"Users can grant or deny access to contact data on a per-app basis. Any call to CNContactStore will block the app while the user is being asked to grant or deny access. Note that the user is prompted only the first time access is requested; any subsequent CNContactStore calls use the existing permissions."
They do today, back up to 2012-2013 they did not. Apps were also overly abusing it back then such as Path [1] and many others.
> The operator of the Path social networking app has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceived users by collecting personal information from their mobile device address books without their knowledge and consent.
Android didn't really close/tighten permissions until 2014 with Android 4 Ice Cream.
I know this might come across as a nitpick, but A/B testing and similar techniques aren't at all about what users choose. They are about constructing a statistically correct test between two alternatives measured in some predetermined way (eg. transactions/users but equally well consenting users/total users) with the least amount of bias.
The bit about minimizing bias means that you couldn't possibly give users the A/B variants to choose from but instead must assert the best you can that no user is exposed to different variants of the same experiment. You would typically do this by giving the client a cookie with a random seed which you can then hash with a secret and the id of the experiment to get a randomly distributed but sticky/consistent variant assignment that doesn't scale client storage with the number of experiments. Where things get more interesting is how to change behavior when a user logs into a new device. Do you switch to the users set of variant assignments or keep the experience on this device consistent?
This being said, yeah, I'm pretty sure this is the result of optimization on "what fraction of users give consent" while keeping an eye on uninstall rate as a health metric.
Source: Redesigned/rewrote A/B testing (and general optimization) framework for large e-commerce company many years ago.
Well then it isn’t really much of choice is it? It’s a false choice. The product manager will apply as much pressure as needed to get the desired effect. To quote Captain Ramsey in Crimson Tide, “[Y]ou can get a horse to deal cards. It’s just a matter of voltage.”
"Users can grant or deny access to contact data on a per-app basis. Any call to CNContactStore will block the app while the user is being asked to grant or deny access. Note that the user is prompted only the first time access is requested; any subsequent CNContactStore calls use the existing permissions."
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/contacts#1773385