alt Hacker NewsTikTok unlawfully tracks shopping habits and use of dating apps?
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Earlier this year I downloaded TikTok once, I needed to access some very niche videos and couldn't watch them without getting an account. I never added anybody, and I never associated with any other socials, but somehow I started getting emails from TikTok that one of my NEIGHBORS were viewing my profile! Even used their full name. I deleted the account and uninstalled the app.
Pretty sure TikTok and Instagram are sharing data somehow as well. My feeds are near identical.
> TikTok was only able to receive this information with the help of the Israeli data company AppsFlyer and Grindr itself.
So basically, the TikTok app is not spying on your dating apps - your dating apps are willingly selling your information to them, through intermediaries.
This means uninstalling tiktok won’t help. And worse, many other companies are getting your dating info too.
I wonder if that "fake permissions" Android sandboxing thing from like a decade ago still works.
The right to lie to apps should be part of the new tech Magna Carta
Flagged - headlines ending with "?" should be banned.
If you want to find which apps are the worst at this use GrapheneOS. Amazon flat out REFUSES to work unless it has unfettered access to everything.
This seems to be the "original sin" of the current Internet "platform" paradigm.
Companies always track data and major social media companies and online search engines ALWAYS keep track of user search history. That data is often sold or used to find out what you are searching about and what brands you like. I guess it IS impossible to stop these big brands :-)
Very likely all other social media are doing it. Not to dimish the harm done by Tiktok but sadly it’s an industry wide phenomenon. Shouln’t forget about surveilance, misinformation, election rigginng and so on.
And probably much more than that.
I'll post some inside baseball:
Almost everyone in ecom is running every ad network integration they can, no matter the source of traffic.
So if you click a Facebook ad, load a website, enter your information/checkout ALL of your information goes to every other network they integrate with.
You might never use TikTok, you might have every Facebook domain blacklisted, but when you clicked on a Google search "result" (ad) and checked out everything about your order was sent to meta/tiktok/applovin/400 other "networks" via S2S APIs.
Until this is made illegal, the incentive structure will ALWAYS push marketing departments to do this.
I assume TikTok and similar apps are always doing this stuff.
The thing I'm curious about is whether the GDPR / DSB complaints are likely to have any result. Is that likely to just result in some cost of business fines and TikTok goes on with life? Or could those complaints bring about substantial repercussions?
That earnest congressional testimony by the CEO looks pretty bad at this point. Either he was lying or doesn’t know anything about how his company works.
Some state needs to pass an explicit consent law, since consent is too hard of a concept for Silicon Valley and other startups to understand.
Great job from noyb.
It's sad that the gdpr is now being watered down, especially the protection of these specially protected data points.
I don't think any app or service can hold a candle to the data harvesting of dating apps. Social media knows your likes and dislikes, but dating apps knows your deepest desires and wants.
Yes yes TikTok. Baaad baaad baaad. National Security risk for the great US of A!
But... has been around and allowed for years.
What's the latest anyway on the US steal of the app? (pardon me... I meant the forced sale due to 'national security reasons')
>Article 9.2 (d) processing is carried out in the course of its legitimate activities
TikTok has a legitimate activity of personalizing the feed of users to make it as relevant as possible.
I guess it's pretty much impossible to stop these companies from gathering data, there's too much money in it, it's too easy to implement, and there's no cohesive force to stop them. I'm wondering whether a crowdfunded effort to feed fake data into these systems would work so we overwhelm them and make their plans a bit more difficult.