Comment by acdha
2 years ago
There were huge downsides for battery life before, and privacy is somewhat orthogonal since you’d be at risk from more companies and they’d all be subject to the same legal demands, so I think the answer has to be regulatory. In the EU, that seems possible but I’m not sure the U.S. government is currently functional enough to do anything about this.
Allowing third-party notification systems (such as UnifiedPush) would have practically no negative effect on battery life
Not to mention that people might prefer to use some more battery in exchange for more privacy
It certainly had an impact when Apple and Google shipped platform notifications because each of those systems kept the radio active.
It’s possible that a better interface could be developed but it wouldn’t help privacy unless the implementers were in different legal jurisdictions: the same government which can subpoena or NSL Apple or Google could’ve asked e.g. Urban Airship for the same details. There’s also a challenge in that each implementation is a chance to make mistakes or fail to deliver promised privacy protections, and someone in a country which isn’t the United States might have stronger privacy laws but is also a legitimate NSA target. This kind of problem just doesn’t have simple solutions.
It's a much bigger nuisance and risk to have several smaller parties to handle court orders; some of which could indeed be in other jurisdictions by the way.
Before the platform notifications every single app kept their own connections open; allowing (completely) third part notification platforms would have a small or non-existent impact
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