<story><title>How Facebook tracks you on Android [video]</title><url>https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9941-how_facebook_tracks_you_on_android/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nly</author><text>We&amp;#x27;re spoiled in the desktop browser by being able to clear history, cookies, local storage etc, or use a private browser session. There&amp;#x27;s also the importance of the  &amp;quot;same origin policy&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;The Android platform API should simply never allow apps to obtain global system identifiers (serial numbers, &amp;quot;advertising IDs&amp;quot;, MACs, Wifi network info, EMEIs etc) in the first place. Perhaps even going as far as not providing a shared filesystem.&lt;p&gt;Mobile apps, despite platform API permission, and having some ability to protect their own data, are a lot closer to desktop programs than web apps in many regards.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sfifs</author><text>&amp;gt; The Android platform API should simply never allow apps to obtain global system identifiers&lt;p&gt;When the revenue stream of the creator of Android fundamentally depends on being able to tie devices to identity and behaviour, it&amp;#x27;s highly unlikely this is going to happen. They can&amp;#x27;t also keep it only for themselves and block for others or they&amp;#x27;ll get unfair trade practices action on their backs.&lt;p&gt;Thr fact that Apple which could do this without significant adverse monetary impact but has chosen not to do so suggests they want to keep the possibility of re-entering the advertising business (or at least portray so to their shareholders)</text></comment>
<story><title>How Facebook tracks you on Android [video]</title><url>https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9941-how_facebook_tracks_you_on_android/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nly</author><text>We&amp;#x27;re spoiled in the desktop browser by being able to clear history, cookies, local storage etc, or use a private browser session. There&amp;#x27;s also the importance of the  &amp;quot;same origin policy&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;The Android platform API should simply never allow apps to obtain global system identifiers (serial numbers, &amp;quot;advertising IDs&amp;quot;, MACs, Wifi network info, EMEIs etc) in the first place. Perhaps even going as far as not providing a shared filesystem.&lt;p&gt;Mobile apps, despite platform API permission, and having some ability to protect their own data, are a lot closer to desktop programs than web apps in many regards.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>blfr</author><text>While you make good points about mobile apps, don&amp;#x27;t be too spoiled by the privacy offered by destop browsers. Because of their configuration and various APIs, they&amp;#x27;re almost as easy to fingerprint as mobile devices with advertising IDs.&lt;p&gt;EFF has had a proof of concept online for quite a while &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;panopticlick.eff.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;panopticlick.eff.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;And HN users are probably even more vulnerable since we will have customized our software making it stand out.</text></comment>