Completely anecdotal: I have no facebook apps or social media on my android except for whatsapp, and I never use anything else from them. I see between 400 and 500 calls to graph.facebook.com _every day_
It would be helpful to be more upfront in the video about why Facebook is tracking this, because it <i>looks</i> like it's Facebook Analytics for Apps - (<a href="https://analytics.facebook.com/get-started/Apps#fq" rel="nofollow">https://analytics.facebook.com/get-started/Apps#fq</a>), which puts this on par with Google Analytics for Apps - (<a href="https://developers.google.com/analytics/solutions/mobile" rel="nofollow">https://developers.google.com/analytics/solutions/mobile</a>) in terms of problematic behaviour.<p>So it is unclear if this is data that is provided to Facebook servers but not accessible to Facebook, similar to options for Google's Analytics platforms, or if it is harvested by Facebook by permission of the app creator. Both options being shady, as it's not told to the user, but this video feels more like it's saying Facebook is actively tracking people, not App Designers are giving Facebook permission to track you in exchange for marketing analytics.<p>The data that is being provided is significantly too high, and the user should be made aware, but this video seems to only discuss it being API calls to the Analytics interface when using the app.
I'd definitely expect there to be API calls when using an app, but how User ID tracking is done is probably the most potentially dangerous part here.
It's pretty amazing that Facebook got such a foothold here that all these high profile apps use their SDK. Are they just using it for log-in? Are their mobile ads better than Google's for developers? I assume that Google provide all the same tools for their own ads, analytics etc. and presumably similar tracking by Google is already baked in and unavoidable.
As mentioned in the video, but not afaics in the description, the page from the presenters at <a href="https://privacyinternational.org/appdata" rel="nofollow">https://privacyinternational.org/appdata</a> has the testing environment if you want to extend or replicate these results, as well as the report itself and its documentation, along with a March 2019 update.[1]<p>1: <a href="https://privacyinternational.org/blog/2758/guess-what-facebook-still-tracks-you-android-apps-even-if-you-dont-have-facebook-account" rel="nofollow">https://privacyinternational.org/blog/2758/guess-what-facebo...</a>
How hypocritical it is to both boast that you are privacy focused, while blatantly invading users privacy at the same time!? I think their days are numbered, but hopefully we get rid of them sooner than later.
This is tangential, but I really dislike how this YouTube channel always downloads the original video, strips it of all information regarding the speaker and the conference and uploads it to their channel. Even though the original is published under Creative Commons Attribution, it still bothers me that they 1) download and reupload (wouldn't this be better accomplished by a playlist?) 2) strip information that makes it appear they produce the content. I'm curious what other people think about this.<p>Anyway, here is the source [1] from their video description.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0vlD7r-kTc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0vlD7r-kTc</a>
Original full length video from 35C3: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0vlD7r-kTc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0vlD7r-kTc</a> [How Facebook Tracks You On Android]