Earlier quoted context omitted.
Compelled to use FB Messenger when WhatsApp is available? I don't think there are many people who have FB, but not WhatsApp.
Facebook owns WhatsApp.
Certainly but WhatsApp is rather privacy-friendly.
Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'
31–40 of 140 posts
Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'
#32With the data Apple collects including via Apple Pay and Health I’m not sure there is that much difference in all honesty. What the data is used for is another issue.
That’s misleading, Apple goes through pains to keep data on the device, or limit their exposure. They don’t store your transaction history for Apple Pay, and I believe the same is true for HealthKit. iCloud backups are a glaring privacy issue but you can also manage your own backups locally.
Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'
#33What about the data that Apple collects in macOS 10.13 users? Anonymous data collection is not really anonymous. IP addresses and other logs leak lots of identifiable information even with all of the collection settings toggled off in various preference panes. It is kind of hypocritical for Tim to criticize a practice that Apple currently engages in (you can't claim otherwise once you jump down that rabbit hole).
Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's just co-incidence that they align on this issue, though. They care about user privacy because they happen to make most of their money by selling hardware, not ads or data. But ask them to open up that hardware and let you install your own OS? That's a no. Even something as simple as letting your preferred mapping software be the default. Apple loves privacy and hates freedom. It sure looks like the only thing th…
> Apple loves privacy and hates freedom. It sure looks like the only thing they actually care about is their financial interest. Hates freedome how? This statement is overbroad. In a nutshell, I would rather support Apple as they're primarily a hardware company that has stated their privacy interests align with mine. As opposed to me supporting an advertising company that happens to sell phones and produce a mobile o…
> Hates freedome how? This statement is overbroad.
In the sense that their devices are not free.
> Besides which, I just want to use my phone, not spend endless hours fucking around with it to install all manner of stuff.
The fact that you don't want to use it that way is hardly relevant to the question of freedom.
Listen, i'm not saying they should spend a bunch of time engineering a solution to support this use case. I'm not saying they should aid people in doing it in any way. But that's not all they're doing. They actively expend resources to thwart people controlling their own devices. It is their corporate policy not just not to support this behavior, but to make it technologically impossible. That is the key point.
If Apple had just said "if you modify the OS, you void your warrant and you're on your own - we offer you zero support", i'd be totally fine with that. Personally, i'm not interested in modifying my device at all, i'm happy to leave it as is. But to go out of their way to make it impossible to do that? That's anti-freedom, no matter how you slice it.
Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's just co-incidence that they align on this issue, though. They care about user privacy because they happen to make most of their money by selling hardware, not ads or data. But ask them to open up that hardware and let you install your own OS? That's a no. Even something as simple as letting your preferred mapping software be the default. Apple loves privacy and hates freedom. It sure looks like the only thing th…
Apple can make a very good case that your vision of freedom is in opposition to privacy. By preventing certain things you categorize as 'freedom' Apple can provide stronger security and privacy protection, they can limit the ability of untrustworthy developers to sidestep protections, they can make it incredibly difficult to set up side-channels that leak privacy, and they can set OS-mediated protections of device in…
> Apple can make a very good case that your vision of freedom is in opposition to privacy. By preventing certain things you categorize as 'freedom' Apple can provide stronger security and privacy protection, they can limit the ability of untrustworthy developers to sidestep protections, they can make it incredibly difficult to set up side-channels that leak privacy, and they can set OS-mediated protections of device info (GPS, etc) that are difficult to bypass.
None of that is true. All they need to do is create an opt-out mechanism to over-ride those security settings that requires authentication. It's trivial to have both, they just choose not to.
Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's just co-incidence that they align on this issue, though. They care about user privacy because they happen to make most of their money by selling hardware, not ads or data. But ask them to open up that hardware and let you install your own OS? That's a no. Even something as simple as letting your preferred mapping software be the default. Apple loves privacy and hates freedom. It sure looks like the only thing th…
Are you not conflating two separate issues here? How is letting you install your own OS helping with improving privacy? In today's world can you really decouple hardware and software if you want strict controls over data and hence privacy?
I'm not conflating the issues. What i'm saying is that Apple acts like they care about privacy, because it's in their strategic interest to do so. However, truly caring about privacy tends to go along with caring about freedom. Apple does not care about freedom, as evidenced by their device locking. Ergo, Apple cares about privacy only insofar as it benefits them to do so.
Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'
#37Of course Tim Cook would say that. His business model doesn't depend on it. When he decides to unwall the iPhone garden, i'll give him the time of day on issues like this. Until then, he's just looking out for his own interests, as far as i'm concerned.
I get where you're coming from, but I'm not sure that matters to me personally. Privacy and security are important to me, and that's what Apple is selling, so I'm going to buy. The more consumers support privacy as a selling feature, the more Apple will guard it. I'll gladly pay a premium to a company that has a vested interest in keeping my shit safe, and a straightforward business model of keeping me happy enough t…
I don't disagree. I'm not trying to discourage anyone from buying their products. If you care about privacy, absolutely, buy an iPhone. I'm just trying to point out that their caring about privacy comes as much from a place of greed and fortunate coincidence than anything else.
Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'
#38With the data Apple collects including via Apple Pay and Health I’m not sure there is that much difference in all honesty. What the data is used for is another issue.
You can decide for yourself whether you believe Apple or not, but they're pretty clear on what data is available to Apple in these circumstances:
Apple Pay:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203027
> "Apple Pay is also designed to protect your personal information. Apple doesn’t store or have access to the original credit, debit, or prepaid card numbers that you use with Apple Pay. And when you use Apple Pay with credit, debit, or prepaid cards, Apple doesn't retain any transaction information that can be tied back to you—your transactions stay between you, the merchant or developer, and your bank."
Also (https://www.apple.com/privacy/):
> "When you use a credit or debit card with Apple Pay we don’t keep transaction information that can be tied back to you, so we can’t create a history of your purchases. And when you use Apple Pay Cash, information is stored only for fraud prevention, troubleshooting, and regulatory purposes."
If you're suspicious, there's plenty of room in "fraud prevention" and "trouble shooting" for you to make whatever case you want. The first sentence is pretty clear that there isn't enough information to create a history. I suppose there's wiggle room to interpret that as they may be keeping some kind of summary of the purchase history rather than a detailed transaction log.
Health data:
https://www.apple.com/privacy/approach-to-privacy/
> "When your phone is locked with a passcode, Touch ID, or Face ID, all your health and fitness data in the Health app is encrypted. And any Health data backed up to iCloud is encrypted both in transit and on our servers."
> "We also require apps that work with HealthKit to provide a privacy policy for you to review. Your data in the Health app and your activity data on Apple Watch are encrypted with keys protected by your passcode."
Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'
#39[deleted]
Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'
#40Of course Tim Cook would say that. His business model doesn't depend on it. When he decides to unwall the iPhone garden, i'll give him the time of day on issues like this. Until then, he's just looking out for his own interests, as far as i'm concerned.
Apple, Microsoft and Amazon will be perfectly unperturbed when the so-called “attention economy” goes away. They are real companies offering real goods and services.
Yeah, Google and Facebook are not tech companies. They are mainly ad companies run by social justice activists. Their only purpose is to stuff ads down peoples throats.