In-App Browser Tracking & Meta Chris Coyier

September 22, 2022

There is this buckwild insane thing that when you visit any URL on the internet whatsoever with the in-app browser built into Instagram (and several other apps), it injects JavaScript onto the page, the point of which is extreme tracking of what you are doing.

Set my Instagram profile URL to https://t.co/h41IPjQGcN to test out what its in-app browser injects on iOS and it’s… a lot.

This was reported heavily about a month ago and no action so far that I know of. WTF? pic.twitter.com/LbOFJiOGdR

Two things:

• Meta (and anyone else) should absolutely not be doing this. WTF?
• Apple should absolutely not allow this, through policy, action, and especially technologically.

So rather than Meta stopping it or Apple preventing them from doing it, normal people are suing Meta over it.

A Meta spokesperson has provided MacRumors with the following statement:

These allegations are without merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously. We have designed our in-app browser to respect users’ privacy choices, including how data may be used for ads

Sometimes there are gray areas. I almost always see gray areas in politics and debates of any kind. This just isn’t one of them. You can literally just look and see the JavaScript injection happening.

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