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Incentive. When devs announce how their software handles privacy concerns, they have an incentive to be honest because all it takes is one discovery of conflic

Incentive. When devs announce how their software handles privacy concerns, they have an incentive to be honest because all it takes is one discovery of conflicting code and their trust is lost. But if the code is closed source, that incentive for honesty is removed. Of course the media can still seek circumstantial evidence and make accusations, but that’s a far cry from version control. Separately, closed source code invites new incentives to disrespect user privacy for profit. So, there are these two major categories involved, both of which are mitigated by opening the source code. Apple remains liable for both of them. All that Apple has is an observation that they sell hardware too. I guess we are just assuming they already make enough money from advertising as it is and don’t really want more. I think there is a significant difference.

millstone 8y ago
Companies get hit with multi-million dollar fines for violating their privacy policies. So there's your incentive. I just don't see open source as better protecting privacy. See for example the telemetry in .NET Core or VS Code [1]. Users discover this stuff by watching network traffic, not through code audits. 1: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/16131 https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/16131
- extralego 8y ago
  Fines are accounted as overhead. Watching network traffic is limited to circumstantial evidence, and not even that without a circumstantially isolated environment. Those are a couple of scenarios where these accusations can be made.
- bronco21016 8y ago
  Is a multi-million dollar fine enough to matter? Let’s assume Apple violated their privacy policy and was fined $999 million, the highest “multi-million dollar” fine they could be assessed. That’s just barely more than 1% of their market cap. Fines are definitely incentive to do right but the fine must be felt. I’m not aware of any cases where the tech giants have been levied a fine that really hits them hard.
  - Godel_unicode 8y ago
    The fine you're proposing would cause a much larger hit to market cap than you're suggesting. Consider, Apple made ~20 billion in profit last quarter, your hypothetical fine would be a precipitous hit to profit margin which, when reported on the quarterly earnings call, would cause an abrupt downturn in share price. Consider the 13% hair cut earlier this year when the market thought Apple was going to miss. Then there's the existential panic of "does this mean Apple is in for more such fines?".
    - extralego 8y ago
      I guess jail time will have to do.

millstone 8y ago

Companies get hit with multi-million dollar fines for violating their privacy policies. So there's your incentive. I just don't see open source as better protecting privacy. See for example the telemetry in .NET Core or VS Code [1]. Users discover this stuff by watching network traffic, not through code audits. 1: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/16131 https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/16131

extralego 8y ago
Fines are accounted as overhead. Watching network traffic is limited to circumstantial evidence, and not even that without a circumstantially isolated environment. Those are a couple of scenarios where these accusations can be made.
bronco21016 8y ago
Is a multi-million dollar fine enough to matter? Let’s assume Apple violated their privacy policy and was fined $999 million, the highest “multi-million dollar” fine they could be assessed. That’s just barely more than 1% of their market cap. Fines are definitely incentive to do right but the fine must be felt. I’m not aware of any cases where the tech giants have been levied a fine that really hits them hard.
- Godel_unicode 8y ago
  The fine you're proposing would cause a much larger hit to market cap than you're suggesting. Consider, Apple made ~20 billion in profit last quarter, your hypothetical fine would be a precipitous hit to profit margin which, when reported on the quarterly earnings call, would cause an abrupt downturn in share price. Consider the 13% hair cut earlier this year when the market thought Apple was going to miss. Then there's the existential panic of "does this mean Apple is in for more such fines?".
  - extralego 8y ago
    I guess jail time will have to do.