this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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In the few short hours since I started using #Threads, #DuckDuckGo has already blocked over 200 data tracking attempts. These include things like "headphone status" and "screen density."

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[–] toffi@feddit.de 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Funny enough the screen density thing could just be display optimization, did some web development and that would've been useful. But hoy shit the rest is really bad. Good thing I live in the EU and won't be tempted.

[–] laxe@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s likely used for fingerprinting, not optimization.

[–] Kichae@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

Yeah, screen density or screen resolution is fairly common to track specifically because it's useful for sorting out UI problems.

"People with 1080p phones use the app once and never come back" is useful information from a product development standpoint. It's not super useful for most user profiling purposes.

Unless you're selling cell phone ads, that is. And, well, Meta's an ad company.

[–] soft_frog@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

Instagram in app browser user agents include your devices resolution and colour info, so I think you’re right on those features.

And for a video app checking if headphones are plugged in is actually useful (Apollo used to deal with this well).

Needing your health days in the permissions though???