See Noyb.eu for illustration.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe]
|
| Earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42457073
| freehorse wrote:
| Well I hope all these interoperability regulations come with
| eventually forcing messaging services to expose their APIs and
| allow 3rd party clients so that we can use a crowdfunded FOSS
| client for messaging and ditch all this malware from our phones.
| mediumsmart wrote:
| maybe the time has come for them to actually use this:
|
| https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple_granted_patent...
|
| _it will burn down their own playhouse too of course_
| alex1138 wrote:
| I dunno, I'm sure people have beef with Apple but Zuck's always
| taken other people's projects and acted dishonestly and their
| violating the terms with Whatsapp should be cause for breakup,
| and something like Apple is absolutely necessary (fine grained
| permissions) to stop the slurp-all-your-contacts parade that
| Zuckerberg loves
| asix66 wrote:
| Seems oxymoronic as Meta doesn't allow interoperability in order
| to maintain its walled garden. Apple does the same but it's
| generally done in the space of privacy- security and privacy
| going hand in hand. I have little faith in government, any
| government, when it comes to technology. Either through ignorance
| or motive, they usually make decisions that result in less
| privacy, less security.
| luke-stanley wrote:
| Is this Hacker News? This is way bigger than Meta. Should
| individuals have the freedom to access to their own phone data
| without needing to be a device manufacturer? Or should we depend
| on case by case approval of access that is outside of the users
| hands and something only big companies can do?
|
| Framing it as being about `Apple vs Meta` is exactly the line of
| thinking that Apple wants, and it does a disservice to real Apple
| users, who have repeatedly been locked into a ecosystem where
| they have little control of their own data, where even sharing
| photos over Bluetooth isn't even an option! It's so locked in
| it's really unreasonable to frame this as being about Meta. Of
| course users should be able to give none / empty / fake or even
| real data to Meta if they so choose. But really this is about
| Apple, user rights, the EU, and a more fair playing field. If you
| read the PDF Apple put out, they are not offering any kind of
| middle solution, they are just saying they will, as usual, review
| case by case device partnership opportunities as it pleases them.
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