[HN Gopher] Airbnb wants to GPS track you also when not using th...
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Airbnb wants to GPS track you also when not using the app
And that pretty much means "always" Here is the offending
paragraph: "Geo-location Information. Such as precise or
approximate location determined from your IP address or mobile
device's GPS depending on your device settings. We may also collect
this information when you're not using the app if you enable this
through your settings or device permissions." source:
https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/3175/privacy-policy
Author : xchip
Score : 86 points
Date : 2022-02-14 20:36 UTC (2 hours ago)
| jrockway wrote:
| Wouldn't you just put that in your privacy policy so when some
| bug makes it in (perhaps in upstream code or the OS itself) that
| causes location tracking to continue happening when the app is
| closed, you're not open to liability?
|
| It is difficult to discern "paranoid" from "evil" when reading
| legal documents. Unfortunately being paranoid makes them look
| evil. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but there is more than
| one way of looking at this.
| malikNF wrote:
| >Wouldn't you just put that in your privacy policy so when some
| bug makes it in
|
| Well by that reasoning, all legal agreements should just say,
| "we are not responsible for anything, we take what we want
| don't, you can't sue us".
| jcims wrote:
| This appears to be boilerplate -
| https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Geo-location+Information....
| gitowiec wrote:
| Funny thing. Or not. But Google results page displays different
| short texts for every page. Is it just me or that changed? I
| remember that every page result should display same briefing
| derimagia wrote:
| Using google to limit the results by date, it looks like Airbnb
| was the second to use the text, a few days after "WeChalet"
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=before%3A2020-10-31+%22Geo-l...
| judge2020 wrote:
| Odd that Apple let them slide through with that description. For
| example, Universal Studios Florida has a more descriptive
|
| > Will be used to orient the park map to your location, enable
| in-park features during your visit, and tailor informational,
| marketing, and promotional messages in or out of the park.
|
| The Disney World app has
|
| > 'While Using' means we may use your location when the app is
| open to... provide you with valuable updates and offers...
| 'Always Allow' will allow your location to be used for some of
| the above purposes even when you do not have the app open
|
| So if these big players must precisely say "offers" or
| "promotional messages", I don't see why airbnb wouldn't have to.
| mguerville wrote:
| Permissions creep is rampant in the industry, apps all start with
| a pretty user friendly set of permissions and over time the
| ToS/ToUs and permissions get increasingly offensive. The other
| similar pattern to this is decreasing "SLAs" like how Uber and
| Lyft are now often misrepresenting the wait time to get a ride
| (driver is 3 minutes out = at least 7 minutes), and if they had
| started that way they'd never have gained such widepread adoption
| in the first place.
| babyshake wrote:
| The worst part is how within the companies, these changes are
| always pitched as somehow being user-friendly with a contortion
| of logic.
| everdrive wrote:
| Yet another reminder to install as few apps as possible. I know
| it can be a little trite, but I do mean it earnestly. People say
| they care about privacy, but then they install applications which
| collect this sort of data. Not using the AirBnB app hardly counts
| as a hardship.
| yupyup54133 wrote:
| I doubt this is the case. More than likely Apple changed one of
| their IPhone API calls without notice and so this TOS change is a
| legal stopgap until the AirBNB devs can refactor the code to
| account for this unexpected API change.
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| Steve Jobs words 12 years later are still very relevant today
| https://youtu.be/39iKLwlUqBo
|
| I just want to thank Apple for pushing this agenda forward,
| introducing things I believe Google would never do themselves
| first unless pressured.
|
| I still remember Apple introducing "track me while using the app
| only" in a new iOS years ago that stopped companies hoarding live
| geolocation of every app user.
|
| And we still get new bits and bobs every major iOS release.
|
| In just last few years we found out apps that unnecessarily
| scanned for our network devices or used clipboards for no
| apparent reason.
|
| Keep them coming.
| pydry wrote:
| They can still do better. I want a feature that will let me
| programatically lie to any app that requests any permission.
| E.g. real data while Im in the app but maybe Im in paraguay if
| it requests it ourside.
|
| Apps shouldnt be able to fully trust the data they get unless
| the user wants them to trust it.
| akomtu wrote:
| Apple will probably implement this in the coming years. This
| feature will poison those Big Data datasets and will lower
| accuracy of user profiles, but so long as Apple can reliably
| distinguish fake location data, Apple will go for it. Then, I
| hope, Google will retaliate and do the same on Androids.
| Facebook will be out of luck, but who cares.
| paxys wrote:
| Apple still doesn't let you pick and choose specific
| permissions when installing an app. Other than location and a
| couple others, permissions are still all or nothing, unlike
| Android.
| Flockster wrote:
| I can choose for each app: contacts, calendar, reminder,
| photos (whole gallery or choose pictures), Bluetooth, local
| network, UBW, microphone, speech recognition, camera, health,
| (sensors?, Never seen that before), Homekit, media, files,
| movement and focus.
|
| And location of course (never, ask next time, when using and
| always) with a toggle to set it to "approximated position"
| FinalBriefing wrote:
| This simply isn't true.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Yet apple always aggressively pushed their native app platform
| over web protocols, which would allow much more privacy.
| daniel_iversen wrote:
| I don't think there's anything stopping web browsers to have
| the same level of privacy features as the apps, is there?
| Apple, Google and Microsoft owns both the OS and the browser,
| so there's really no excuse I feel.
| endless1234 wrote:
| GP's talking about Apple making PWAs unviable on iOS.
| Retric wrote:
| I don't see how you could replicate blocking all network
| access with a website. Websites inherently communicate with
| a remote server which limits privacy guarantees.
| munk-a wrote:
| With the exception of either investing time into targeted
| request black-holing or disallowing apps from contacting
| the outside world entirely (which would produce a pretty
| crappy AirBnB experience) I don't think this is really
| reasonable. Most useful apps have some legitimate reasons
| to talk to servers so blocking access before the app can
| get it (similar to how browsers block access before the
| site can get it) seems like the most reasonable approach.
| And websites don't need to inherently communicate with a
| remote server - there are a bunch of web tools out there
| that download a bunch of JS and then essentially run in
| local mode without ever sending that data home... yes the
| original stuff is coming from a foreign source but that's
| the same as Apps - the acquisition method is just
| different (and a lot more prone to abuse I'll grant you).
|
| However, pretty much every useful app you're using is
| calling home for some moderately legitimate reason - so I
| don't think it's helpful to differentiate the two classes
| of executables based on remote asset usage.
| gruez wrote:
| Is this really an issue when both iOS and Android support "only
| when using app" permissions for location? If you don't want give
| them access to background location, then don't grant the
| permission.
| jozvolskyef wrote:
| You can't turn off IP-based geolocation. To play the devil's
| advocate, they might just be using this to revoke stolen
| sessions when the same session makes requests from different
| locations.
| bigiain wrote:
| > You can't turn off IP-based geolocation.
|
| Thats about 99% of the reason my phone is always using a VPN.
|
| Sure, geolocate my IP. I'm in Melbourne. Accurate to an
| almost 1000km CEP...
| paxys wrote:
| > You can't turn off IP-based geolocation
|
| They also can't get your IP address when you are not using
| the site, so it is the same thing.
| jozvolskyef wrote:
| Apps can make background requests.
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(page generated 2022-02-14 23:00 UTC)