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Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

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Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#141

Post by oceanplexian »

Terretta wrote: post #116
banachtarski wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all over the place I can't even begin, or do you not see the plethora of ads plaguing apps available in the app store and mobile web. If you think tracking isn't involved, you're sorely mistaken. Apple set the 30% tax for premium goods, and effectively killed the premium market as a result. Google followed suit largely because it aligns with Google's core business. Apple's angle is? Honestly, I have no clue. I'm…

> 30% ... Apple’s angle? ... inclined to think it’s incompetency This 30% number is accurate but hardly all tax. First, companies attempting to compete with Steam have found it costs 12% to 18% to just run a digital store, without all the app review, customer discovery & acquisition, hosting and delivery, and ecosystem integration Apple and Steam are doing, much less human support. Second, just a credit card transact…

Is it really that hard to deliver a 15Mb .ipa file to someone's iDevice, that Apple needs a 30% cut of every transaction to do so?

It's not incredibly difficult to operate a trusted digital app sales ecosystem at all. It's just that there is no competition. If Apple wasn't a monopoly, I have no doubt someone like Amazon could deliver a service that undercut Apple by 90% and deliver the same exact "trusted" ecosystem.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#142

Post by scarface74 »

IMTDb wrote: post #53
threeseed wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can release a free app and sell subscriptions through real world means e.g. advertising, PR. You control the customers and you pay Apple nothing. So this idea that Apple is forcing developers to do anything is nonsense.

We are a B2B SAAS company offering analytics and marketing data. We wanted to offer our customer the ability to have a free app to interact with our service on their phone. We wanted our customers to subscribe on the web but not using in-app subscriptions. We are unable to release this app on the AppStore until we change our whole payment/subscription/billing stack to support Apple subscription system and agree to gi…

Well seeing that their are plenty of examples of apps that do this, I find it hard to believe.

I worked at a SAAS company that allowed the app to be on the App Store but you had to have a contract with us to use it.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#143

Post by gnode »

pulse7 wrote: post #82
thefounder wrote: post #34

Still they were/are part of PRISM so keep in mind that the privacy offered depends by various U.S agencies.

Yes - they were part of it - and they are saying "What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone."... so they are effectively lying... It would be better not to say anything...

I took this to mean: we can't legally guarantee your privacy for anything not on your own device; nobody can. Their claim seems to be that private data is kept on the device (from https://www.apple.com/privacy/ ), and protected by encryption within the user's control. By designing the software such that private data stays on the device, it can't be gotten without targeted physical access (and perhaps coercing the user's passcode from them), rather than scooping up everyone's data from the cloud, unbeknownst to the users, and unauditable to security researchers.

That said, I'm not sure how much trust I'd place in Apple, but at least this security model is to some extent auditable.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#144

Post by nabla9 »

riazrizvi wrote: post #123

Apple delivers privacy from 3rd party developers and at the same time retains all that user data for itself, shoring up its unfair competitive advantage as a non-neutral-platform who makes major forays into its partners’ businesses. Eg health apps, maps, news, podcasts, imusic, etc, etc.

User data has less value for Apple.

The main economic incentive to collect massive amounts of user data comes from two-sided market (users and advertisers). Google, Facebook are in that market.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#145

Post by jclardy »

braythwayt wrote: post #95
banachtarski wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know when I'll believe it? When the un-screw up their app store which vastly incentivizes the development of free-to-use ad-driven apps that prey on user tracking data over premium alternatives. Ad-based revenue has a higher value proposition to developers because it dodges the inane anachronistic 30% tax. "Privacy" first is an utter illusion when the majority of apps approved in this closed ecosystem that ostens…

It’s not a dichotomy, so I will just say that in addition to circumventing the app store’s take, developers have users to “blame” for the race-to-the-bottom of the surveillance capitalism bucket. As long as users will balk at paying even 4.99 for an app, developers will make them free and then engage in dark business models like surveillance and terrible in-app purchases. To be fair and stop “blaming the victims,” th…

The solution I believe still lies in Apple's court.

Say you have an app that is a niche app with a 7 day free trial and a one-time purchase. How does this look to the user? Exactly like every other freemium/ad riddled/subscription/pay-to-play app. The download button says "Get" and underneath it you see "In-App Purchases Available." User expectations are destroyed at the download page.

One part of the solution is to allow developers to actually define an app as a time limited free trial. Make the download button say "START FREE TRIAL" and underneath "$4.99 to Purchase". Let the user buy or take the free trial from the App Store...but most importantly let them know that it isn't yet another subscription app, or something riddled with ads (Even going so far as to add an app review check that will look for ad network connections to ensure compliance.)

Apple has created a system where user's are now afraid of in-app purchases, because they allowed kids games to be riddled with them and other apps to setup up predatory free trial structures with weekly renewals (And until recently, buried the subscriptions page in a few levels of settings menus.)

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#146

Post by DonHopkins »

craigsmansion wrote: post #94

Next up: Aaas, Anonymity as a service... The bottom line is, only you care about your privacy, because you're the only one who can care about your privacy. You can do that by voting, and by running Free Software. Effective privacy and anonymity are based on control:control of your software, control of your hardware, control of your life. Everyone asking you for control in exchange for anonymity or privacy does not ne…

Daas: Doxing as a Service, on an Open Identity Marketplace (meBay). Users can selectively sell their anonymity and personal information, consensually doxing themselves to the highest bidder, and Apple gets a 30% cut.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#147

Post by scarface74 »

marvin wrote: post #137
pulse7 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - they were part of it - and they are saying "What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone."... so they are effectively lying... It would be better not to say anything...

They're constantly pushing you to upload your data to ICloud as well -- I apparently must have consented to upload an entire backup of my phone there recently, because I can't remember saying yes to this, but there it is. So even if my data was private while it was on my phone, it's not any more.

There is nothing forcing you to back up to iCloud and yes it does ask you. You can still as of now back up using iTunes.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#148

Post by ekianjo »

dijit wrote: post #58
ekianjo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it works fine on android as well, you just have to download a few clients from a store like FDroid.

All well and good to say such things, could you point me to a few? I was using Android as a daily driver for over 6 months and I didn't find anything in the play store that was of sufficient quality. (DAVDroid being the closest to decent, but it ran in the background and didn't do 2-way-sync correctly etc) FWIW I was using a Samsung Galaxy S8, and that model does not have the ability to be flashed (and I think it doe…

I use DAVDroid (now DAVx5) and I have had no issues with it so far, coupled with a NextCloud DAV server. So far it has worked well to sync contact information, calendars and the like (for close to 2 years now)

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#150

Post by smartbit »

geocar wrote: post #84
smartbit wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That they can get away with this arm-twisting as "privacy" is to give credit to their brand positioning. I think most EU Advertising Control Boards would verdict that Apple's privacy claims are misleading and therefore against the applicable Advertising Law.

> I think most EU Advertising Control Boards would verdict that Apple's privacy claims are misleading and therefore against the applicable Advertising Law. I think not. From the horses mouth[1]: Since the directive on unfair commercial practices (2005/29/EC) is in place, the misleading and comparative advertising directive has been applied only to business-to-business (B2B) relations concerning misleading advertising…

Your note seems not relevant to what misleading is. Please elaborate.
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