Image via: @kristinatastic
Twitter is about to get very nosey with its mobile subscribers, and if you’re among the millions of people using the company’s app on your smartphone, you’ll definitely want to listen up. The short-form social media outlet’s new app graph feature will soon start tracking which applications you have installed on your devices. This opt-out feature is being introduced to help the firm insert better ads and recommendations into your timeline.
In a Q&A description of this initiative, Twitter reinforces that it will not collect data from within applications and says that it will notify you when its monitoring feature is active. Not exactly a foreign practice, several existing mobile apps already collect information about their users, however considering Twitter’s massive number of subscribers this new practice might make some folks feel uneasy.
Here’s how to disable this feature:
- From the Me tab, tap the gear icon.
- Tap Settings.
- Tap the account you’d like to adjust.
- Under Privacy, you can adjust the setting to Tailor Twitter based on my apps.
(via Re/code)
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Who uses Twitter on an iPhone anymore? Tweetbot 3 is much better.
Better UI yes, but TweetBot doesn’t have the ability to send notifications when a particular account tweets.
Only reason I would ever have the official app on my device, right there. It’s too bad, really.
Screw them, they can keep their noses out of my phone. I just deactivated my account.
Ha, or don’t worry about it since you’re on iOS 6 and version 5.10. What? Just me?
Um, I think just you ;)
I’d like to know how Twitter gets access to this information since it’s off limits to apps.
That’s what comes to mind… Only Jailbreak and Private API allows that…
Me too! I know on Android this kind of crap is easy and common place, but I’ll be DAMNED if I let any app that pulls this kind of shit to run on my iOS gear!
Well, iOS has its own Twitter framework, so I guess it has special access privileges other third-party apps don’t have?
That’s incorrect. Many apps – and certainly most of the big ones – have their own URL scheme and by that another app can check if that particular app is installed. With iOS 8’s new document sharing features there may be other ways too. It’s a double-edged sword – apps should be able to talk to each other; but we don’t want snooping.
For myself, I’ll probably just uninstall the twitter app.
They can’t get access to apps they don’t own or even know about, mine for instance.
This was announced earlier in the day for their Android app, but didn’t think it would also come down to iOS. Now I’m p’ed off!
Just checked and my version of the app still doesn’t have this “feature”. Will be keeping an eye open for the update, when it comes, that’s the FIRST thing I’ll be DEACTIVATING!
Bunch of a-holes!
just deleted Twitter from my phone. No brainer. Buh-bye.
Once this “feature” is no longer opt-out, that’s when I’ll delete my account.
EASIER WAY TO OPT OUT
Hold down on the Twitter app. When the icon starts wiggling and a delete button appears, hit the delete button. Done.
Twitter is very popular and very difficult to get the names of the subscribers unlike other apps.
DELETED!
If you use Twitter that’s half the problem.