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How to block iPhone apps from using push notification tracking to spy on you

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Apple Privacy: How To
Apps are spying on you with push notification tracking. But you can block them today.
Image: Apple/Cult of Mac

Any time a company sends a push notification to an iPhone, its application can gather information about the user, including their location, according to security researchers. Meta and TikTok reportedly use push notification tracking, and many other companies do it, too.

Fortunately, there’s a simple solution for users to protect their privacy and keep apps from spying on them.

How to disable new Facebook ‘Link History’ user tracking system

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Facebook link history in iPhone app
Link History in the Facebook iPhone app can be useful if you don't mind Meta tracking you.
Image: Meta/Cult of Mac

To absolutely no one’s surprise, Meta came up with a new way to track its users. Facebook Link History stores a list of websites and webpages that users have gone to from their Facebook feed. The information is used to target advertising.

Fortunately, you can turn off the tracking feature. Here’s how.

Judge blocks government from pushing social media censorship

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Social Media
A federal judge blocked federal government contact with social media sites.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

A federal judge in Louisiana issued a broad injunction Tuesday limiting federal government contact with social media sites over what the Biden administration may see as disinformation spreading out of control.

The ruling is one of many upcoming that frame a fight over the constitutionality of curbing social media’s influence in light of the First Amendment’s right to freedom of expression.

Meta squeezes in VR headset tease ahead of WWDC23

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Meta Quest 3 is
Meta Quest 3 is "coming this fall."
Photo: Meta
WWDC23

That’s some interesting timing on Meta’s press release Thursday for a VR headset not expected to come out until at least late September. Mark Zuckerberg and company wedged in a tease for Meta Quest 3 just four days ahead of WWDC23, when Apple is expected to unveil its much-anticipated AR/VR headset.

The Meta press materials even appropriated “we can’t wait,” one of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s trademark phrases.

Get your fair share of Facebook’s $725 million privacy payout

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You owe me, like, a dollar!
That’s a Futurama reference.
Image: Flying Logos/Wikimedia Commons/D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

If you lived in the United States in the last 15 years and you used Facebook, you can fill out a brief form and claim your part of a $725 million privacy settlement. This marks the end of a class-action lawsuit wherein the company admitted that U.K. data mining company Cambridge Analytica accessed Facebook users’ data without their consent.

You have until Friday, August 25, to file a claim. It only takes a few minutes. How much you get depends on how many people take the payment — it could be as low as $1.50 if every person in the United States fills it out.

Making a claim also stops you from pursuing a separate claim against Meta, Facebook’s parent company. However, if you take no action, you won’t get anything as a result of the Facebook data scandal.

How to download YouTube videos to MP3 or MP4 with YT Saver Video Downloader

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YT Saver can help you download videos from YouTube and other sites.
YT Saver makes it quick and easy to download videos from YouTube and other popular sites.
Image: YT Saver

This post on how to download YouTube videos is brought to you by YT Saver.

When you love to download videos, audio and playlists from YouTube and other popular websites, it helps to have a solid video downloader that can handle browsing, downloading, converting and securing content all in one place.

YT Saver Video Downloader does the trick, whether you use Mac or Windows. We’ll focus on Mac and show you how the video downloader and converter works.

Apple once proposed team-up on for-pay version of Facebook without ads

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Apple proposed for-pay version of Facebook without ads
Apple suggested Facebook create a for-pay version, with Apple getting a cut of the subscription revenue.
Image: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

Apple tried to talk Facebook into creating a version of its social network without adverts, according to a new report. Users would pay a subscription fee and would not be tracked for advertising purposes.

Obviously, it didn’t happen.

Why you should never use the browser in Facebook and Instagram

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Why you should never use the browser in Facebook and Instagram
You can always count on Meta apps to suck up as much users data as possible.
Graphic: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

The web browser that Meta built into the iPhone Facebook and Instagram applications can collect far more information about users than they probably realize. It can “track every single interaction with external websites,” according to a developer.

But users don’t have to stay in this sketchy browser. Leaving it is easy – here’s how.

Improved iPhone privacy protections could cost Facebook $20.9 billion and counting

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Facebook vs. iPhone App Tracking Transparency
Turns out the answer to this question was “do not track” 80% of the time.
Photo: Apple/Cult of Mac

A tweak to iOS privacy settings made in 2021 has already cost Facebook $8.1 billion, and the social-networking company’s losses will increase by another $12.8 billion in 2022, according to an industry report.

Forcing applications to ask permission before tracking their users’ online activity hurt other companies, too. But nowhere near as much as Facebook.

Facebook is still whining about Apple’s ‘harmful’ privacy features

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By running anti-Apple ads in major newspapers, Facebook's taking its battle with Apple to the next level.
Facebook is expected to lose $10 billion to Apple's changes this year alone.
Photo: Thought Catalog/Unsplash CC

Facebook parent company Meta is still bemoaning App Tracking Transparency, the “harmful” feature Apple introduced last year in iOS 14.5 to bolster the privacy of iPhone and iPad users.

The change is “making it harder and more expensive” for businesses to reach their customers, Meta said as advertisers reportedly slash their spending on Facebook and Instagram and turn to rivals like Amazon and Google instead.

Facebook warns it will lose $10 billion to iOS privacy protections in 2022

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Facebook loses to iOS privacy protections
How disappointing.
Photo: Dawid Sokołowski/Unsplash

Facebook parent company Meta has warned investors that it will lose around $10 billion in 2022 as a result of Apple’s bolstered privacy protections.

The company has been whinging about the improvements, which include App Tracking Transparency, since they were introduced in iOS 14. Its shares dipped more than 20% on Wednesday after it reported its latest disappointing earnings.

Apple VR headset won’t create a full metaverse

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Don’t expect the Apple VR headset to be the first step in re-creating Ready Player One by delivering a full metaverse.
Don’t expect the Apple VR headset to be the first step in re-creating Ready Player One.
Photo: Warner Bros. Entertainment

While Apple is creating a VR headset, it’s reportedly not developing a complete virtual world for users. It plans on virtual reality games, video and other experiences. But these supposedly won‘t be connected into a single VR metaverse.

That sets it apart from Meta (formerly Facebook), which does hope to create a virtual world it controls.

Apple hires Meta AR comms chief for its rumored headset launch

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Apple’s first AR/VR headset might look like ski goggles
Information supposedly leaking from Apple indicates the Apple AR/VR headset will look a lot like this.
Photo: RendersByIan

Apple reportedly hired Meta’s AR communications chief recently, a move that fits with Cupertino’s long-rumored plan to launch an augmented reality/virtual reality headset.

Observers expect Apple to unveil its mixed-reality headset sometime in 2022. And, according to Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter, Apple is forming a team to handle the hardware’s launch and marketing. Part of this appears to be the hiring of Andrea Schubert, chief of communications and public relations for AR at Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook.

Facebook’s 6-hour outage is the result of one small slip-up

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Facebook outage
Oops.
Photo: Sofitel/Flickr/Cult of Mac

“A faulty configuration change.” That’s all it takes to bring three of the world’s biggest social platforms to their knees for more than six hours, according to an apology issued by Facebook after Monday’s disastrous outage.

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp became unavailable worldwide between approximately 9:15 a.m. PDT and 3:30 p.m. PDT on October 4. Facebook said it has no reason to believe user data was compromised during this time.

See here, Apple: Leave cameras out of your smart glasses

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See here, Apple: Leave cameras out of your smartglasses
Apple smartglasses can’t make the same mistake as the ones just released by Facebook and Ray-Ban.
Photo: Cult of Mac/Ray-Ban

Facebook and Ray-Ban teamed up on a pair of smart glasses. It’s essentially a camera you wear on your face, making it a perfect example of what not to do with this type of product. They turn the wearer into a walking, talking privacy violation.

Apple is designing its own smart glasses. These better not have a camera or they’re dead on arrival.

WhatsApp’s promise of end-to-end encryption may be a complete lie

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WhatsApp encryption message
WhatsApp says no one — not even WhatsApp — can read your messages.
Image: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

WhatsApp promises to protect every one of its 2 billion users with end-to-end encryption that ensures their messages cannot be seen by anyone outside of the original conversation. But does it live up to that promise?

A new report alleges that the Facebook-owned messaging platform uses artificial intelligence and more than 1,000 contract workers to examine “millions of pieces of users’ content” using “special Facebook software.”

That’s despite Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg telling the U.S. Senate in 2018 that “we don’t see any of the content in WhatsApp.”

App Tracking Transparency hasn’t hurt Facebook’s ad revenue… yet

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Facebook logo
Facebook released its latest earnings report Wednesday.
Photo: Brett Jordan/Unsplash

Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature hasn’t been enough to stop Facebook from pulling in a massive $28 billion in ad revenue for the second quarter of 2021. That represents a 56% increase year-on-year. Facebook earned $10.4 billion in total profits for the quarter.

While Apple’s anti-tracking privacy measures weren’t explicitly designed to hurt Facebook, Facebook has been outspoken about the impacts they would have on its business. A recent Facebook-funded research paper called the iOS 14 feature an “anti-competitive strategy disguised as a privacy-protecting measure.”

Facebook’s cloud gaming service finally launches on iPhone

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Facebook’s cloud gaming service finally launches on iPhone and iPad
After over a year of delays, the real Facebook Gaming service is available for iPhone and iPad.
Image: Cult of Mac

Add Facebook to the list of companies offering a gaming service for iPhone. There’s a lengthy list of titles available on day one, including strategy, role playing, trivia and other types of games.

But don’t look for these in the App Store — Apple’s stringent rules on gaming services caused Facebook Gaming to be introduced as a web app instead.

Apple’s preinstalled apps prove most popular on iPhone, report claims

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Top apps on iOS and Android
Turns out preinstalled apps are the most widely used. Whodda thunkit?
Photo: Comscore/Facebook

Apple’s own preinstalled apps are the ones most commonly used on iPhones, says a Facebook-commissioned study. Weather, Photos and Camera are reportedly the three most popular non-phone call apps used on iOS. The Phone app is, no shock here, the most popular.

The study says something similar holds true for Android. On that platform, Google apps (Google Play, Google Search, YouTube and Gmail) rank as most widely used.

Facebook launches Clubhouse clone Live Audio Rooms and new podcast platform

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Facebook
Launching in the US today.
Photo: Facebook

Facebook debuted its Clubhouse-style Live Audio Rooms and new podcast platform Monday, giving users two new ways to engage with the social network — and hopefully keep them hooked for longer.

Public figures and select Facebook Groups in the United States can create Live Rooms on iOS. They can then invite friends, followers, public figures and, well, anyone else who wants to tune in and contribute to an audio session. There can be up to 50 speakers, with no limits on listeners.

Facebook prepares to launch its podcasting platform on June 22

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Facebook
Facebook is getting into the podcast game.
Photo: Facebook

Facebook is gearing up to launch its own podcast platform later this month. Facebook’s podcasts feature will launch June 22, an attempt by the social media giant to muscle in on the incredibly popular and fast-growing podcast market.

Facebook confirmed the news in an email to podcast page owners, seen by The Verge. Users will be able to listen to podcasts directly on Facebook, as well as via a new podcasts tab that has yet to launch. Facebook is also working on a feature that will let listeners create clips from their top shows.