What constitutes Usage Data. Is it sharing the posts I view, communities I subscribe to etc?
Does paying for a premium version stop this data being collected?
From DuckDuckGo:
For what it’s worth, I subscribed to Ultra about an hour ago and DDG hasn’t picked up any additional tracking attempts since then. I think it may be limited entirely to Google’s ad service for the free, ad-supported tier and maybe crash diagnostics that the app gives you the option of enabling or disabling.
I think that the lack of further attempts backs up what lj shared a bit ago in the Discord. That’s still a hell of a lot of tracking for folks who can’t or don’t want to pay, though.
Sure would be cool if this kind of information was provided outside of a proprietary service that not only requires a login but also you to join a specific server just to then have this be hidden by 1,500 random messages that you don’t care about. Shame there is no such place.
Can someone explain what this means. The ads/tracking is not activated in Sync for Lemmy? If so, why have it in the code.
Basically all tracking is done by Google ads. It checks at start up if you have purchased ad free or not. If purchased, launch app without ad library, else launch with ads. It has to be in the code because (according to the dev) Google is cracking down on similar apps, ie a pro version and a free version. So ad library has to be included, and it just won’t use it if you pay for pro
Makes sense, thanks. I think I misunderstood the comment I was replying to.
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FWIW that page is a bit deceptive , it’s not saying it’s collecting all of that data. The only info on that page is “146 tracking attempts from Google”, which makes sense if it has Google ads.
Please note that the long list of things collected is what Google is known to collect, not necessarily that these are the things being collected. If you click on any other app that is also with Google trackers (practically every app listed on this page), you will find that the stuff listed are the same.
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Can you explain more? Would DNS level blocking stop ads on a smart TV (for YouTube specifically) as well?
I am so happy whenever I see people asking more about privacy practices. It makes me feel like the fight is not so hopeless after all.
I feel the same way. As someone who studies and works in cyber security I love teaching people about how to stay safe or at least as safe as possible.
Some people don’t go the degree I go to just to keep my stuff secure. I use hardened Arch kernels and I hardly even use arch my entire time I spend on a PC is through a VM. I have 2 computers one just for windows and gaming and then one for Linux and cyber security and coding stuff
I hate dual booting and do not like windows being close to my Linux install so I keep them separate on two different computers 😂
Other than doing 3D printing and rendering stuff all I do is study malware and writing my own programs.
Man, you’re living my dream! I also have a windows machine relegated to gaming. Can you expand on using a VM when you want to use your computer? Is that a viable alternative? How is ease of use and boot up times? Do you use Linux on the VMs also? Do you see any performance issues in the actual PC when using the VM in parallel?
Most of my days are spent writing malware and studying and testing it to see how it infects a system and how to learn how to stop it I also study malware I find online.
When I say I use a VM almost all my time I don’t mean it as my actual “computer”
My computer is a 24 core threadripper beast with 64gbs of ram. When I study malware I do it strictly through a VM and when I’m browsing the word or YouTube I use a VM.
When I’m doing activities such as 3D printing and running my print farm I do not use a VM as it takes a lot of processing power and graphics power to run those programs.
I just like using VMs to learn about open sourced software and how it works and I like breaking and fixing things.
Cyber security is amazing but also sucks when you get a call at 3am lol
If you have any questions send me a message :D
Thanks for the reply. I hadn’t really thought of using VMs to create an additional layer of separation between me and tracking and profiling companies, mainly because running a VM on my bottom-of-the-line machine was a painful experience when I tried many years ago. I think I’ll try that again once I’ve upgraded quite a bit.
At the moment I’m stuck with a bunch of other responsibilities, but when I get around to it, I’ll drop you a message with any questions I have. Thanks again.
Not for youtube, you can use smarttube for android tv. It has everything, like sponsorblock etc
Tracker blocking youtube results in new videos not adding to your history, recommendations freezing permanently, youtube just regurgitates the same stuff and seemingly never refreshes
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I used ubiquiti’s dns level ad/tracker blocker
Effects were on every device and app except firefox - especially on smart TVs
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Firefox tends to use dns over https by default, bypassing any dns level tracker blocking
They are talking about on a smart TV.
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Can confirm, pihole blocks nearly all ads on smart TVs and apps.
I would really love to know what ads are targeting low battery levels. Chargers and battery packs obviously. But I wonder what else being at 5% tells you about a person 😅
Could be device fingerprinting
Behavioral data at least. When and how person charges phone, how much they use phone and what times.
Wtf
I also don’t see any weird activity on my adguard logs after subscribing to Ultra.
Btw, what duckduckgo app is this? Not their browser?
It is their browser. The tracking protection is in their browser and tells Android that it’s a VPN.
I found it! I thanks.
Side note, no tracking from sync has showed up for me so far.
Mother of God!
Ik right! Just Google being Google
Doesn’t this ad/subscription model, go against the grain a bit? With Lemmy & the fediverse in general, being an opensource environment, which has no ads, & funded by donations, rather than a subscription model…
No, it doesn’t. Unlike Reddit, Twitter, or Threads, Lemmy offers a variety of apps. There are so many that there is something for everyone. Even a “professional” app that finances itself with advertising or a subscription is allowed. The special thing about Lemmy is the freedom of choice.
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Funding your project with donations is just not a realistic long-term goal. This is why so many instances fold up shop in just a couple of weeks as their servers are overloaded and no one donates money to keep it up.
Capitalism is a problem but it doesn’t mean everything has to be socialism. There can be an in-between.
Capitalism is a problem but it doesn’t mean everything has to be socialism. There can be an in-between.
It’s not even that to be honest. Socialism is characterized by worker ownership and operation of companies primarily. LJ is a sole proprietor exploiting nobody, not earning a wage via labor and not having to work because he under pays others to work for him. He’s just a worker like the rest of us.
I definitely agree that donations is not a viable long term path. Maybe in a different economic model. People need to be realistic. The general arguments they are making against Sync in favor of FOSS apps can also be made against them using FOSS apps by the FLOSS folks. People should pay if they can. And use a free third party app if they can’t, or don’t like how sync works.
I really don’t get the hate people are putting out there over this. This is why third party apps build strong ecosystems. You can find what you want.
You are mixing socialism and communism.
You’re right
I believe its possible, at least coming from the minecraft world. if the instance doesnt grow as big as lemmy.world or something then you can ask for patrons and other ways to get donations. a lot of the plugins I use for my minecraft servers are run this way and its the way i run my server, I just ask for a dollar donation if possible from my players and that covers a little bit more than what the server costs me to run. when I check some of the plugin’s patreon page they pull in about 1k-8k a month
https://www.patreon.com/coreprotectdeleted by creator
The reddit gold model didn’t work. Reddit was a VC funded start up though, so if was expected to make a lot more than just enough to keep the servers going.
I’d bet lemmy instances can get by on donations and reddit style awards. Like you say, it can be incentivized further with cosmetic rewards.
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That’s a good point. The federation part makes it trickier.
Let’s not follow reddit through the enshittification manifesto. There has to be another solution, and we won’t find any if we allow ourselves to settle on the first half baked idea an already failing website had at some point.
The alternative solution is paid subscription for more features, and even that’s hit-or-miss.
I don’t think donations and cosmetics are enshittification. Ads and pushing for infinite growth are. Absolutely would love for something else to be viable too though.
Even if it was socialism, that doesn’t mean money doesn’t exist lol, there would have to be some kind of tax added on for everyone to support the product/project/whatever.
We have socialized fire departments in America, does that mean they don’t get paid and work for free? Nah, but you don’t get a bill before they put the fire out on your house either
Socialism doesn’t mean free.
You’re free to use any app you want. Some people prefer free open-source apps, some people want to pay for a quality app. It’s good to have a choice unlike with Reddit. I don’t understand people complaining about having additional choice because they don’t like it.
Some people want to keep the Fediverse ecosystem completely pure in terms of free software, and they will yell at you if you don’t play along.
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Some people do give stuff away for free or donate their time. “Nothing in life is free” would only be true if everyone was a die-hard capitalist.
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I don’t have an issue with a reasonable subscription, but hard pass on trackers, especially when you’re paying.
Not defending tracking or anything, but you do not get trackers if you pay. This tracker is just for ads, which you don’t get if you pay.
The issue for me is having the code. If I pay, I want an app without the ads/trackers code.
The code isn’t run, so who cares?
I care as having it or not is two different situations. It had a layer of protection without it.
That’s true, but according to the Dev Google is cracking down on devs having two versions of an app (i.e. a basic ad-supported version and a pro ad-free version) and I believe if you want an app on the Google store it has to have to ad code in it. That last part I’m not sure if that only applies to apps that will have ads in them.
But, the dev doesn’t comply with gdpr. It’s opt-out by default what is not the case.
So to access the payment, you have to share private and personal datas. This isn’t fine at all. He should offer the option to buy without being tracked.
I would one time pay for this, but a subscription feels meh.
There are plenty of apps for Lemmy, that aren’t supported by ads, nor should they be, given the whole ethos of the fediverse…
I really like Connect for Lemmy! And it’s Canadian!
Connect is really nice, as are Canadians👍🏼
Connect doesn’t let me (that i know of) split settings and blocked instances//communities by profile.
The ethos of the fediverse (insofar as it’s completely free with no ads) won’t be sustainable at scale; income for continued development and support does need to be taken into account at some point, and that goes for servers, frontends, apps, etc. Funding from donations only gets you so far. We will have to talk about it some day.
However, it is entirely too soon for ads and subscriptions. This feels openly and brazenly like talking advantage of Sync overly enthusiastic fanclub and the Sync name recognition. Get in early with a big name and start making money before any other big name apps like Boost are released.
Funding from donations only gets you so far.
Then maybe that’s as far as we should go?
Wikipedia makes it work.
You’d be surprised to hear that wikipedia’s main income is from their major benefactors like amazon, google, and other organizations. Donations from individual people make up a small portion of their income.
https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/annualreport/2020-annual-report/donors/#section-2
Another example would be lichess.org , which manages to compete with chess.com (a comercial site) and even pays the main developer a salary. All based purely on donations.
I think it can definitely work even in the long run.
Too soon, being taken advantage of?
The developer has a track record, we already know the product being delivered and the terms.
The fan base are the people who were already using Sync for Reddit.
The people who like me had used Sync for Reddit since 2017. Sync always had ads and the inherent tracking, I paid 2.69€ in Jan 2017 to remove ads and support the development.
(When In 2022 the developer added another support level where you had access to early betas, I paid again 4.99€, because I’m an early adopter and wanted to support again because I never went the subscription route)
I have also setup a monthly donation towards my Lemmy instance.
It might feel too soon because Ljdawson moves fast.
I feel like as long as your home instance can keep alive with donations then it will scale well. If your home instance starts needing a subscription or shows ads you could always migrate elsewhere. (But that’s a pain I have already done that)
People have been saying some variant of “the fediverse won’t work at scale if it stays free and without ads” for a decade now. And yet it keeps growing despite remaining free and without ads.
What scale is it at and what scale are we comparing it to? For Lemmy the comparison is reddit, and there is absolutely no way donations would cover the sheer cost of compute required to compete with a user base of that size.
I’m not going to bother looking into the numbers but I’m thinking all of the fediverse together doesn’t even come close to that user base.
lemmy.world has frequent outages that last most of the day. It wouldn’t say its exactly smooth sailing
There is now a one time payment of $20 usd ($30 cad) to remove ads, an ongoing $20 cad a year subscription for ad free + additional services, or a one time, $99 usd payment for lifetime access to ad free + pro services.
So a nice selection!
My go-to analogy is Usenet. Back when usenet basically was the internet for a lot of people, you’d have access to a usenet server through your school, isp, or with a separate subscription to a usenet provider. Usenet itself was free and there were open source implementations of the client and server side components. There were also commercial implementations. The important thing was that net news ran on an open protocol that no company owned. Companies and individuals were free to do what they wanted.
I would not hesitate to buy a client that achieved the functionality of Apollo, or even Alien Blue. I didn’t really start using reddit until I had a good client, and I can see client-side issues being a hurdle to lemmy adoption. I’d prefer paying for a client over ad support. Still, the free and open source client community should be core going forward. I can even see the potential for a commercial server, once the community reaches critical mass in terms of content.
I’ve been involved with the foss community since my first linux install back in like 1994 or so. I remember when rms and esr were household names, so long as your household was a dorm room with cs majors. Like with linux (gnu/linux?) commercial and foss apps can co-exist, and like with linux there should remain a foss purist option in addition to the mixed mode option.
I don’t think the fediverse is facing a threat of commercial takeover - certainly not the lemmyverse. If anything, the threat is not onboarding enough people to be competitive with whatever reddit clone manages to launch in the next year or so, and which has the commercial backing to drive users to the service and have stable, scalable, and production quality code.
Just imagine: Microsoft creating a lemmy.xbox.com and creating centralized gaming communities like !halo@lemmy.xbox.com or !doom@lemmy.bethesda.com instead of hosting it on discord or reddit.
The only issue I see with it are:
- Liability: They would probably need to disable signups for external users and only allow federation And even then user submitted stuff could be tricky. Tbf (in a halo example I am familiar) they run forums so idk…
- Ease of use: Lemmy is not easy to understand for aunt Emma or uncle Smitherson. Heck even regular parents are probably overwhelmed by the selection of communities on reddit…
- Anything else?
I totally get that. I watched in real time when MS tried to kill Netscape by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows and used their “embrace and extend” business model to try to reserve the web for their proprietary browser. Ot didn’t work, but there was a lot of pushback both legally and socially.
I think that we don’t have to worry about MS coming in for a while. I am interested to see how Facebook makes things work if and when they integrate Threads, but afaik no one is in an analogous position in terms of making a commercial, reddit-like experience tied to the fediverse.
I mean, reddit’s model isn’t that great. They filed for an IPO on Dec 21 for $15B and since then have been marked down to about $5B, and that was before the APIpocalypse. That means that a) all of the current institutional and VC investors lost about 2/3 of their money and that spez and company have similarly seen their ineptitude slash their dreams of Musk-like wealth, and b) value-wise, they’re heading back to 2019 when they were smaller. It’s a terrible time for them to try doing an IPO. The fact that they haven’t pulled it makes it feel like they know the game of musical chairs is winding up and they just want to get out with even a quarter of what they expected.
This was my thought as well. It makes sense for companies to setup their own Fediverse instances. It provides them a way to reach their customers without having to rely on another company acting as the middleman.
Mastodon is really solid and with the Dutch government and the BBC running their own instance I imagine others will follow suite.
Still not sure about a Reddit replacement though since both Lemmy and kBin have their problems.
Spin up a PeerTube instance and companies have an effective means of setting up discussion forums for their products, a news feed for broadcasting updates, and a video hosting solution that can all be tied together through the Fediverse.
!halo and !doom community at lemmy.xbox.com wow!
That means we’re in very early days of Lemmy.
Surprising times ahead!
Yep lol. IDC how good your app is if I don’t know what’s it doing with my data I’m not paying!
I hope there will be a pro version where you can pay to opt out of all ad and track nonsense.
laughs in Voyager PWA
I got to that exact screen and my excitement went from 100 to like 10. I’m back on Connect, didn’t even take Sync out for a spin.
Same for me. Tried disabling personal data for all advertisers but you gotta go one by one, there’s no Reject all option and there are way too many… so back to Connect.
I was just pointed towards infinity for Lemmy. It’s pretty solid, open source, no ads
Where would one download that?
I thought that one was correct but just wanted to make sure, thank you!
Same. I saw that line in the privacy policy, and immediately uninstalled
Same…
Same
The exact same for me, and I had just made a new account to use with sync for lemmy - logged in via sync, then read the privacy policy, logged out, and closed the app. I was crushed because now I couldn’t even use the cool username I signed up with anywhere else either because now the admachines already knew it and probably already attached it to my device ID.
GA collects very limited information by default. You have to go pretty far out of your way to give Google usernames, posts, etc for ad purposes. It’s likely the only thing they received was a device identifier generated specifically for the new install of the app. You’re fine.
You most likely can use the account, unless the author is intentionally doing something shady, Google doesn’t know your username from this interaction.
Google doesn’t know the username of someone logged in? I thought that might be the first piece of data that Google picks up.
They have no way to know it, unless the author of the web or app lets them know.
That makes sense. And if app devs aren’t really enthusiastic about having ads trackers, I suppose they’ll also want to do the bare minimum for them.
Yeah that’s the shitty thing about interacting with these corporate spying services, they’re very good at invading your privacy and making connections to break your anonymity.
I’ve been using DDG for tracking, and Connect had all sorts of weird tracking when I used it. Check it out with some network monitor and make sure it’s not sending back your info.
Thanks for the info. Which ones are open source and don’t track? Liftoff and Jerboa?
Jerboa seems clean so far! Haven’t tried Liftoff much as I didn’t like the UI.
LJ was very adamant about not collecting or keeping any user data under the reddit regime. I’m happy giving him the benefit of the doubt here.
The point is we don’t formally know.
The dev has stated that the tracking is disabled if ads are disabled, and other users have confirmed that via duckduckgo.
Hope this works but here’s what ddg is showing me was blocked. Only Google attempted to track and it was only once before I purchased ultra. Basically everything Google already knows about anyone using android.
TIL the DuckDuckGo app protection, thanks!
What’s that app you’re using to see that info?
It’s duckduckgo private browser. It does more than just browsing, there’s an app tracking protection feature.
Jesus!
Yea but does that prevent Google from getting that data via AdMob?
Removing ads via IAP or the Sync Ultra subscription eliminates that data sharing.
Per the dev, responding to my question in the discord server just now.
Why are the responses to all these questions happening in Discord rather than the official Sync Lemmy channel? 🤔
The Discord is just as official as this community?
Discord is a closed garden, it’s awful for things like this.
Discord is great for things like this. For simple questions, Discord is better than reddit or Lemmy.
I can’t google and find the answer to these simple questions. Discord is inherently worse than an open forum for that reason. It shouldn’t be used for Support or updates at all.
Yes, i do enjoy searching my way through 5648 shit posts with the keyword of a problem i’m trying to solve.
So the only way you can avoid that is to ask the same question which was already answered 10 times by the same person over the last couple of weeks.
What a great way to troubleshoot
Because it’s the official Discord, and it’s been around far longer than Sync for Lemmy? What kind of question is that even?
Because he’s busy? Not everyone is terminally online
There’s a discord?!
Alwayshasbeen.meme
Btw pro tip: you can insert the literal meme as Lemmy supports image/gif posting ;)
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This showing up right? It’s a tiny circle on kbin mobile. Sorry if I blew up your notifications while I tried figuring this out.
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Blindly trusting someone are the people that usually fall for scams
“Benefit of the doubt” does not mean “blindly trust”…?
Listen you can do what you want if you feel your privacy is being violated, but this particular developer is not scamming anyone. He has an established history of not giving a fuck about your user data, which is backed up by other users verifying that the data tracking ends when ads are removed.
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You can directly analyze the calls the app is making so you can fully verify it even without the source code.
Stop spreading technical misinformation.
Lol Whatever floats your boat 🤷♂️
Lol mr computer science engineer
Trusting someone based on your previous experience with them and or a reputation they’ve earned, however is one of the cornerstones of society.
There’s nothing blind about it. I can see what trackers are being attempted on each app on my phone and sync stopped as soon as I purchased ultra.
So in other words, you’re making a blanket statement without any contextually relevant examples to support it. Almost like youre just fear mongering and don’t have an actual argument. Got it.
Since it’s admob my guess is it’s Google analytics. Which means everything you look at or touch, but it’s probably as much for the developer so they can see how users are reacting to the app layout and designs.
The developer should move to an open source platform for analytics if this bothers users.
GA can only collect what you specifically give it (clicks, touches, hovers…etc), so the developer should be able to be very specific here. Using GA by default only collects very basic impression info.
Usage data🗿
it’s whatever admob collects, check their policy
Use a duckduckgo tracker blocker. It’ll show you what trackers it has and what they typically collect.
This can be deceiving for link aggregator apps, because it’ll also pick up trackers that other sites are using, and not the app itself.
In addition as the earlier reply mentions – “typically” collect. It has no knowledge of the data I believe. Simply what tracker is used and what it can be used for. Good for who, but not for what.
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Aside from this, I just spent 10 minutes removing consent for advertising/cookies/tracking/whatever for about 100 different vendors. I really hope I don’t need to do that again, ever.
How did you do this?
Only Europeans can do it because Europe passed laws for this.
Sync didn’t prompt me at all and I’m from the eu.
Aren’t you blocking the ads by any chance?
Yeah it was because of my pihole. When using 4g I got the popup.
How does the app know you’re from Europe? GPS? Geolocation tagging? Can someone hypothetically pretend to be from Europe too?
Usually IP address. For other things it would have to have your permission (and if you give a Lemmy app permission for your location, well it’s on you). You could probably use an EU VPN. Though I’m not sure of their implementation, they might disregard your choices if you disconnect from VPN.
Hey, thinking about this, I wonder how these rules will work for a citizen of a country enforcing GDPR, who is on vacation to a country that doesn’t enforce GDPR.
Well, if you’re wondering of how it should be according to GDPR, you should still have the same protections - they are for citizens of EU anywhere in the world and for all people who are currently in the EU, regardless of citizenship. In practice I’d say those that take it seriously will have a cookie on you (if you’ve already visited) that flags you as being from EU. Those who try to fuck with GDPR will pretend they don’t know you’re from EU.
Ah that makes sense. The cookie solution is a bit weak though, I think. Usually I have cookies set to clear every time I close the browser.
I was prompted to consent to some stuff, which I unchecked. Then there was a “vendor preferences” button, where they were basically saying “ok, even if you don’t consent, maybe you still wanna give them access if they have a legitimate interest”. So since I have also a legitimate interest in not giving my data to shady fucking companies, I spent the next 10 minutes removing ticks from boxes basically, because fuck giving me a choice to “uncheck all”, that would make it too easy to opt out.
Edit: and then to make it even more fun, I found a button somewhere in settings where I could remove my consent for gdpr-related reasons. So I clicked it. You wanna guess what it did? If you’re guessing it removed my consent, sorry - it actually removed my “lack of consent” - that is to say, it reset the settings and prompted me to uncheck everything again. Cool beans.
Saving this for later to see if there’s a response.
That’s a good question
The data is less about what you are personally doing and more things like which device does a user have, which country is a user from, how often do they use the app, and how often do they click on ads.
You can dig more into what admob means by usage data here: https://support.google.com/admob/answer/9263723
Yeah, I saw this too when I went to download, and this bothers me a little bit. None of the other Lemmy apps I use collect my data.
Is this decision set in stone?
Will you be able to one-time-pay beforehand? Before all these trackers take effect or will they still stay after the purchase? Pretty hard to consider a non-FOSS app that tracks you even if you pay. Might be great for lemmy’s adoption but not for the fediverse’ spirit.
All the tracking code is in the ads library which isn’t loaded after paying to remove ads.
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making sure the migration goes well lol
Spez 🤬
I subscribed to Ultra and hasn’t seen any weird activity on my Adguard logs. I guess the what the dev said about the ad SDK not being initialized when you subscribe is true.
Some quick search engine magic led me here: https://levelup.gitconnected.com/filling-out-the-app-privacy-section-in-app-store-connect-for-admob-users-bca0768ad86e
Same search engine magic should come up similar results for the Amazon usage data too
