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Comment by gherkinnn | Hacker News Reader

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44169115

They found sneaky ways on Android. There is no way they aren't trying to do so on iOS. One must always assume malice with anything Meta.

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It always freaked me out that WhatsApp found the SMS code sent to verify the phone number without requiring any action from me.

Also, WhatsApp refuses to be usable without giving it Contacts access. I had to use the app, login to the web client, and then I was finally able to type a phone number to start a new chat.

I ended up uninstalling it, but there's plenty of people AND business that nowadays mainly or even only use WhatsApp that it's painful to be on the privacy-first side.

If you're on Android, it's an Android API feature, it has nothing to do with WhatsApp and is used by lots of other applications.

https://developers.google.com/identity/sms-retriever/overvie...

That's nice for the careless user, but without any system request or notification it's impossible for the user to tell whether the app used a workaround or the system just cooperated.

I share your woes regarding WhatsApp; my family overseas uses it, so I have to use it when visiting them, and I also had to do the weird workaround of creating a Whatsapp URL with the destination phone number, and then opening it in the browser, and then having it redirect me to the app.

Oh, I forgot about this, yeah, you can use the links that webpages post to workaround it. Quite annoying though, I think I only used it once.

Here's an example link,

https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=5551112233

On iOS this is an OS facility and works for all apps (also for email codes if using apple mail on the iPhone)

For WhatsApp, WhatsApp business lets you easily start conversations just by entering any phone number. But yeah it’s still WhatsApp and meta, I personally avoid it as much as I can.

> It always freaked me out that WhatsApp found the SMS code sent to verify the phone number without requiring any action from me.

I don't fault you for not trusting Meta - I feel the same.

That said, what you're talking about here is an OS feature nowadays.

In testing I did, it is possible to run WhatsApp on Android without access to "Contacts"

For example,

1. Export contacts from the Contact app to a file if it is not a new phone

2. Disable Contacts app

3. Install a different contact database such as OpenContacts from F-Droid or Github

4. Import contacts from the file into OpenContacts

WhatsApp will not import the contacts in the OpenContacts database

Further, no other app will import these contacts either

This solves the "access to contacts" issue

the issue is that it shouldn't NEED to be solved by user in the first place

Never had these software developer created issues with landlines.

I find it is useful to do so for all corporations.

Sure, but most aren’t able to execute on their evil so effectively.

Apple included?

Yes. Apple is a huge corporation and I feel confident that such an entity would happily harm any person or group of persons in the pursuit of profit.

Are there any examples?

I get the impression that Apple would rather have lower hardware manufacturing costs than ensure fair working conditions, as an example of harming people in the pursuit of profit. [1]

Perhaps that's not "bad enough" but I think the general sentiment that corporations value profits over harms to people (especially since they often try to distance themselves by offshoring, etc) applies to Apple as well.

[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-30532463

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25607386

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43852145

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26644216

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42014588

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41712728

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34299433

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44529061

The host the data for Chinese customers in a mainland datacenter. Chinese iPhones can not use eSims. Foxconn has nets…

Absolutely, if in nothing else but their pricing!

Not really. Meta is kind of the most corrupt towards users of the big tech companies imho. All companies want to make a profit but Meta has very few scruples.

Whose interests corporations act in is not arbitrary, it’s tied to how they make money.

Meta and Google make their money primarily from advertisers, Apple makes money from consumers buying iPhones. One of the upsides to paying for something is that the company is incentivized to keep you paying or get you to pay more.

Something I remind people who buy cheaper Android phones and then complain about ads - the OS development is being subsidized by those ads. From Google’s perspective, securing their revenue stream is the justification for Chrome and Android’s existence. It’s not a purely altruistic move to fund their open source development.

Charts of the revenue stream for some major tech companies:

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-how-does-meta-make-...

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/alphabets-revenue-breakdown...

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-how-apple-makes-its...

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/how-amazon-makes-its-billio...

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/how-microsoft-makes-its-bil...

Older aggregate chart:

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/how-big-tech-makes-their-bi...

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