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Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

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Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#261

Post by wodenokoto »

goalieca wrote: post #71
daft_pink wrote: post #13

I think it's unfair to compare Facebook actively screwing us to Apple not adopting your proposed metric on their product and passively allowing a very popular app in their app store. Not a huge fan of Apple, but they aren't Facebook.

Apple does not have a tracking pixel on half the popular web. Apple's main source of income is through luxury hardware and subscription services. Facebook sells your information and attention to willing buyers.

They are already tracking all users across the highest grossing App Store and all text entered into the search bar of the 2nd most used browser flows through their servers.

So tracking might not be their business but they can very easily start a big business.

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#262

Post by azinman2 »

dwaite wrote: post #167
azinman2 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet it isn’t. One is a totally new platform and one already exists. You might use your login from one to enter the other, but they could totally delete just your threads account if they wanted.

There isn't a Threads account. You upgrade your Instagram account to work with Threads. It isn't a different platform, specifically because they didn't want to build up yet another social graph from scratch. Your graph in the Instagram app is your graph in the Threads app. This is somewhat akin to how Messenger isn't a different platform from the rest of Facebook. There may be a future 'downgrade' function, but remov…

UPDATE users SET threads = FALSE WHERE username = ‘foo’

There’s no intrinsic reason it has to be this way other than they built it to be as easy to join as possible.

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#263

Post by rubberband »

hospitalJail wrote: post #70
dm319 wrote: post #28

You don't expect your health data, financial data and purchase history (does that include anything paid for by Apple pay?) to be shared with Meta just because you are trying out Threads.

This kind of blew my mind. People get soo invested in Apple's Walled Ecosystem. Imagine in 10 years, they flip on a dime and start selling your info. 1 company has health, finance, search/URL history, emails, all pictures ever, etc... Yikes times 100.

Agreed on "yikes" for sure...

What I'd be interested in is, if [Evil Company] (not necessarily Apple or Google or whomever) got a hold of all the data that was vacuumed up in the process... how is that going to translate into them being able to do disturbing things?

I'm not saying they can't or won't... they record and store this firehose of arbitrary data in arbitrary formats... how they make sense of it. It's not like when you open Threads, it goes "ooh there's pictures of his dog... INSERT INTO Dog SELECT 12345, 'great-dane', {base64}"... They collect all this data... But it's not well formatted or understood.

Don't get me wrong, there's an ocean of money for whomever figures out the most evil stuff to do. I'm simply curious how.

I guess the HN crowd could... disrupt privacy /s

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#264

Post by Draiken »

tomnipotent wrote: post #237
Draiken wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it will. It's simply inevitable because of the system we live in. At some point or another, they will need to grow revenue and suddenly that trove of data they have collected beforehand, regardless of its initial purpose, will be used to screw customers. The only way to protect against this is to not let them have that in the first place. Once they have it, it's impossible to guarantee it won't be misused soo…

I don't think you're going to convince anyone by pulling some fiction out of thin air and trying to pass it off as inevitable truth. With regards to Apple, there's more evidence refuting you than supporting you.

This inevitability is inherent to our system. It's not specific to Apple.

I don't need to convince anyone of this. History will repeat itself as it always does.

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#265

Post by internet101010 »

MikusR wrote: post #226
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't own an apple device now but why does app store have ads ? After paying upwards of $1000+ on a iPhone, why can't you expect an ad free experience on a first party app store?

Even settings app on iphones has adds.

That is simply untrue.

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#266

Post by divbzero »

daft_pink wrote: post #13

I think it's unfair to compare Facebook actively screwing us to Apple not adopting your proposed metric on their product and passively allowing a very popular app in their app store. Not a huge fan of Apple, but they aren't Facebook.

OP is not saying that Apple and Meta are comparable, but rather that Apple should actively protect us to live up to their pro-privacy stance.

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#267

Post by tomnipotent »

Draiken wrote: post #264
tomnipotent wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're going to convince anyone by pulling some fiction out of thin air and trying to pass it off as inevitable truth. With regards to Apple, there's more evidence refuting you than supporting you.

This inevitability is inherent to our system. It's not specific to Apple. I don't need to convince anyone of this. History will repeat itself as it always does.

What an absolutely absurd generalization wrapped in aphorism. There is nothing in history that is absolutely repeated in all instances, nor is "history repeats itself" a valid argument that proves anything other than lazy thinking.

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#268

Post by paulryanrogers »

epistasis wrote: post #198
sumeno wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you always have to be squeezing more money from somewhere to keep your stock going up and ads are an easy place to get it

Do you have some examples of services going from fee-for-service to fee-and-ads-for-service? I am coming up blank. The closest that I can think of are areas that had been as based but then added fees as well, such as TV.

Cable TV, Netflix, Kindle, Windows

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#269

Post by Draiken »

vore wrote: post #243
Draiken wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it will. It's simply inevitable because of the system we live in. At some point or another, they will need to grow revenue and suddenly that trove of data they have collected beforehand, regardless of its initial purpose, will be used to screw customers. The only way to protect against this is to not let them have that in the first place. Once they have it, it's impossible to guarantee it won't be misused soo…

Apple has a pretty good revenue stream already without using telemetry for advertising, which is why they've been able to position themselves as so privacy focused. Maybe that might change in the future, but like it or not, the Apple ecosystem is lucrative enough already that it seems pretty unlikely they would be nefarious about it anytime soon.

I agree with you. But my point is that how it looks now is irrelevant. The world changes. CEOs change. Incentives change.

What won't change is the ultimate goal of any company: profit above all else.

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#270

Post by paulryanrogers »

giantrobot wrote: post #188
paulryanrogers wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry if the implication wasn't obvious. Once they sell B2C services it's just a matter of time before that too becomes ad supported, then your data (or at least eye balls) are for sale.

That just doesn't follow. You're making multiple leaps. First that Apple is going to add or switch to ad support for their services. The second is those ads will be as invasive as Facebook ads.

Fair point, yet you pay a premium for Apple hardware and get ads for Apple services constantly. ICloud red dot until you sign up/in, media play/pause always defaults to opening Apple Music, nags to use Safari, etc
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