Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 140 posts

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

#21

Post by gkya »

bmarquez wrote: post #3
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.

Opening up iMessage to Android users would definitely reduce Facebook's collection of user data, since friends wouldn't be compelled to use FB Messenger. But yeah it's not in his business model.

Compelled to use FB Messenger when WhatsApp is available? I don't think there are many people who have FB, but not WhatsApp.

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

#22

Post by kgwgk »

bmarquez wrote: post #3
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.

Opening up iMessage to Android users would definitely reduce Facebook's collection of user data, since friends wouldn't be compelled to use FB Messenger. But yeah it's not in his business model.

But I would be more concerned about the privacy of the iMessage content on an Android device than on an iOS device.

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

#23

Post by scottmf »

gkya wrote: post #21
bmarquez wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opening up iMessage to Android users would definitely reduce Facebook's collection of user data, since friends wouldn't be compelled to use FB Messenger. But yeah it's not in his business model.

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.

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

#24

Post by mitchty »

darawk wrote: post #9
forgot-account wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s nice that Apple’s interests and my interests align. It always refreshing when a company puts a lot of effort into structuring their company in such a way that it aligns with users’ beat interests.

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 operating system that seems tailored to do the opposite.

The fact that I can't install my own OS is entirely tangential to the overall company goals of Apple versus Google or even Samsung. Focusing on a phone platform to behave as if it was the PC platform of the 80's reminds me of the for want of a nail proverb.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Want_of_a_Nail

Focusing too far down on "freedom" from the gnu perspective will just put us into territory we can't cover at all realistically right now.

Besides which, I just want to use my phone, not spend endless hours fucking around with it to install all manner of stuff.

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

#25

Post by r00fus »

macspoofing wrote: post #14

Apple's non-investment in cloud is starting to pay off. Hey Tim, how about letting app developers and browser makers use a non-safari rendering engine on the iPhone?

Tim has watched War Games apparently.

iCloud exists but facilitates storing only core data and otherwise is a sync mechanism.

Social aspects of iCloud are what's "missing" so even a large breach wouldn't result is 100x users being exposed.

The most galling part of the FB failure was that the people breached weren't the ones who installed the misbehaving app. And society at large paid for it.

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

#26

Post by earenndil »

gaius wrote: post #11
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.

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.

I don't know about completely. They still all show ads and collect user data. But they will be less affected than some others (google).

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

#28

Post by bmarquez »

gkya wrote: post #21
bmarquez wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opening up iMessage to Android users would definitely reduce Facebook's collection of user data, since friends wouldn't be compelled to use FB Messenger. But yeah it's not in his business model.

Compelled to use FB Messenger when WhatsApp is available? I don't think there are many people who have FB, but not WhatsApp.

I find WhatsApp is ubiquitous among my international friends, but my American friends who joined Facebook in college don't have it. Anecdotal data, of course.

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

#29

Post by htormey »

gaius wrote: post #11
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.

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.

I think it will hit them as well, just not to the same extent as Facebook & Google.

Microsoft owns LinkedIn, which is an advertising company. I also seem to recall that they make a reasonable chunk of change from search advertising and other online properties.

According to this link they took in a little over 6 billion in advertising revenue last year:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/725388/microsoft-corpora...

According to this link, amazon took in somewhere in the region of 1.7 billion in revenue from mainly advertising last quarter alone:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/725388/microsoft-corpora...

Post reply on HN