The Zuck suck is in full swing. In the few short hours since I started using #Threads, #DuckDuckGo has already blocked over 200 data tracking attempts. These include things like "headphone status" and "screen density."
EDIT for clarity: The 200+ attempts may have been overcounted as DDG hadn't tooled their VPN for Threads yet.
I would say we need to expose what data is being collected, but people just won't bother listening to us, we are better off using our own bandwidth to post / boost / reply to interesting content, and to a point ignore Threads, the more we mention everything else the better it will be for promoting fedi.
@bronakins@kreig Users from Threads can't access any more data than any other Fediverse users from your account (now Meta is collecting quite a bit more from Threads users, but that's another story). Whether to close your follows down is a personal decision, but it won't drastically affect your privacy.
@kreig it's not the data it tried to collect, it's what Facebook is KNOWN to collect. many of those are probably KNOWN to collect from Facebook the service's ToS, and not the actual data it tried to get from Threads.
that being said, it's still a pile of garbage that I wouldn't touch with a 6 ft Pole.
@kreig ah yes, that's a yikes. I know some services keep frantically trying to ping the mother ship when they're blocked, which spams hundreds of requests that wouldn't be generated if the first one would've come through but even then, NO MEANS NO FER FECK'S SAKE
@kreig Most of these metrics seem important to the function of the app. Whether it be orientation for portrait/landscape modes, resolution and density for scaling, internal storage for saving videos / pictures, etc. Gender, birthday, and location beyond country (and less justifiably but not entirely, state) is a bit unnecessary though. Nonetheless, I see good reason to collect most of the information there for a good modern app experience.
@SyrupSplashin I disagree. How much of similar data does Mastodon collect? Close to none, despite offering a “good modern app experience”.
Also, I don’t think the justification you put forward for collecting that data is accurate. For example, the app doesn’t need to collect Device Total Memory in order to figure out media storage. The way it works is that the app asks the OS to add a file to the filesystem and, if storage is low, gets an OS error.
@ilyess@SyrupSplashin@kreig its device finger printing. Because they can’t use tracking cookies they try to build a fingerprint of your device by matching as many parameters as they can.
@kreig@kaveinthran@elliottucker The DuckDuckGo browser app has been in the iOS App Store for years now. It’s great! Another excellent choice is the new Orion browser by the folks that also make Kagi.
@kreig In case anyone comes to this thread and wonders why you need to protect your hedgehog status or screen density, be sure to read to up on Browser Fingerprinting.
This sort of trackability isn’t obvious at first, as it would require so much data about so many people at once to be useful. But, yeah, they have that.
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