Apple Introduces Privacy-Focused 'Sign in With Apple' Button For Sites and Apps (thenextweb.com) 75
Apple today announced a "Sign in with Apple" button -- that is similar to sign-in buttons from Twitter, Facebook or Google that allow users to quickly login to a range of services using their social media account. But unlike any existing solution, Apple is focusing on privacy. From a report: More importantly, you can choose to hide your email address, and Apple will generate a random email ID visible to only to that particular app that'll forward all emails to your main email ID. Plus, this method creates a unique random email for each app, so that they can't track you and your personal data. The new sign-in feature is available across MacOS, iOS, and websites.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Can you tell us how going to Facebook without telling them who you are would work? All you're going to see is the sign-in page. So let's say that somehow Facebook puts a "log in with Apple" button on Facebook. How are you going to connect with friends or people of interest if Facebook doesn't know who you are?
Re:Fuck you, Zuck! (Score:5, Informative)
That's not the point. This directly competes with Facebook's Single-Sign on Service they provide to other websites, while preserving privacy.
If this takes off in a big way, it's going to remove a huge source of data collection from Facebook. That would be the reason for Facebook gnashing their teeth -- they rely on the data collection they get through their Single Sign-on service to know everywhere you've logged in and what's you've done on websites that use it.
Yaz
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Thank you. That makes sense. From this "Apple Sign-in" service, Facebook doesn't lose data collection from people's behavior on Facebook, but instead loses data collection from everywhe
Financial incentives (Score:2)
Yeah and then all that data is at apple. Yay for consumers?
Facebook's bread and butter is marketing/advertising.
Almost every last penny they earn comes from selling your data and raping your privacy in every possible way they can imagine.
They are *guaranteed* to mine the shit out of any "sign-in with Facebook" data they can collect.
Apple biggest income is:
- selling you horrendously overpriced and somewhat stylish electronic iGizmo-s, managing to successfully push their exaggerated pricing almost entirely through "Brand recognition" (the whole "Apple Experience") an
Facebook data collection (Score:2)
This directly competes with Facebook's Single-Sign on Service they provide to other websites, while preserving privacy.
If this takes off in a big way, it's going to remove a huge source of data collection from Facebook.
Though, they'll still have the data collection comming from the scriplets powering all this "Share on FB !" buttons that they've convinced the world to plaster all around the web.
(Note: That scriplet can gather data even before you click on it to actually share, just at the moment the scriplet starts it can already gather lots of shit
There are extensions [eff.org] to block this kind of problems).
Also, you're probably going to see suddenly "Sign in with Instagram !" and/or "Sign in with WhatsApp !" ( <- this last o
Lock-in (Score:4, Insightful)
Awesome - so now if I use "Sign In With Apple", in order to continue ever receiving emails from that entity again, I need to stay with Apple forever.
Oh also let's totally ignore the fact that I can't reply to any of these emails without releasing my original address. "Oh but iCloud will auto-relay" - so you're saying now I also have to use iCloud email to use this service? Perfect!
And for those of you who think "well that's how sign-in with Google works as well" - no it does not.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Lock-in (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but when Google did it Slashdot told me it was evil and part of their plan for world domination, so we have to hold Apple to the same standard.
On the face of it the problem is the same. Apple gets to know all the services you sign in to, and when you sign in to them. Although they don't, the assumption was that Google was selling that information, so we have to make the same assumption about Apple.
Re: (Score:1)
Why does Google sell your personal information? Because they can't offer the service for free.
Why does Facebook sell your personal information? Because they can't offer the service for free.
So how will Apple provide this "free" service?
(I read the RTFA, but I'm unsure if this is available only to Apple iCloud users or something like that).
Re: (Score:2)
Why would Google sell their USP?
Re: (Score:2)
Although they don't, the assumption was that Google was selling that information, so we have to make the same assumption about Apple.
Why?
For Google the assumption is obvious, as selling your data is literally their business model.
But Apple sells stuff to you (music, movies, iPhones, etc.) - you are the customer, not the product. Their only ad-related business is iAd. That's what makes a big difference. They are the one company that actually might mean it when they use the word "privacy" and they know it. It would be stupid to blow that advantage for a few $.
Re: (Score:3)
For Google the assumption is obvious, as selling your data is literally their business model.
Their business model is selling their most valuable asset from which they derive much of the value in all the B2B services they offer? That makes about as much sense as Coca Cola's business model being to sell the recipe for Coke.
Re: (Score:2)
Point. What they sell is "targeting as a service".
Re: (Score:2)
I don't assume that Google is selling my info, I assume that before I even click 'submit' on Google's sign-in service, they've got ads for related products in the queue to pitch to me.
I'm 100% confident that Google wants my data for themselves, I just don't trust them to act on my data in a way that puts me first.
I'm also 100% confident that Apple wants me to spend money on their devices but couldn't care less about me after that, so they won't be blasting ads at me when I use their SSO.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you actually complaining about a feature that helps you protect your privacy? You must be fun at parties (I'm clearly kidding because you seem like someone who wants to complain about things with no logic behind them, which, as a result, I felt the need to explain for you).
Yes, it clearly ties you to their service if you want to remain anonymous. Yet, if you choose to have a non-anonymous relationship with said service, then you are free to provide them your real
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Umm... sure, it's lock in to apple. And? You mean your 10+ year of app/music/movie/etc. purchases haven't locked you into Android or Apple already?
Re: (Score:2)
If you wanted to email them, why did you use the obfuscation feature to begin with?
The purpose is to limit the way they interact with you. Your complaint is that it limits the interaction.
I can imagine you watching TV. Mustard commercial comes on. You complain that mustard is good, which is bad because it locks you into buying the brand of mustard you want. Also, you don't like it on your breakfast cereal. Mustard vendors and mustard customers sure are dumb. Now I must post this mustard wisdom on Slas
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Re: (Score:2)
in order to continue ever receiving emails from that entity again, I need to stay with Apple forever.
Not necessarily. In most cases you could login to the third party account, then register your REAL e-mail address,
and/or then set a password for normal login or link additional login services to that account.
Also... i'm not sure what "staying with Apple forever" means; because you don't necessarily have to buy anything from Apple to have an account with them --- just like you don't buy anything fro
"focus on privacy" (Score:1)
Re:"focus on privacy" (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I'm a dumbass and someone can clarify what the real benefit here is.
Of a billion iPhone users, 990 million wouldn't know how to set up a throw away email address. (Just to avoid misunderstanding: 990 million out of a billion Android users wouldn't either). It's the same as with Time Machine: Everyone should be able to set up regular backups for their computer. The difference with Time Machine is that people actually do.
Re:"focus on privacy" (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe I'm a dumbass and someone can clarify what the real benefit here is.
"Dumbass" may be pushing it a bit, but you're absolutely missing the big picture.
Here is how OAuth type systems from entities like Facebook and Google currently work:
Contrast this with the new Apple system:
That's the big difference. And while it may not seem like a lot when you think of an example with three websites, if you're widely using your Facebook or Google accounts for sign-on to video sites and online games and new sites and anywhere else you may want or need to login, that can be a huge treasure trove of data as to what you do online that can be correlated between sites, and that can be used by the auth provider however they want. Apple's new system busts this apart -- the people you login with get a completely unique ID instead, but can't readily setup databases to mine your data outside their own service.
Make sense now?
Yaz
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
you are obviously free to distrust that, but it does contrast against Facebook and Google which pretty openly mine and sell your data
One clarification: Google does not sell your data.
Re: (Score:2)
One clarification: Google does not sell your data.
They do indirectly, by using your data for targeted advertising. The advertisers may not get the data directly, but they do benefit from it financially.
Yaz
Re: (Score:2)
And what you do currently ha little bearing either since we all know you WOULD sell it if business started to suffer
This is a legitimate concern. I have no problem with what Google does now; I think the company is very careful to protect and not misuse the user data it collects. I've spent a few decades doing security, including years consulting with banks, military organizations and more, and Google's data security is the best I've ever seen, the privacy teams are extremely aggressive and Googlers in general are very privacy-focused. (Hey, we're geeks.)
But there is the question of what Google could do if management
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, you are a dumbass.
Signed, Red Forman [wikipedia.org].
Interesting (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure this falls under the heading of "May you live in interesting times"
About time! (Score:2)
I never log in with any of the buttons they have for any of the other "accounts", so it's good they're enabling this.
Unique IDs are neat (Score:2)
I like this concept of having each entity receiving a unique, non-shared user ID. The social app WeChat from Tencent already does exactly this, and it is so much nicer for the user, knowing that there will be no "behind your back" sharing of user data for marketing purposes.
Info: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/wiki?... [qq.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, because the Chinese Government would never do anything behind your back.
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They're not forcing you to.
Privacy from everyone but Apple (Score:1)
Why Would A Site/App Even Want That? (Score:1)
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Exactly, no site in their right mind will adopt this. Why would they? I wouldn't be surprised if Apple will start charging both the site and the end user per login.
Re: (Score:2)
They'll still track you.
If you assign a token for an email confirmation with a token you set as a cookie hosted on a common ad network, or a browwser fingerprint, when the user signs in to a different website the cookie token will be the same and the confirmation token that gets clicked can link the two unique email addresses to the same machine.
As soon as someone has access to a browser unique id, like a Facebook or Google tracking ID and the link between those confirmation tokens and the email addresses t
Wonder how this will work with new US VISA reqs? (Score:3)
I mean that's a vector data point they're trying to collect but Apple will essentially be generating per app email addresses that can't be linked across datasets.
Wow (Score:2)
You've got to be kidding me (Score:2)
Steam (Score:2)
So, like "Sign in with Steam"...