They killed Netscape and had to put in a toggle with the option of other browsers like 10 years later. They paid next to nothing in fines and legal battles, basically putting a stranglehold on the internet itself that took another 10 to kinda of undo.
That’s just a fundamental problem with security. You can vault up your home but give your idiot brother in law a key and find the back door wide open, him drunk on the kitchen floor.
Prompts don’t work and aren’t really the right way to go because they are annoying and pretty cryptic as apps often assign a myriad of features to a single permission. Everyone’s just going to hit OK.
It’s a difficult issue to solve because there are so many edge cases. And fundamentally you can’t really control what others do with your number.
Honestly. I wish we started talking about doing away with phone numbers altogether. I feel tech is there. And it’s honestly such a massive fingerprint. I’ve had mine for 20 years ffs.
That is our win condition. To make it so costly for them that they bail on the idea. Because if we don’t, then it’s one step closer to their internet: locked down, hidden charges everywhere and content under their terms.
This isn’t just about ads, it’s about keeping information free.