Being able to change your default apps has nothing to do with privacy and everything to do with platform control.

I stick with Apple for the privacy. There are features on Android I wish to use, but I can’t bring myself to use an Android phone or putting the effort of cleaning it from all of Google’s trackers.

What do you do about all of Apple's trackers?

Apple doesn't surface the information they collect to third parties. If you are talking about in app advertising tracking, I reset my tracking advertiser ID pretty often too.

And what information does Google surface to third parties besides the tracking ID (which can also be reset easily on Android)?

In the Ad Exchange, Google surfaces the full url, geo, and all browser identifier information under the RTB protocol.

When tracked through apps, Google is equally open. Apple tries its best to combat tracking, but most apps will still do their best to jump through the tracking contention measures.

https://9to5mac.com/2019/02/07/app-screen-record-apps-remove...

I'd say, always be vigilant of the apps you install. I often check my http request logs to see my phone activity.

You can just flash your phone with LineageOS. Takes about an hour, and you're done.

What about all the apps that need the "Google Play Services" libraries?

There's always MicroG and the MicroG-infused version of LineageOS:

https://microg.org/

https://lineage.microg.org/

jc! but isn't microg also requires us to enable some level of Google Play Services?

Well, MicroG is meant to be a drop-in replacement for closed-source Google libraries on your phone (i.e. Google Play Services / Google Services Framework) but obviously it will still have to connect to Google servers if needed (although you're able to control for what purposes). For instance, push notifications for apps often use Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging platform and MicroG allows the user to still receive those notifications in the absense of Google Play Services / Google Services Framework.

I suggest you have a closer look at the MicroG website where this is explained, too: https://microg.org/

Cool :) I am using openGApps but I think it does not have this flexibility I will switch over to microg :)

I personally use microG and disable all of the features that call home to Google, except for those anonymized by microG. Works flawlessly, except for some apps that don't work but are easily replaced.

So instead of trusting the hardware or OS maker you’re trusting a random third party?

It isn't a random third party, it's a specific third party with a better privacy record than the hardware or OS maker.

You can build LineageOS yourself if you want. The procedure is on their website. Then you can also read the code to make sure nothing funny is going on.

> I stick with Apple for the privacy.

The problema Is if you stick with Apple hardware there is no OS alternative

you're stuck with what the dictator (benevolent or not) decides

That’s the point. Some people like that and are willing to pay extra for that.

Google auctions the promise of showing ads to relevant users. Google would be eliminating themselves as a middle man service by selling the data they've curated.

Apple does listen to your intimate conversations though.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/apples-siri-listens-users-inti...

Only if you opt in.[1]

[1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/08/improving-siris-priva...

apple sells users to apps and gets 30% cut.

Can you provide a link? Is this the cut they take for their App Store? If so, that isn't even in the same scale of selling your browsing history. For example, if I knew your cookie, and had access to the Google Ad Exchange, I could get your full browsing history as seen by Google trackers.

The third parties know how to tie your cookie to your other information through identity graphs.

And what if you had access to the iCloud servers, where Safari history is stored without end-to-end encryption (unlike Chrome sync which is encrypted end-to-end)?

I and any other third party can buy their way into the google Ad Exchange, but nobody can buy their way into iCloud's servers; for example, China had to ask Apple to create a segregated iCloud to support iOS in China.

It is possible that the US government has some snooping contract with iCloud, but they are definitely not the party I am trying to protect myself from. I am trying to protect myself from businesses using my data to influence my politics, lifestyle and purchases. Look into the business of companies like Liveramp, to see the kind of data exchanges that Google helps proliferate.

Do you have a source that third-parties are able to see that data in Ad Exchange?

Read into the RTB protocol. With every Google pixel, all of the information obtained by the HTTP request + publisher appended data is passed to Google and auction to advertisers.

https://www.iab.com/guidelines/real-time-bidding-rtb-project...

Full disclosure: I work for one of these third parties. Safari/Firefox are the hardest browsers to track. Google extended the deadline for killing cookies which probably netted us another year worth of easy revenue before we have to start start relying on first party tracking.

Of course they send that information... it is just the information that the advertiser would get anyway when you see their ad. Do they send the tracking cookie though, even before you buy?

The RTB protocol describes the message that goes along with each bid request. So that is the information that all third parties participating in the auction receive as long as they are listening.

To participate in the auction you don't need to win or even bid; you pay an upfront cost for listening, buy a seat in the ad exchange. The whole thing is dressed as an ad-exchange, but it really is a data exchange. If you win the auction you get to serve your own pixel to tag the user, corroborate the data from the auction, etc.

There is a lot of value in winning and ad impression beyond the ad impression itself, but just by listening you can build advanced models of people's browsing patterns, and if you want tie the data with the information from another identity graph, you only need to win one identifier once and serve both pixels, your party's and the third party (cross cookie syncing). This third party identity sync historically happens at the client level, the browser in this case. However, in the future it will happen at the backend level, first party.

PS: Google is not the only exchange btw. There is APPNEXUS, Rubicon, PubMatic, etc.

> If you win the auction you get to serve your own pixel to tag the user, corroborate the data from the auction, etc.

That's not a scenario specific to real time bidding though. You could also just buy a regular ad and do that.

> if you want tie the data with the information from another identity graph, you only need to win one identifier once and serve both pixels, your party's and the third party (cross cookie syncing).

How can you associate the data from bids you didn't win to the data you get from ads that you did win and serve? Even with cookie syncing that doesn't necessarily reveal when a past/future bid opportunity matches a user you already know (unless you bid on it and win)

> That's not a scenario specific to real time bidding though. You could also just buy a regular ad and do that.

With a regular ads (ad words), you don't get to target based on cookie, geo, or other identifying characteristics in real time. Through programmatic ad exchanges you can do it in real time since every auction contains all the information to perform the targeting and enhance your models; the cookie, the url where the ad was going to be displayed, the browser characteristics, etc (read RTB for that).

> How can you associate the data from bids you didn't win to the data you get from ads that you did win and serve? Even with cookie syncing that doesn't necessarily reveal when a past/future bid opportunity matches a user you already know (unless you bid on it and win)

Associating between auctions and wins is simple, they share the same id. You listen to a different stream for bid result notifications. Moreover, your own embedded pixel will give you the information upon impression.

The key here is that the auction, what you get by just listening, comes already with all the information; if you listen enough, you can build the full browsing history of the cookies you track. Using this information you can build models to predict where these specific cookies will go next, and show them ads or alter the publisher context they are exposed to in order to route them where you want to route them. B2C marketing and political propaganda services are all about that.

If it's the case that the auction provides bidders with the cookie even if they don't win, then that is indeed concerning.

It is the case.

apple's business model is selling its users as hostages to app developers.

- it's bad for app developers with 30% cut

- and bad for users as every app becomes +30% more expensive (like Hey app)

- good for apple.

in apple app ecosystem you're the product as the user.

This is exactly the same for Android though. Both Google Play and Apple App store charge 30%. And they both also drop the 30% to 15% for subscriptions after 1 yr.

It's estimated Apple did about $50 billion in App Store revenue in 2019, and $30 billion for Google Play store.

Now consider that about 80% of Apple's revenue actually comes from hardware, not software or people's data.

But 70% of Google's revenue comes from ads. It's insane to me that you think that in Apple's ecosystem you're the product. The product in Apple's ecosystem is their hardware and they charge for access to users.

Google does exactly the same thing, except without the regard for your privacy. Google's entire business model is selling access to its users.

This is what-aboutism at it's finest. Changing default apps has nothing to do with privacy. How did you connect the two other than "but what about..."?

In fact, forget about Android, every OS pretty much ever has allowed for changing default apps. This is strictly about control, and this current move is strictly about throwing EU regulators a slight curve ball.