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How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me

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Re: How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me

#51

Post by jmelloy »

gumby wrote: post #32
Cenk wrote: post #9

Did we really need a photo of the author holding a prinout of the data? > It kept a copy of every app and song I'd downloaded, every tune I'd added to my iTunes music library, and every time I needed repair on a multitude of Apple devices going back a decade. Is this surprising in any way? If you buy something (or "buy" it for free on the App Store) of course the company you buy it from keeps records of that.

> Is this surprising in any way? If you buy something (or "buy" it for free on the App Store) of course the company you buy it from keeps records of that. It need not; for example it doesn't need historical data that have been superseded; if it no longer has an app available for download it could purge the fact that you bought it; it could give purchasers an anonymized download key that their phone could store (or ca…

That’s pretty rough from a financial audit perspective.

For budgeting purposes I’ve tried to find a full list of my iTunes purchase, and couldn’t find it in the store. Didn’t think to look in privacy.

Re: How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me

#52

Post by ldayley »

psergeant wrote: post #12
falcolas wrote: post #4

I always question the effectiveness of obfuscating data using "unique identifiers" against a party determined to de-obfuscate the data. Aside from that, however, this is an encouraging read.

You may enjoy learning more about Differential Privacy. https://machinelearning.apple.com/2017/12/06/learning-with-p...

Some interesting previous discussion regarding the limitations of Apple's differential privacy can be found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15224312

Re: How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me

#53

Post by baddox »

mmastrac wrote: post #36

I have a theory that the only reason Apple is today's beacon of user privacy is that they couldn't manage to compete in either the ad (iAd), mail (at least not at G-scale) or social network world (see: Ping). The only path left for them was to say they were all about user privacy. If Apple had succeeded wildly in any of those three spaces, I think they'd be caught up like Google, Facebook et al. I'm not saying this i…

If that’s true then it makes me that much more confident in Apple’s privacy practices. I will trust a profit motive to respect privacy much more than a CEO or leadership team that respects (or claims to respect) privacy purely as an ethical principle.

Re: How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me

#54

Post by __sr__ »

mmastrac wrote: post #36

I have a theory that the only reason Apple is today's beacon of user privacy is that they couldn't manage to compete in either the ad (iAd), mail (at least not at G-scale) or social network world (see: Ping). The only path left for them was to say they were all about user privacy. If Apple had succeeded wildly in any of those three spaces, I think they'd be caught up like Google, Facebook et al. I'm not saying this i…

That may be true, but I am not complaining.

Note that I do not fully agree with the parent.

Re: How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me

#56

Post by joshuamorton »

baddox wrote: post #53
mmastrac wrote: post #36

I have a theory that the only reason Apple is today's beacon of user privacy is that they couldn't manage to compete in either the ad (iAd), mail (at least not at G-scale) or social network world (see: Ping). The only path left for them was to say they were all about user privacy. If Apple had succeeded wildly in any of those three spaces, I think they'd be caught up like Google, Facebook et al. I'm not saying this i…

If that’s true then it makes me that much more confident in Apple’s privacy practices. I will trust a profit motive to respect privacy much more than a CEO or leadership team that respects (or claims to respect) privacy purely as an ethical principle.

This doesn't make sense. A CEO who touts it as an ethical principle, if they're being honest, is likely to actually try to protect your privacy. For profit reasons, there's no reason to actually protect your privacy as long as they keep up appearances.

Re: How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me

#57

Post by GeekyBear »

mmastrac wrote: post #36

I have a theory that the only reason Apple is today's beacon of user privacy is that they couldn't manage to compete in either the ad (iAd), mail (at least not at G-scale) or social network world (see: Ping). The only path left for them was to say they were all about user privacy. If Apple had succeeded wildly in any of those three spaces, I think they'd be caught up like Google, Facebook et al. I'm not saying this i…

iAd did poorly because Apple was unwilling to share data about their customers with advertisers.

>Advertisers Not Thrilled With Apple’s Practice Of Protecting Its Users’ Data... rather than offering a cookie-based ad-tracking and targeting mechanism, it essentially requires partners to tell it what kind of audience it needs to reach, and then trust that Apple will handle the rest

https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/18/advertisers-not-thrilled-w...

Ping was intended to integrate with Facebook, but Jobs canceled that integration at the last second, citing “onerous terms that we could not agree to”. It's uncertain if those terms were privacy related.

http://allthingsd.com/20100902/steve-jobs-on-why-facebook-is...

Re: How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me

#58

Post by snowwrestler »

mmastrac wrote: post #36

I have a theory that the only reason Apple is today's beacon of user privacy is that they couldn't manage to compete in either the ad (iAd), mail (at least not at G-scale) or social network world (see: Ping). The only path left for them was to say they were all about user privacy. If Apple had succeeded wildly in any of those three spaces, I think they'd be caught up like Google, Facebook et al. I'm not saying this i…

Maybe not directly an opposing opinion, but I'll point out that Apple makes more money than any ad, email, or social media company, so I think it's hard to argue that Apple has somehow screwed up as a business.

In other words, to me it seems reasonable to think that they affirmatively chose a strategy that has worked out for them--not that their strategy was forced upon them by their shortcomings.

I would also quibble with your characterization that there is some difference between the ad, email, or a social network worlds. Google and Facebook are ad companies--look at their revenue. Apple is not.

I will say that I don't think Steve Jobs set out 18 years ago to turn Apple into a privacy company. I think it's reasonable to say that Apple concentrated on products and services, and discovered privacy as a differentiating strategy along the way.

But it's just as true to say that Google and Facebook discovered data-driven advertising along the way too. Both projects started out without a business model at all.

Re: How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me

#59

Post by baddox »

joshuamorton wrote: post #56
baddox wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that’s true then it makes me that much more confident in Apple’s privacy practices. I will trust a profit motive to respect privacy much more than a CEO or leadership team that respects (or claims to respect) privacy purely as an ethical principle.

This doesn't make sense. A CEO who touts it as an ethical principle, if they're being honest, is likely to actually try to protect your privacy. For profit reasons, there's no reason to actually protect your privacy as long as they keep up appearances.

There are certainly legal reasons to not directly lie about the privacy practices of your company. I’m sure it has happened before, but are we really worried about, for example, Facebook lying about WhatsApp messages being end-to-end encrypted? Surely researchers would expose that lie pretty quickly.

And CEOs and leadership teams come and go. If the only thing making a company respect your privacy is the principles of the CEO, and especially if that respect for privacy is bad for the company’s bottom line, then you can bet that CEO is going to have a change of heart after a board meeting or is going to get fired as soon as there’s a bad quarter.

Re: How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me

#60

Post by [deleted] »

sykh wrote: post #48
lern_too_spel wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's eye opening that the author doesn't use iCloud? Why? Almost nobody uses iCloud. Each of its components is worst in class.

I use iCloud for storage. It’s worked great for me. I’ve never had a problem with it. It wasn’t eye opening to me that the author doesn’t use iCloud.

[deleted]
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