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DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

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Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#311

Post by tyingq »

davidhyde wrote: post #297
setr wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple’s main business is hardware, and software that helps sell the hardware. Any revenue from data is likely a seperate, minor stream; and for it to become a significant one, likely requires significant changes in Apple’s operations. Like any other hardware company, they don’t need google’s kind of data collection to make money. But DDG is primarily funded by search, and the search business is funded by ads, which a…

DDG’s “product” is a privacy centric search. Once they get big why would they throw their product away and become like the competition? That simply does not make any sense because the only reason why most people use them is the privacy aspect. Good on Apple and DDG for realising that privacy has value and using that to grow their product.

Brin and Page pretty much say it's inevitable that a commerical search engine will succumb to "evil". The only solution they present is an academic/non-profit run search engine.

http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html (scroll down to "Appendix A: Advertising and Mixed Motives")

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#312

Post by 2bitencryption »

Aunche wrote: post #203
johnsea wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google _is_ a privacy threat. Completely unrelated to DDG, marketing or believe. One Google with thousand tentacles...

I'm a bit uncomfortable with how much DDG's marketing is focused on trashing their competition. They deliberately obfuscate privacy issues to strengthen their narrative. Sure duckduckgo is a good company right now, but that's only because they're small. I doubt they'll stay that way when they capture a significant market share.

> when they capture a significant market share.

but they haven't built a better mousetrap, and they're up against the greatest mousetrap ever known to mankind

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#313

Post by bduerst »

thinkloop wrote: post #244
bduerst wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? Apple shared all their iCloud user data (messages, pics, docs, etc.) and keys with the Chinese government last year. [1] Apple even updated their TOS forcing Chinese users to agree to it or drop service. [2] Google got flak for just considering it with Dragonfly, but Apple actually did it . [1] https://mashable.com/article/china-government-apple-icloud-d... [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-i…

Boycotting of countries or not is one thing. Once in a country and following the law, Apple's business model is simply more conducive to privacy. Unlike Google, they are not reliant on the collection and analysis of data. On the contrary, like DDG, they use privacy as a differentiator and advantage. The only thing you can trust about companies is their business models.

If you just cherry pick actions and ignore things such as sharing millions of their users' data with a surveillance state, then sure, they seem privacy focused.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#315

Post by bduerst »

celeritascelery wrote: post #225
bduerst wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Added sources. Apple moved the keys for accessing the data at rest to Chinese servers, which were nationalized by the Chinese government. The Chinese government has access to the users' data at rest and the keys to decrypt it.

I think you are misunderstanding. Apple moved Chinese iClouds to Chinese firms. So yes, Chinese iCloud users in China will be under the full surveillance of the government. Which they always have been. But that has no impact on anyone outside of China. Dragonfly is a censored search engine, not a user data base.

The Chinese firms were nationalized by the government in July, giving full access. This isn't generic surveillance but complete ownership. First source listed in my original comment.

Dragonfly was complying with China's firewall, because clicking broken links in search results sucks, but it was also linking every search query to the users phone number and sharing with the Chinese government, which is what Google employees revolted over.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#316

Post by Brakenshire »

t0astbread wrote: post #264
aphextron wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I wish they were explaining why they moved away from Mapbox and OSM in general! Because it sucks. Isn’t that obvious? There’s no point in having a feature that nobody uses. I switched to DDG a few months ago and this has always been the one weakness. This is really good news IMO. Apple maps has come a long long way since launch, and their data is about on par with Google at this point. You can argue all day that of…

You're forgetting one detail that I think should be emphasized here: OSM is about free knowledge (as in freedom). You can use, modify and share OSM data however you want. Apple on the other hand is hoarding its information. You can only access it through their products in the ways they intended. They control everything (as always). I do believe it when Apple says they're respecting their users' privacy, just like I b…

It’s disappointing that DDG isn’t supporting an open infrastructure, but when you think about it their offering is in fact a closed infrastructure similar in principle to Apple’s. It is a closed product, but which promises to protect your privacy. That has value when choosing to use a service in the short term, but it’s not something to build on or to rely on in the long term, after all both companies could make any pivot they want if their incentives change in future. A better model would be contributing to a search engine which is open source, that cannot pivot without being forked.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#317

Post by spectre256 »

mtmail wrote: post #9

Some paint it as if the main reason to switch was privacy ( https://www.imore.com/duckduckgo-switches-apple-maps-because... "DuckDuckGo switches to Apple Maps, because privacy"), but the previous map provider was mapbox (openstreetmap plus commercial sources) and I doubt mapbox collected more data than Apple is now.

Whether or not Mapbox collects more data is an interesting question. My guess would be they do, by a lot.

If you look at their website, Mapbox is all about "live" location data, insights, etc. The days of them just being a provider of nice services built around (mostly) open data are probably over. They have a huge userbase and can leverage all that data to do powerful things.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#318

Post by maxerickson »

st3fan wrote: post #88
NicoJuicy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or Apple's marketing team lead to a donation to DDG to make it possible

Why does the glass always have to be half empty? Maybe Apple simply was the better choice?

To be fair, the glass is often full of gasoline.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#319

Post by cageface »

zaksoup wrote: post #304
cageface wrote: post #285

I’m a bit concerned about how much data Google has on me and I do think Apple is genuinely more concerned about user privacy. But what’s the difference in practical terms really? Google uses my data to target ads at me but doesn’t actually give any of my data to its ad-buying customers. Apple doesn’t do this but is obliged to turn over my iCloud data to the government with a subpoena. Since this is really the scenari…

Seems to me like one of the key differences is in how much data is actually collected. DDG claims in their blog post that they send no PII to apple, they're just using apple to provide a map view and search data. I'm not even sure this level of anonymized usage is possible with google's APIs. Edit: I just had the experience of trying to use biking directions in google maps the other day. In order to enable actual tur…

Yeah I agree this is very shady. Until recently you couldn't use Google Assistant at all without enabling that, which means that every time you launch an app it's logged on their servers. They've fixed this recently but they still require you to turn it on for a lot of features in Android.

Re: DuckDuckGo will use Apple Maps

#320

Post by amdelamar »

Krasnol wrote: post #231
mtmail wrote: post #9

Some paint it as if the main reason to switch was privacy ( https://www.imore.com/duckduckgo-switches-apple-maps-because... "DuckDuckGo switches to Apple Maps, because privacy"), but the previous map provider was mapbox (openstreetmap plus commercial sources) and I doubt mapbox collected more data than Apple is now.

Is it just me or does the map-link go to yelp.com? Why are we even talking about Apple here when it's yelp getting the clicks? This is terrible...

Apple Maps on iOS/macOS shows Yelp photos and reviews of places.
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