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Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

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Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#51

Post by airstrike »

endisneigh wrote: post #17

If you want privacy guarantees do not install or use anything connected to the internet. Even HN - with stylometry and a motivated actor it's easy to correlate your username here with any other publicly written text. An even more motivated actor could do this with privately written text (you know, all of those data breaches). Stay offline for your safety. This is obviously unrealistic for many in the modern era. So n…

you can easily solve stylometry by just passing all your comments through an LLM that rewrites them in a different style or by creating throwaway accounts for each thread (not hard to automate either)

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#52

Post by ryandrake »

endisneigh wrote: post #39
jonhohle wrote: post #36

I wonder what it will take for people to finally get fed up with creepy advertising companies. I received a letter from Target that by default they’ll sell my information to unaffiliated third parties and I have to call or write a letter to opt-out. I’m sure I agreed to that at some point (and anyone signing up for a loyalty program that doesn’t cost anything should realize that’s what they are agreeing to, even if t…

> I wonder what it will take for people to finally get fed up with creepy advertising companies. As long as people get "free stuff" people won't get fed up.

What "free stuff" is OP getting from Target and CVS in exchange for the data they are collecting and sharing? Nothing. We're already not getting free stuff and people still aren't fed up.

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#54

Post by endisneigh »

ryandrake wrote: post #52
endisneigh wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder what it will take for people to finally get fed up with creepy advertising companies. As long as people get "free stuff" people won't get fed up.

What "free stuff" is OP getting from Target and CVS in exchange for the data they are collecting and sharing? Nothing. We're already not getting free stuff and people still aren't fed up.

Target and CVS are not "advertising companies". And if you'd like you can pay cash, no? The indirection (ad company to retailer) is intentional.

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#55

Post by toastal »

wredue wrote: post #41
fh9302 wrote: post #21

This article seems to conflate Apple for Meta's privacy violations. Yes, the OS can always make it more difficult to do fingerprinting and the app store could add even more "privacy warnings", but in the end if you use a privacy violating third party app they will always find ways to slurp up all your data. Using this as some kind of argument that Apple doesn't care about privacy is dishonest.

And uh. Let be honest with ourselves here. Our alternative is currently android. So instead of meta slurping up all your shit, google vacuums it all up and then some, and lets even more of it trickle in to meta.

Unless you go the custom ROM + microG option that 98% of folks would never do… or you embrace the Linux phone OS which has no ‘apps’ (like that banking app that banned you for rooting your other Linux (Android) phone) & the telephony barely works if it even does.

This duopoly sucks.

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#56

Post by troupo »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #43
screye wrote: post #32

Apple's core incentives are misaligned with stealing your data. And that's why they are more trustworthy than facebook. It's that simple. Apple is first and foremost a lifestyle company, then a b2b platform company, then a hardware company. The lifestyle company ensures customer acquisition and the 'unreasonable' pricing . The platform company is the revenue, the moat and the golden handcuffs for every 3rd party comp…

No corporation has strong incentives not to “steal” your data. It’s just not something 99% of consumers care about so if they can make more money doing it they will.

> It’s just not something 99% of consumers care about

Consumers definitely care about this. That's why there are so many dark patterns to tric consumers into providing their data. Also: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/05/07/most-iphone-users-app-t...

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#57

Post by toastal »

m3kw9 wrote: post #3

Apple does enough for privacy, but Meta is the real a*hole here

Was the Kool-Aid tasty? But seriously, all of these megacorps are bad for our privacy on absolute terms & doesn’t matter if one is relatively a little better or keeping your data from another corporation since they’re hoarding it for their own advertising.

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#58

Post by jkubicek »

> There's nothing wrong with a bit of data collection

I would argue that there is something wrong with a bit of data collection. Just take credit score for example, there's never an ethical reason for a social network to ever ask for or know my credit score.

edit: the author implies that collecting this kind of stuff is OK as long as companies are transparent about what they're doing and why. I don't think there's any level of transparency that makes collecting this user data OK.

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#59

Post by josefresco »

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 is allowing nefarious actors into their "walled garden". See the "security theater guy" referenced in the article. If you want the benefit of having a "walled garden" to extort developers (30%) and control customers (offloading not allowed), you need to take responsibility when someone you admit into your walled garden harms users.

Re: Apple vs. Meta: The Illusion of Privacy

#60

Post by GeekyBear »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #33
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.

I was going to say, nobody believes in any privacy Meta alleges. Even when they do E2EE they still collect anything else about you that they can.

Nobody believes anything Meta or Google have to say about privacy.

Google is currently trying to sell additional ways to spy on users built into the newest version of Chrome as a "privacy sandbox".

> all of Google's documentation about this feature feels like it was written on opposite day, with Google calling the browser-based advertising platform "a significant step on the path towards a fundamentally more private web."

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/09/googles-widely-oppos...

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