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Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

businessinsider.com

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Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

#61

Post by cdancette »

darawk wrote: post #51
millstone wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course Google will tell you that cigarettes cause cancer and climate change is a threat: they don't sell tobacco or drill for oil! They're just looking out for their own interests. Apple actively chooses to not pursue these revenue streams even though they have the resources and reach to do so.

> Apple actively chooses to not pursue these revenue streams even though they have the resources and reach to do so. I disagree. Apple can't compete in those spaces effectively because they're already owned by Google/FB. Microsoft has similar resources to Apple, and they tried to compete with Google on search - look how that turned out. Even Google can't compete with FB in social, look at Google Plus. Apple has, inte…

Microsoft azure is not going so bad, and it started in a space where amazon was far ahead. A large head start doesn't mean that you can't compete, it depends largely on the space.

Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

#62

Post by [deleted] »

darawk wrote: post #51
millstone wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course Google will tell you that cigarettes cause cancer and climate change is a threat: they don't sell tobacco or drill for oil! They're just looking out for their own interests. Apple actively chooses to not pursue these revenue streams even though they have the resources and reach to do so.

> Apple actively chooses to not pursue these revenue streams even though they have the resources and reach to do so. I disagree. Apple can't compete in those spaces effectively because they're already owned by Google/FB. Microsoft has similar resources to Apple, and they tried to compete with Google on search - look how that turned out. Even Google can't compete with FB in social, look at Google Plus. Apple has, inte…

[deleted]

Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

#63

Post by rimliu »

darawk wrote: post #2

Of 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.

"Unwall the iPhone garden"—you mean allow anyone to access things like SMS, or chat logs as was the case on Android? In that case I very much like those walls, thank you.

Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

#64

Post by daenz »

What actually said differs from the headline:

>"The ability of anyone to know what you've been browsing about for years, who your contacts are, who their contacts are, things you like and dislike and every intimate detail of your life — from my own point of view it shouldn't exist."

He said that the ability to know what they've collected about you shouldn't exist. Very different.

Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

#65

Post by djrogers »

daenz wrote: post #64

What actually said differs from the headline: >"The ability of anyone to know what you've been browsing about for years, who your contacts are, who their contacts are, things you like and dislike and every intimate detail of your life — from my own point of view it shouldn't exist." He said that the ability to know what they've collected about you shouldn't exist. Very different.

You’re reading that incorrectly, the headline is right.

Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

#66

Post by gkya »

aianus wrote: post #56
gkya wrote: post #21

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.

You know the phone numbers of all of your FB contacts? Getting someone's phone number has always felt like a much higher bar than their FB since you could harass them with calls, SMS, etc and it's more difficult to block. Plus there's an implicit sexual connotation if you ask a woman for her phone number that doesn't apply to Facebook or LinkedIn. I really don't like how WhatsApp piggybacks on phone numbers and phone…

> You know the phone numbers of all of your FB contacts?

I don't have a Facebook account.

> Getting someone's phone number has always felt like a much higher bar than their FB since you could harass them with calls, SMS, etc and it's more difficult to block.

It's quite easy to block a number. If they'll go as far as to use a different phone to call you, then they could also use someone else's FB account too.

> Plus there's an implicit sexual connotation if you ask a woman for her phone number that doesn't apply to Facebook or LinkedIn.

That's probably something specific to your culture or a misconception on your part. I don't see how the two actions are different when in the same context, except friending someone on FB means you let them not only try communicate you, but observe a certain period of your past and see pictures/videos/posts of yours. I can't see how that's not more demanding in terms of privacy than asking for someone's phone number.

I'd ideally go for an e-mail address instead of both of them, but well...

Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

#67

Post by darawk »

cdancette wrote: post #61
darawk wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple actively chooses to not pursue these revenue streams even though they have the resources and reach to do so. I disagree. Apple can't compete in those spaces effectively because they're already owned by Google/FB. Microsoft has similar resources to Apple, and they tried to compete with Google on search - look how that turned out. Even Google can't compete with FB in social, look at Google Plus. Apple has, inte…

Microsoft azure is not going so bad, and it started in a space where amazon was far ahead. A large head start doesn't mean that you can't compete, it depends largely on the space.

You're completely right. I didn't mean to imply that you can't compete with a head start. What I meant to imply was that in social/search specifically, it's extremely difficult to compete, due to the virtuous cycles of networks and data.

Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

#68

Post by darawk »

improbable22 wrote: post #57
darawk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ca…

The fact that they make it hard is what guarantees that there's a large pool of people with stock iphones. And this pool is too big a market to ignore, which is why I can have good apps, even from companies I don't trust, and deny them permissions I don't want to grant. I think Apple understands this. The freedom you desire has ecosystem effects which I don't want. You may quibble about precisely how hard is hard eno…

I see no reason to think that making this possible would alter their ecosystem at all. It would always be a small minority of users. A small minority that developers could always just ignore. Developers on Android don't bother to think about custom Android kernels, unless they're specifically targeting that user niche.

Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

#69

Post by evgen »

darawk wrote: post #46
evgen wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> truly caring about privacy tends to go along with caring about freedom Only in your opinion. A non-free system whose vendor has an incentive to protect privacy may also provide even stronger privacy protection for the masses than a system that meets your version of 'freedom'.

> Only in your opinion. A non-free system whose vendor has an incentive to protect privacy may also provide even stronger privacy protection for the masses than a system that meets your version of 'freedom'. This isn't a "version" of freedom. It is what freedom literally means. You can say you're willing to sacrifice some freedom to gain privacy, sure. But from a technical perspective, that's a totally false choice.

It is not a false choice from either a technical nor a philosophical perspective. There are positive and negative freedoms/liberties and each leads to different results when applied to a real world situation. You view freedom as a negative liberty (e.g. absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints) so anything that hinders your usage of a device in a manner you desire is contrary to your view of 'freedom'. Others may view device freedom as a positive liberty, where freedom is manifested in a way that enables them to take control of their life and realize a more fundamental purpose. If I view a computer as a means of accomplishing some other goal and not a tool that I need to think about much or to modify, but where the existence of such liberties can negatively impact my goal then your version of freedom makes me less free. If I need to spend time and mental energy wondering if some action I take might make my privacy less secure, if some app I install is a threat or a benefit, or if some action a third-party asks me to take is going to subtly invalidate a simple security model I keep in my head, then I am less free.

To dive straight towards the third-rail of this conversation, some people think that being able to go out and buy a gun makes them more free while other people think that the ability of other people (of possibly questionable mental state or moral character) to buy a gun increases the probability that they will be killed by someone else with a gun and because of this they are less free. Both are correct.

If only the market would allow us to make a choice as to which version of freedom we wish to engage in and would provide us with multiple competing platforms that represent alternative visions of computing and informational autonomy. If only...

Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

#70

Post by IBM »

IBM wrote: post #19

I hope Apple follows up on this by actually lobbying for a GDPR bill to be passed in the US.

It's funny that this comment has 10 upvotes but fell to the bottom of the page. No doubt there's a lot of vested interests against privacy legislation. To the Facebook and Google employees: it's already in the EU, and it's likely coming to the US in some form. If not at the federal level, certainly at the state level.
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