The recent controversy over iPhone apps that ‘phone home ‘ with data about users “ which had Pinch Media and its analytics tracking code right at its center “ has led to some solid efforts from Pinch and others, and to some good solutions for users who want more obvious and easy opt-out of having any data tracked.
There ‘s even a jailbreak app “ called PrivaCy “ available now in Cydia, that lets you choose to opt out of any data collection by Pinch Media or any of the three other leading ‘data collector ‘ companies that work with iPhone apps.
The new PrivaCy app “ which is a free app “ adds a new item to the Settings app, right below ‘Store ‘. When you tap on it in Settings you ‘ll see a screen labeled ‘Send Anonymous Usage Statistics ‘ “and you can toggle On and Off this data collection for four leading companies (that provide this function within thousands of apps).
Pinch Media has a new blog post up “ HERE “ that details their efforts to provide good choices for users in this area. Here are some highlights and excerpts from that post:
In response to some of our developers ‘ requests, we ‘ve completed two initiatives to make it easier for device owners to opt-out of Pinch Analytics ‘ anonymous data collection.
First, we ‘ve released a new version of our Pinch Analytics library that makes it even easier to add application-level opt-outs. When the device owner opts-out, no anonymous usage data is collection, and all anonymous usage data for that application cached on the phone is deleted. We ‘ve made the opt-out code as flexible as possible, so the opt-out mechanism can be placed inside the application itself or within the Settings application. Developers who wish to add these optional opt-outs can find full documentation and sample code within our developer portal.
If developers get on board with this, we should start seeing some of these opt-out settings choices in individual apps soon. Good stuff.
And now for the even better news if you ‘re jailbroken:
Second, we reached out to one of the main developers in the jailbroken community and asked if the system-wide opt-out not possible on unaltered iPhones could be implemented for jailbroken iPhones. We don ‘t recommend jailbreaking your iPhone, but since a significant minority of iPhone users do (about 8% at the moment), we wanted to provide the opt-out for that community. Many thanks to the iPhone Dev Team, who made this possible on short notice.
Nice one “ Pinch Media reached out the Dev Team and to saurik, the creator of Cydia, and worked up an across-the-board opt-out option for jailbroken users.
As saurik described it in the package release notes,
Developers integrate these systems for much the same reason people use Google Analytics: to better understand how their customers use their products.
Unfortunately, due to the restrictions Apple places on their App Store, these providers are unable to directly interface with the users they affect.
Instead, they rely on developers of every single application to document what information is being logged, and allow users to ‘opt-out ‘ if they desire.
Thanks to applicatons like redsn0w and Cydia, however, these restrictions are no longer important: a system-wide global ‘opt-out ‘ setting is now possible.
Pinch Media realized this fact, and took the lead in contacting me regarding getting this feature out there to all the users of jailbroken devices: they care. With BigBoss, we then contacted all of the other providers, getting not only their blessing, but also their technical expertise in disabling their systems.
The result is PrivaCy: a new Settings panel that allows you to selectively opt-out of sending anonymous usage statistics to each of these providers.
This extension was a team effort, and was able to be executed as quickly as it was thanks to the help and interest of the companies involved.
Great job by Pinch Media, the Dev Team, and saurik on all of this!
Pinch Media would also like to be able to offer a system-wide opt-out for non-jailbroken iPhones:
System-wide opt-outs for non-jailbroken-phones will be implemented should they become technically possible.
Personally, I do not have a problem with analytics data being collected by apps that I use “ but I’m happy to see more choices being presented more clearly for users in this area. And I think it ‘s great to see Pinch Media responding to recent criticism and trying to make things easier for users.
Now that we ‘re starting to see these choices expand, I ‘d like to get all the bases covered with A) a system-wide opt-out allowed by Apple and B) Lots of apps adopting Pinch ‘s new options quickly, so we can choose to opt out of them on an individual basis.
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