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headgasketidiot t1_j1urx1x wrote

Reply to comment by blutbad_buddy in Vermont Gov. Scott considers banning TikTok on state cellphones by blutbad_buddy

Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with the content of either. It's purely a deal to create a more complete user profile to sell to data brokers for advertising data. Businesses view it as an "additional revenue stream" when they build an app. If you google "how to monetize app engagement," you'll find a million articles like this one https://www.forbes.com/sites/peggyannesalz/2019/01/14/3-ways-to-make-money-from-app-engagement/?sh=d50442dadc7b

>App companies that have the inside track on data around user activity in and with their apps are sitting on a goldmine. This is because they are the sole owners of valuable first-party data, data that is owned, unique, accurate and—above all—current. Easy to understand why first-party data that is becoming what Maribel Adams, Head of Digital at MediaMax, over in her blog at Street Fight calls “the core ingredient to driving customer acquisition and retention.”

This is a completely normal practice. I don't even mean to call out Ally Bank in particular. This is just how the web works. I recently wrote a whole blog post titled Any App That Could Just Be A Website Only Exists To Track You on just this phenomenon, and it's part of a series I'm writing on the "attention economy." The first part talks about TikTok, too.

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blutbad_buddy OP t1_j1ut4pg wrote

> Any App That Could Just Be A Website Only Exists To Track You

This is why I don't have a cell phone anymore. My SO uses a flip phone that cant run apps and doesn't even have gps. Monetizing my data points and trashing my privacy is a real fucked up thing to do to me as a customer and I do everything I can to make it a pain in the ass to do to me while also giving them the smallest number of data points possible. But on a supposedly secure banking app?! What the actual fuck?!!!

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headgasketidiot t1_j1uxz57 wrote

That's pretty awesome. I consider giving up my phone every now and then, but I am too weak. Props to you for actually doing it.

>But on a supposedly secure banking app?! What the actual fuck?!!!

Yeah, it's a pretty normal practice, unfortunately. There's trackers on all sorts of shit you'd think is private. I even found one on a major pharmacy brand's COVID test appointment scheduling and results page a while back that was leaking patient data and made national news. It's just depressingly normalized.

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