Major Advertiser Works With China to Try Bypassing Apple's Privacy Rules (wsj.com) 86
Procter & Gamble "helped develop a technique being tested in China to gather iPhone data for targeted ads, a step intended to give companies a way around Apple Inc.'s new privacy tools," reports the Wall Street Journal. (Citing "people familiar with the matter.")
The move is part of a broader effort by the consumer-goods giant to prepare for an era in which new rules and consumer preferences limit the amount of data available to marketers. P&G — among the world's largest advertisers, with brands such as Gillette razors and Charmin toilet paper — is the biggest Western company involved in the effort, the people said.
The company has joined forces with dozens of Chinese trade groups and tech firms working with the state-backed China Advertising Association to develop the new technique, which would use technology called device fingerprinting, the people said. Dubbed CAID, the advertising method is being tested through apps and gathers iPhone user data. Through the use of an algorithm, it can track users for purposes of targeting ads in a way that Apple is seeking to prevent.
Apple's response? "We believe strongly that users should be asked for their permission before being tracked. Apps that are found to disregard the user's choice will be rejected."
The company has joined forces with dozens of Chinese trade groups and tech firms working with the state-backed China Advertising Association to develop the new technique, which would use technology called device fingerprinting, the people said. Dubbed CAID, the advertising method is being tested through apps and gathers iPhone user data. Through the use of an algorithm, it can track users for purposes of targeting ads in a way that Apple is seeking to prevent.
Apple's response? "We believe strongly that users should be asked for their permission before being tracked. Apps that are found to disregard the user's choice will be rejected."
Well, you let yourselves get into that situation (Score:5, Insightful)
So you're on your own getting out of it.
It says volumes, that you're working with one of the most 'tracking invasive' countries on the planet.
Re: Well, you let yourselves get into that situati (Score:1)
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I want to talk to it, and nothing else. I wish there was a browser option to 404 all requests to anything other than the domain I navigate to.
Umatrix browser extension [github.com] with a few of the defaults adjusted will do exactly what you want. Careful because the default configuration will connect to domains to retrieve cookies but then not return them. That means that P&G device fingerprinting will work by default even if you have Umatrix turned on. If you fully blacklist all third party domains and then only switch on the ones you want then it will do exactly what you want.
It's a bit of a hassle but it's worth it. N.B. this will break sites and
Re: Well, you let yourselves get into that situat (Score:1)
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If people used these rules en mass, developers would stop using other sites for resources like jS libraries and such.
I'm not sure if you see that as good or bad? In real life, currently, you just have to selectively turn on specific other sites to get each site to work, which is fine. If you are worried about cacheing for efficiency (sites share the same code / saves data) then it's too late - browsers are now having to load separately for each site for security reasons. If you are glad that there won't be cross site dependencies making things insecure then it won't work fully since, for example, mapping data is delive
Re:Well, you let yourselves get into that situatio (Score:4, Insightful)
So you're on your own getting out of it.
It says volumes, that you're working with one of the most 'tracking invasive' countries on the planet.
Proctor & Gamble is working with Chinese tracking companies - essentially dual use military technology in the same way that the Great Firewall of China is used to attack dissidents. This is a bit more than just 'tracking invasive'. How about if anybody here knows anyone who is still using a cartridge razor buy them a safety razor and a pack of 100 blades ($7 off your favourite web site) as a protest. It's not just much cheaper, it actually works better. Rival companies include Derby and Wilkinson Sword. There should be plenty of other P&G products you can stop using.
Are the Chinese evil, jaded, or just smart? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why do you want your handle to be the first visible identity associated with incoherent AC trollage? Even if there is a trace of something interesting in the trollage FP, how can you engage in a dialog with no one? (I used to care enough to wonder what motivated trolls. But now the only solution I want is total opt-in visibility for AC, implying I'd never see 'em. But should that imply invisibility extended to troll-feeders like you?)
At least you can change the Subject to something more thoughtful.
My main r
Re:Are the Chinese evil, jaded, or just smart? (Score:5, Insightful)
'Cos IMHO the "troll", as you call him, is right. When P&G and all the other western industrial companies decided to trade with China in the way they did, basically aiming to exploit Chinese people, they set themselves up for trouble. I'm not saying there should be absolutely no trade or working with places like China, however setting out to use places like China to undermine workers back home is asking for trouble; setting out to treat China as just another market, is asking for trouble. Setting out to develop tracking technology in China is making a pact with the devil. The old "Don't be Evil" Google had to pull out of China because they realised their search engine technology would be used to spy on people. Microsoft chose, instead, to bend to the will of the Communists, giving them access to the Windows source code and China paid that back by [infoworld.com]used that cooperation to break into computers of Microsoft's key customers [wikipedia.org].
I don't know why the OP posted Anonymously, I do know that it was a valid point and I'm happy to use my karma to bring it to attention.
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At first I was unclear you were responding to me, but I acknowledged (and acknowledge again) that there was a trace of substance there. However, you seem to be making my main point as regards AC by your clarification of the AC's muddle.
Would it be interesting to correlate the quality of discussions on Slashdot with the identities of the authors of the FP? Tough thing to measure, but I actually think they ran a recent experiment that prevented AC from writing FP, and experiments only make sense if they are m
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Your obsession with identity and desire to be the rule maker of the internet is noted.
Public masturbation of 1873220 (Score:1)
Z^-1
Keep up your good works (Score:1)
Love ya, babe!
Public masturbation of 1673220 (Score:2)
Z^-2
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At first I was unclear you were responding to me, but I acknowledged (and acknowledge again) that there was a trace of substance there. However, you seem to be making my main point as regards AC by your clarification of the AC's muddle.
AC made a first post which was on topic and more or less intelligent and seemed clear enough to me. I think that's a pretty good claim to fame and better than most of the alternatives.
Would it be interesting to correlate the quality of discussions on Slashdot with the identities of the authors of the FP? Tough thing to measure, but I actually think they ran a recent experiment that prevented AC from writing FP, and experiments only make sense if they are measuring something.
Posts by AC, combined with the mod system, are a long tradition on Slashdot and one of the things that makes it interesting. The average quality is, of course, much worse than the signed in comments but a bunch of really important comments come as AC from people who would otherwise not comment. If I was in China then I woul
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Basically an ACK, but my main reaction is that I don't care how much of their OWN time is wasted by the trolls and ACs. I think seeing their crap should be opt-in, and I think the best way to do that would be to associate reputation with identities so that zero-value morons can also get zero of my time and attention.
I would even be okay with occasional exceptions on a per-post basis if enough moderators concurred, but I have to desire to help find the pearls in the BS.
(But I also think it shouldn't be as bi
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I believe strongly (Score:4, Insightful)
that tracking needs to die. I've never owned a cellphone because of this and probably never will at this rate. Give it up already!
Re:I believe strongly [in short Subjects] (Score:1)
You could have put more meaning in your Subject. And into your Comment, too.
Suffice it to say that your presentation was not persuasive?
(From the internal evidence, you don't even know anything firsthand about what you are writing about. But the extension of your "argument" is that you should never use an Internet-connected computer or a browser, and so you are already in a state of sinful self-contradiction.)
I believe strongly-NSA (Score:2)
Strongly implying there's only one way to track any given citizen.
Pepsico (Score:2)
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yuck, sodapop is just artificial flavoring and water with a bunch of corn syrup in it because they are too cheap to use real sugar, it has absolutely no nutritional value
It's even worse, when I buy soda, I buy the ones without sugar. Making it flavored water essentially. Still works pretty well as a mixer though.
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"Real sugar" soda tastes the same and many brands make you think it tastes different just by dumping more of it in. Compare the calorie counts. "Mexican Coke" only tasted better because it came in glass. None of it has any nutritional value. Fruit juice is only marginally better, some kinds have some amount of vitamin content, but even more liquid sugar calories which is the main health risk anyway.
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Re: Pepsico (Score:2)
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and most of that is due to government interference. In Canada, sugar (typically from beets rather than cane, but actually the same chemically) is cheaper than HFCS. As such, HFCS is rarely used except when it actually matters.
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Well, Apple did poach their CEO back in 1983... Maybe they're still bitter about it?
Can this be verified? (Score:2)
If so, I will be seeking and using alternatives to any P&G products that I currently use.
It's not a boycott, just redirected purchasing.
thanks for the info (Score:5, Insightful)
Fingerprinting (Score:5, Interesting)
Even assuming that you're using either some form of privacy VPN, or say the TOR browser, it's possible for web sites to track you using fingerprinting techniques. If you're curious, you can see this at least in part over at the EFF's web site, here. [eff.org]
The quick explanation is that your browser has a whole stack of unique meta-data associated with it that a tracking company can use to follow you around the web, including things like your screen resolution, your browser, your display colour depth, your local system time and time zone, even the amount of reserve left in your battery if you are using a mobile device.
In order for us as regular citizens to have something more than the proverbial "snowball's chance in hell" to counter this, we are going to need a couple of things:-
1. Legal protections... We need governments to outlaw net fingerprinting. As most browsers have a "do not track" flag that is visible to web sites, there needs to be some form of policing and monitoring and expensive penalties for companies that flout these rules... We also need some more legal protection work regarding session cookies - the sort of thing that could be used to hide tracking data.
2. Obfuscation browsers... We need our browser manufacturers to come up with sneaky ways to alter data handed back to different remote domains in a way that makes it much harder for the domains to "pattern match" a browser... For example, a browser could likely falsify the colour depth data of your desktop without resulting in visible degradation [maybe allowing you to set a range of acceptable values]; it could have fun with time zones; it could micro-adjust reported resolutions between different domains until the match rate drops away so much that fingerprinting loses effectiveness.
Maybe most important of all, as end users we need to make sure that we don't sit back and let huge corporations "duke it out" like this... There will inevitably be limits to what Apple can do - and even their best efforts will only ever aide Apple tech users. And for just a glimpse as to what is happening in all the dark corners where we can't see, you only need to look at interviews like this. [youtube.com].
We have a long way to go yet.
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... tracking company can use to follow you around the web, including things like your screen resolution, your browser, your display colour depth, your local system time and time zone, even the amount of reserve left in your battery if you are using a mobile device.
I would like to know what are the use case of a website knowing all these informations ? I get it for browser viewport size but the rest ... why ?
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It could report three color depths, two of which are randomly chosen, and make the website send three copies of the data.
All tracking and telemetry must be made illegal (Score:5, Insightful)
And I'm looking at you, Google. Don't pretend that you don't know I don't want to be tracked. There are no cookies and instead there is a "do not track" header. You know damn well what I want. But you send me a redirect to a page where you act as if I have a choice, a choice that you are legally obligated to give me. I can actually only continue if I submit to unnecessary tracking. The EU should be fining Google billions a day until this stops.
Re: All tracking and telemetry must be made illega (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: All tracking and telemetry must be made illega (Score:4, Insightful)
You can keep your defeatism. The GDPR is law. It's a start.
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The establishment is never the driving force of change. They like the status quo because they like being the establishment. The "98ers" are the foundation of all progress in this world. Nothing changes until it does, but it always does eventually. Sometimes heads need to come off, sometimes not. If I were rich, I'd prefer "not".
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I did not "shit on others". I wrote "you can keep your defeatism."
Google will go out of business you know (Score:3)
Honestly I think the above for a bit of tracking is a fair trade. Back in the day when companies wanted to sell me software that did the above I couldn't afford it. Honestly the only problem I wish they'd solve is how there's a pipeline from gamer
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The difference between a shill and a useful idiot is hard to tell these days. No, Google will not go out of business without tracking. One of the "big five" is even openly opposed to tracking. This story is kind of about that. And no, the information won't go away if it isn't aggregated in the hands of a small number of giant corporations. Your response is exactly why all tracking and all telemetry must be made illegal. Too many people are manipulated to act against their own good because the balance of pow
Yeah, yeah they will (Score:2)
At the very least they'll scale so far back as to be unrecognizable.
If you're concern is people are being manipulated I have a better solution. Education. Critical thinking can be taught, and our government can do public service campaigns around lea
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Honestly I think the above for a bit of tracking is a fair trade.
Then agree to it and be happy.
People want to be notified and give permission, and if it’s such a great deal, Google has nothing to worry about since everyone will gladly agree to it.
What most people really want, though, is for others to be forced to abide by their preferences.
We only want freedom for ourselves, other people can go fuck themselves.
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I've been looking at buying a tv to replace my old Sharp Aquos, which is getting sadly very dim. I'm probably going to go LG rather than Sony because WebOS isn't Android.
If anyone knows about violating privacy... (Score:2)
...it's the Chinese.
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Yeah, our NSA/CIA are such a bunch of poseurs... but we don't talk about "fight club", do we?
Boycott P&G (Score:3)
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Boycott P&G, and they just shift their portfolio over to Kraft Foods, Sony, and various defense contractors. You have to find a way to starve all of Wall Street. Good luck.
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Why not just stop reporting what's being done to the Uighurs and the slaughter of citizens of Myanmar while we're at it? It's all just so inconvenient!
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Oh please, quit the whining. You look for what works, not uselessly spin your wheels so you can feel like you're doing something.
As far as the Uighurs go, they are "illegal combatants" [uighur.nl], curb you own damn dog on that one.
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:-) Heh, thanks for showing what kills American influence, too bad, on the whole I prefer the American empire to the Chinese one.
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:-) I'm sure you do. I like the way you roll
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:-) He came to me... but thanks for caring
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Correction: I guess I replied to his silly stuff first. I feel so very sorry
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What good does your sophisticated profiling do... (Score:5, Insightful)
when I can't see your targeted ad because of my Ad-blocker?
Re:What good does your sophisticated profiling do. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What good does your sophisticated profiling do. (Score:5, Interesting)
The profile can still be used to filter your news and media streams, and it can be used to find people with "undesired" views. Even if no harm is intended by the collecting party, data tend to leak and governance tend to change.
Ads are not the major problem with profiling.
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Troll^^^, but anyhow, anti-anti-adblock works well currently. I steal in the same way that people who go for a piss during a TV ad break do. Proud to be a 'thief'!
Wrath (Score:4, Insightful)
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Apple INC is not the US government, their App Store policies are not our national laws.
I do support those policies, but even as a supporter I can't say I would treat them like the law.
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Maybe some good old fashioned piercing the company veil and holding people criminally accountable for this, especially espionage charges might help things.
I'm sure China would at best ban any US company pulling this shit on the mainland, at worst, have all people affiliated with the company disappeared.
Great news! (Score:2)
Time to find P&G alternatives. (Score:3)
I already prefer Schick razors over gillette. And never even tried Charmin (but I have seen squeeze commercials forever).
Now I need recommendations to replace:
tide.
bounty. (Brawny is close)
head and shoulders
crest toothpaste, I guess I'll try Colgate.
Meh (Score:2)
Is it treason yet? (Score:2)