'Sign in with Apple' about convenience of social media sign-on 'without the tracking part'...
Apple's "Sign in with Apple" feature, coming to iOS 13 apps this fall, is about acknowledging the convenience of social media sign-on options from Google, Facebook, and Twitter without the "heavy privacy price," the company's software technology VP said in an interview.
"It's not rocket science to say, 'Hey wouldn't that be great to have that without the tracking part of it,'" Guy "Bud" Tribble told CNET. "Our whole point of view is giving more control to the user over things like their data."
The feature originated when Apple's own workers began questioning third-party options.
"Some of us have probably used social media single-sign on ourselves," Tribble admitted.
Many apps and websites now offer social media sign-on options, reflecting the fact that there are so many online services that it can be impossible to remember logins for all of them. In fact the technology often lets people sign into services they've never used before.
"Sign in with Apple" lets people do the same, but with better control over what if any data is shared. In fact the service generates spoof forwarding addresses for email, allowing people to shut off communications on the fly. Perhaps controversially the feature will be mandatory for all iOS apps that offer some form of social media sign-on.
Tribble tangentially noted that while Apple reviews some 100,000 App Store submissions per week, about 40% of those are rejected, frequently for privacy concerns. The priority is said to be tossing apps that try to fool people or ask for unnecessary permissions.
"It's not rocket science to say, 'Hey wouldn't that be great to have that without the tracking part of it,'" Guy "Bud" Tribble told CNET. "Our whole point of view is giving more control to the user over things like their data."
The feature originated when Apple's own workers began questioning third-party options.
"Some of us have probably used social media single-sign on ourselves," Tribble admitted.
Many apps and websites now offer social media sign-on options, reflecting the fact that there are so many online services that it can be impossible to remember logins for all of them. In fact the technology often lets people sign into services they've never used before.
"Sign in with Apple" lets people do the same, but with better control over what if any data is shared. In fact the service generates spoof forwarding addresses for email, allowing people to shut off communications on the fly. Perhaps controversially the feature will be mandatory for all iOS apps that offer some form of social media sign-on.
Tribble tangentially noted that while Apple reviews some 100,000 App Store submissions per week, about 40% of those are rejected, frequently for privacy concerns. The priority is said to be tossing apps that try to fool people or ask for unnecessary permissions.
Comments
Edit: I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere but I’d like to see the simple-to-obtain-and-cancel randomized email addresses to be available when I’m doing online checkout.
Besides the privacy issues, there are also MAJOR security issues, including training users to be phished.
It's just a completely horrible idea I've been writing against for years (I think my first article on it was in 2012).
As a user, pick only one: (1) Privacy or (2) Lose Money. As an entity that users deal with, pick only one: (A) Respect User Privacy or (B) Make More Money.
(2)(B) or (1)(A), that is the question.
In any event it's not nearly as devious as you imagine it is. Kudos on the vivid imagination tho.
We're not talking dealer holdbacks, which by the way aren't secret either. If you really were that curious you'd fire up you favorite search engine and look for "Google account sign-in to other sites" or something along those lines. Google is not sharing anything you do not explicitly approve.
Do your own research. It can actually be enlightening.
...or you can make up your own story, facts,smacks. Storytelling can be fun too. Remember when you were a kid?
With that said I'll repeat what I stated earlier: The way Apple is planning doing this appears to be a big improvement over Google's way and I hope they copycat it.
But, website owners are offered 'free' tools to add sign-on to their sites, and users (back before they started thinking about privacy) pretty much demanded site-owners implement it, so they didn't have to 'remember yet another password.'
Gatorguy did say they don't give any information you don't explicitly approve.... I suppose that would be on page 107, line 23 of the terms of service?