More details on the linked Mastodon post
Is this about/a problem with iOS or Android or both? The linked post only talks about iOS.
I’m surprised they can include remote requests [by consequence of remote URLs] in notifications.
So it’s another way of using a “tracking pixel” like has been done before?
Yeah, just that now it’s a tracking photo
Harvey Dent.
Can we trust him?
What’s the difference between them already knowing each push notification vs a push notification with a GET request?
Push notifications go through Apple servers.
HTTP GET request comes from the device loading the image; AFAIK though wouldn’t be a big deal if Apple’s servers loaded and cached it.
So Meta can watch for the GET requests and determine:
- time of delivery to device
- approximate location of the device
- device’s IP, used to correlate other activity done on that device gathered elsewhere by the IG/FB tracking network
And derive:
- what kind of connection you are using
- from where
- when
- what time of day and location do you most often read IG
- optimal time to try and distract you
- who your preferred service carriers are and if/when you change them
- how often you deviate from this pattern
- through correlation, determine what deviation might be significant based on other data collected from your device or nearby devices at the same time
- oh wow so and so didn’t look at IG much because they searched for baby clothes are they pregnant? Is a friend? Can we show more ads based on that angle to get sales?
- and other, much more devious, much grosser intrusions
- they get more sales from oblivious users
- they grow their panopticon
For your top 3 dot points, I still don’t quite understand why they wouldn’t already have that information if you’re using the app and they’re sending push notifications anyway.
I think the point is they get to know the exact time you first see the notification. It’s a massive flaw in the OS, and I believe I have read about this years ago already, so that “privacy OS” is not intending to fix this leak
I wonder if disabling the preview in the notification will stop it.
Or Instagram belonging to Facebook? They already know.
Haha that’s devilishsly clever and delightfully evil.
@DrDystopia @Blaze It’s a common pattern in email. Disappointing that we still have this problem, tbh.
Sure, that’s why reasonable email clients don’t run HTML code when opening an email.
At this time of year?
Yes.
Username checks out
I would be fairly surprised if they actually did this for tracking purposes. This sounds like nonsense to me. They already have plenty of information about you and they literally sent the notification.
Eh, of course they will.
If they can track it, they will track it, that is pretty much a guarantee, as data equals money. Mo data, no money.
I’m sure Apple will be like bugs bunny no meme
Wasn’t there a trick to abuse discord image caching and cloudflare caching to allow finding the approximate location of a user using a notification?
Stop using the native app. Use the web app.
If you want to stop being addicted to Facebook or instagram, this is an effective way to do it. The web apps suck so much, it takes away all the “fun”
I was addicted to scrolling instagram and would go for hours on end, it was pretty bad. I still wanted to have access just to keep up on a couple accounts I care about but I didn’t want to be doom scrolling, so I removed the app from my home screen and replaced it with my lemmy client so anytime I would instinctively open it without thinking I’d open lemmy instead, which I find less addicting. I still doom scroll a little but not nearly as bad.
I’ll eventually be deleting all social media but there’s a couple people I only have on instagram or facebook messenger who I don’t want to lose contact with. But for anyone struggling with just auto opening an app and doom scrolling without thinking, maybe remove the icon from your home screen and replace it with something less addicting.
For a while I used the web app because it was actually better - fewer ads and consistent UI. Not anymore.
ATN
Always Turn off Notifications
