Apple is collecting identifiable analytics

General
1

Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Unfortunately, Apple users cannot opt out.

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2

This sucks. This is why we must fight for alternative app stores.

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3

Didn’t Mysk already release this finding a couple of years ago? Anyhooz, you can block xp(dot)apple(dot)com (already included in the more aggressive blocklists like HaGeZi Ultimate) without much consequence on daily functionality.

EdiT; it was actually 4 years ago (2022)

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4

See also:

5

For some reason, people still think that Apple is “privacy respecting.” It’s marketing department is certainly doing a very good job.

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6

It is the opposite, people are doing the hard work gaslighting themselves instead, Apple just reinforces the feedback loop.

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7

How do you know? Broad statements like this about human nature and behavior should have proper justification. Without it, all that it amounts to is opinion and ideology. I suppose it’s fine to espouse ur opinion on a forum, but google’s AI mode seems to be scraping this forum for data to spit back out to its search engine users, which for some reason some people want to start taking as factual.

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8

Certainly, did you at least check the references I provided? It starts like this:

9

Oh very interesting, I did not see that but Ill read it and see what I think about it

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10

Sure, take your time, it has been at least five years without any meaningful changes, so get comfy.

11

Was there ever an update on this?

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12

No, getting caught red-handed just means a slap on the wrist within the industry and some cheap PR to promise change in the future.

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13

A lawsuit was filed shortly after. I’ve checked it and it’s still ongoing. It was nearly dismissed back in Jan 2026.

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14

Now do GrapheneOS Android

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15

This might be of interest, since they project has already “done it” themselves. Here’s a list of the connections GrapheneOS does by default, how to change or disable some of them, all from the GOS documentation.

(The link preview title appears to be malformed for some reason.)

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16

Cero conections to google services?

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17

Okay, see you in another four years when everyone collects $20 USD.

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18

(I know I’m probably going to get like 28 thumbs downs for this) IMHO this is not a very big deal if you read the article.

It’s obviously, bad and they shouldn’t do it, but they are collecting analytics in their stores (with the exception of the stocks app, no idea about that one), I think this is the standard for online stores, and they aren’t selling this information, its likely being used for improving them

That being said, it’s a very slippery slope, but it has been 4 years and they haven’t expanded this to more apps, I doubt this is used for nefarious purposes, and it’s good that it’s only 1 URL you can block. This is nowhere near the amount of data/what they do with it in comparison to Google.

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19

I appreciate the signal boost on this, just added the offending domain to my blocklist on NextDNS.

Surprised it isn’t already on their native Apple tracking blocklist.

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20

It is intended and whitelisted by the first-party:

The framing is developers benefit from it for app discovery purposes, therefore, it is legitimate usage:

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