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

Post by soared » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:23 PM UTC

mistersquid wrote: post #17

ajmurmann wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then you have users who always go to the same PF Changs but use navigation in case there is traffic and they should use an alternate route. Your competitor app will learn this and adapt and yours won't. The average customer will have no idea you aren't storing their data and likely doesn't even care while they aren't reading an article about privacy. While I personally wish everyone were to take your approach is…

> And then you have users who always go to the same PF Changs but use navigation in case there is traffic and they should use an alternate route. Your competitor app will learn this and adapt and yours won't. Your conclusion doesn't follow from your premise. Once a user navigates to a specific PF Chang's from a specific location, the navigation app can suggest an alternate route that takes into account traffic, regar…

Post by aeorgnoieang » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:44 PM UTC

mgliwka wrote: post #7

Just pointing out the obvious: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The only eyeopening part would be the fact, that Apple doesn't store much about it's users, which isn't verifiable. Also unique identifiers are not the only way to link data. And due to differential privacy the guarantees that the data cannot be linked decays over time (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15224312 )

Post by xedeon » Fri, May 04, 2018, 5:21 PM UTC

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…

Post by grigjd3 » Fri, May 04, 2018, 7:05 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #38

EwanToo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the article is badly phrased, and that they mean that _each_ individual Siri request from a device is from a random identifier, so they can't track it back to you.

Per a recent article about Siri and third parties: > According to Wired, which reported on the story back in 2013, the data is shipped off to Apple's data farm for analysis, where it generates a random number that represents both the user and voice file. Six months later, Apple "disassociates" the user number from the clip, thereby deleting the number. The files are then stored for an additional 18 months, all for th…

Post by solarkraft » Fri, May 04, 2018, 8:46 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #47

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…

Or they realized that hardware and software (App Store) is the better long term approach. Hardware is what Apple has always been known for and Jobs in general if you add in Next. Google and FB sell ads and their products are built around better selling ads. Privacy is counterintuitive to their business model. Apple and even Microsoft can and should focus on privacy because their business models won’t be impacted as m…