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Maybe I'm cynical, but this looks more like a data hording scheme than a protect my privacy enhancement. If I use Google to sign in, Google and the app has tha

Maybe I'm cynical, but this looks more like a data hording scheme than a protect my privacy enhancement. If I use Google to sign in, Google and the app has that data and can monetize it. Now if I sign in using Apple, they are going to have the data to monetize. They may keep the app from getting my information, but that means that their data is better than someone else's data, so it is more valuable. Also, they are getting app usage statistics that I may have opted out of at the OS level, but they now have due to having the sign in history.

prdonahue 7y ago
Who do you trust more _not_ to do sketchy stuff with your data, Apple or Google? For me it's unequivocally Apple.
- peeters 7y ago
  Problem is, today I agree, 10 years ago it would've been a tossup, and 5 years from now, who knows? These "trusted central broker" privacy models are nicer than giving your info to dozens of individual actors (when you trust that central broker more than anyone else), but they also become a single point of attack/failure.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    You will never be able to know the future, you can only make decisions based on information available now.
    - peeters 7y ago
      My point is some of the information available now is that historically, companies that respect your privacy today might not tomorrow. And might only be respecting your privacy to get a monopoly on your data so they can exploit it later.
      - threeseed 7y ago
        Difference is you can visibly see how Apple makes money. It's exclusively from premium hardware and services. And not from advertising or monetising your data.
        owenwil 7y ago
        And you can visibly see that quickly disappearing. How are people not able to see past the now like this?
        fastball 7y ago
        Heh, "visibly see".
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - shuckles 7y ago
    That change is likely because Google regressed and Apple progressed along this axis. Now project forward.
- beat 7y ago
  The company that did not deliberately remove the phrase "Don't be evil" from their values.
  - Krasnol 7y ago
    How could they if they never had it in the first place? ;)
- y4mi 7y ago
  Neither would be the only sane choice. Multinational corporations will always screw individual customers for profit. And the issue with trusting any entity with data isn't really what it will do with it today. The bigger problem is what the entity will do with it tomorrow - under new leadership. It might also be interesting to know that Apple is also in the business of selling "relevant adds". Its a tiny amount if compared to Google, but gives them the same incentives if the platform ever became the most used one around the globe. That danger is basically nonexistent considering the pricing of Apple devices but makes most claims of apples trustworthiness pretty hollow. Some of Apple's services use end-to-end encryption. That makes them better from a privacy angle than Google for example... But still... Don't trust multinational corporations. That can never end well
  - TomVDB 7y ago
    The question was not "who do you trust", but "who do you trust more". Given that Google's business model depends on data sharing whereas Apple has made privacy one of their core features, I think the answer has to be Apple, even if you don't trust them entirely.
    - throwayEngineer 7y ago
      Apple has a longer list of lies and unethical events than Google. "No our antenna and keyboards don't break, that's the users fault."
    - hobofan 7y ago
      > The question was not "who do you trust", but "who do you trust more". The question doesn't _need_ to be "who do you trust more". (I know that I'm mostly repeating the parents points). I don't want a Google login. I don't want a Apple login. I don't want a Facebok login. I want a good old email/username login!
      - ignoramous 7y ago
        > I want a good old email/username login! Absolutely. One would still be able to do that (Apple's providing SSO here, not enforcing any guidelines, as of today). Though, I'm happy that friends and family would be able to choose anonymous per-app email-ids on the fly and still be able to SSO.
- throwayEngineer 7y ago
  For me, Apple. Google isn't outwardly evil. Apple being anti consumer and anti developer really show you who Apple works for.
  - Zeklandia 7y ago
    Their shareholders?
    - throwayEngineer 7y ago
      Yes
      - cbm-vic-20 7y ago
        What a coincidence, Google works for those people, too!
        trazire 7y ago
        As does every company ever, as is their fiduciary duty.
        astrange 7y ago
        Companies don't have fiduciary duties to their shareholders.
        throwayEngineer 7y ago
        But Google cannot get away with screwing both customers and developers. Apple doesn't seem to provide competition in the tech space that is pro consumer or pro developer. Apple is pushing profit more than anyone else in tech.
        flukus 7y ago
        > But Google cannot get away with screwing both customers and developers. But with google we're the product and not the customers. They are a spyware company and don't deserve any trust whatsoever.
- Yetanfou 7y ago
  How about 'neither of them'? Trusting Google with your data is like trusting a fox with guarding your hen house, trusting Apple with your data is trusting a fox which claims it turned vegetarian. Run your own mail server and you'll have all the addresses you care to use, using any scheme you might think off. I've been doing this for decades now and it just plain works. A day or so to get the thing setup, 8 hours of maintenance per year and you're done. Use Google-free Android devices in your pocket, Linux or *BSD on your lap and in the server/broom cupboard and those foxes can claim to be vegans for all I care.
  - tzs 7y ago
    Where do you host your mail server? I've been running my own for years on Rackspace, and it works great, except they recently started adding on a $5/month support fee that old accounts like mine had been grandfathered out of. With that, and other price increases over the years, it now costs about twice what I originally paid. I originally picked Rackspace over AWS because Rackspace's cheapest acceptable option was about the same price I had been paying for space on a shared hosting service, and that was about half of the cheapest viable AWS option. But now it looks like AWS is quite a bit cheaper than Rackspace, and it is getting time to build a new server anyway [1], so it is time to consider alternatives. One thing I'm concerned about is IP blacklists. Every time someone posts an article about setting up your own email server, there are comments about this being a pain because spammers will set up service on neighboring IP addresses, and you'll often get caught up when that gets the whole block blacklisted. I've never had that problem at Rackspace. I don't know if spammers just don't use them for some reason, or if they are really good at kicking off spammers...but in the 7.5 years I've been doing this at Rackspace I don't think my outgoing mail has ever been caught in an IP-based blacklist (or had any other delivery problems, for that matter). While I'd like to spend less than I'm spending now, it would not be worth the savings if it makes my mail unreliable. [1] I'm on Debian 8, which is in the last year of long term support. I prefer to built a new server from scratch with the latest and move to it rather than trying an in place update across major distro versions.
    - Yetanfou 7y ago
      The server sits in a special cupboard I made which has servers, a switch and storage on top, drying racks on the bottom. All the way in the bottom is a forced draft fan (meant for modern air-tight homes, low-power and -noise) which pulls the warm air from the top through the drying racks. All the way on top sits a large air filter. This keeps the equipment clean and relatively cool while using the waste heat to dry produce (now filled with mint leaves, later it will be used to dry apple, possibly some jerky, etc). The whole is connected through our gigabit fiber to the outside with a possibility for a wireless backup connection should the fiber go down (which it hasn't thus far). The hardware runs a combination of Debian stable with some unstable packages plus home-grown tools. I've done Debian upgrades on these servers for years, generally without much breakage. That is actually why I moved to Debian from Redhat which I used earlier (before the Fedora days) as upgrading RH was always a hit-and-miss experience compared to Debian. So, in short: my own hardware on my own connection on my own premises, with off-site (and even out-of-country) backup in a reciprocal agreement: I run backups for my brother in the Netherlands and get to put my (encrypted) backups on his NAS.
nickdandakis 7y ago
Except Google is an advertising company and Apple is a consumer electronics and software company. Their objectives are different, and historically, Apple has been one of the most privacy-focused tech companies. Not saying Apple can't use your data, but as far as auth providers go, I'd rank Apple higher than all the other Big Tech Cos.
falcolas 7y ago
Apple doesn't, to the best of my knowledge, monetize data, either through ads or selling it to third parties. I'd welcome a clarification if I'm wrong.
- alex_young 7y ago
  Yet
- ipsum2 7y ago
  https://searchads.apple.com/ https://searchads.apple.com/ They're monetizing user data/behavior. One example, I didn't search very hard. > User response is an important signal of ad relevance. If customers don’t tap on an ad, Apple Search Ads will stop showing it to them.
  - syntheticcdo 7y ago
    https://searchads.apple.com/privacy/ https://searchads.apple.com/privacy/ I think what you quoted is Apple saying "if no one is clicking on your ad we stop showing it to people".
zepto 7y ago
Only if you think Apple is lying.
slim 7y ago
they also have all your emails coming from that app
toyg 7y ago
The difference is that one is a hardware company making services to sell devices; the other is an advertising company making services to get more data for ads. One of them can live without your data, the other cannot.

prdonahue 7y ago

Who do you trust more _not_ to do sketchy stuff with your data, Apple or Google? For me it's unequivocally Apple.

peeters 7y ago
Problem is, today I agree, 10 years ago it would've been a tossup, and 5 years from now, who knows? These "trusted central broker" privacy models are nicer than giving your info to dozens of individual actors (when you trust that central broker more than anyone else), but they also become a single point of attack/failure.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  You will never be able to know the future, you can only make decisions based on information available now.
  - peeters 7y ago
    My point is some of the information available now is that historically, companies that respect your privacy today might not tomorrow. And might only be respecting your privacy to get a monopoly on your data so they can exploit it later.
    - threeseed 7y ago
      Difference is you can visibly see how Apple makes money. It's exclusively from premium hardware and services. And not from advertising or monetising your data.
      - owenwil 7y ago
        And you can visibly see that quickly disappearing. How are people not able to see past the now like this?
      - fastball 7y ago
        Heh, "visibly see".
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- shuckles 7y ago
  That change is likely because Google regressed and Apple progressed along this axis. Now project forward.
beat 7y ago
The company that did not deliberately remove the phrase "Don't be evil" from their values.
- Krasnol 7y ago
  How could they if they never had it in the first place? ;)
y4mi 7y ago
Neither would be the only sane choice. Multinational corporations will always screw individual customers for profit. And the issue with trusting any entity with data isn't really what it will do with it today. The bigger problem is what the entity will do with it tomorrow - under new leadership. It might also be interesting to know that Apple is also in the business of selling "relevant adds". Its a tiny amount if compared to Google, but gives them the same incentives if the platform ever became the most used one around the globe. That danger is basically nonexistent considering the pricing of Apple devices but makes most claims of apples trustworthiness pretty hollow. Some of Apple's services use end-to-end encryption. That makes them better from a privacy angle than Google for example... But still... Don't trust multinational corporations. That can never end well
- TomVDB 7y ago
  The question was not "who do you trust", but "who do you trust more". Given that Google's business model depends on data sharing whereas Apple has made privacy one of their core features, I think the answer has to be Apple, even if you don't trust them entirely.
  - throwayEngineer 7y ago
    Apple has a longer list of lies and unethical events than Google. "No our antenna and keyboards don't break, that's the users fault."
  - hobofan 7y ago
    > The question was not "who do you trust", but "who do you trust more". The question doesn't _need_ to be "who do you trust more". (I know that I'm mostly repeating the parents points). I don't want a Google login. I don't want a Apple login. I don't want a Facebok login. I want a good old email/username login!
    - ignoramous 7y ago
      > I want a good old email/username login! Absolutely. One would still be able to do that (Apple's providing SSO here, not enforcing any guidelines, as of today). Though, I'm happy that friends and family would be able to choose anonymous per-app email-ids on the fly and still be able to SSO.
throwayEngineer 7y ago
For me, Apple. Google isn't outwardly evil. Apple being anti consumer and anti developer really show you who Apple works for.
- Zeklandia 7y ago
  Their shareholders?
  - throwayEngineer 7y ago
    Yes
    - cbm-vic-20 7y ago
      What a coincidence, Google works for those people, too!
      - trazire 7y ago
        As does every company ever, as is their fiduciary duty.
        astrange 7y ago
        Companies don't have fiduciary duties to their shareholders.
      - throwayEngineer 7y ago
        But Google cannot get away with screwing both customers and developers. Apple doesn't seem to provide competition in the tech space that is pro consumer or pro developer. Apple is pushing profit more than anyone else in tech.
        flukus 7y ago
        > But Google cannot get away with screwing both customers and developers. But with google we're the product and not the customers. They are a spyware company and don't deserve any trust whatsoever.
Yetanfou 7y ago
How about 'neither of them'? Trusting Google with your data is like trusting a fox with guarding your hen house, trusting Apple with your data is trusting a fox which claims it turned vegetarian. Run your own mail server and you'll have all the addresses you care to use, using any scheme you might think off. I've been doing this for decades now and it just plain works. A day or so to get the thing setup, 8 hours of maintenance per year and you're done. Use Google-free Android devices in your pocket, Linux or *BSD on your lap and in the server/broom cupboard and those foxes can claim to be vegans for all I care.
- tzs 7y ago
  Where do you host your mail server? I've been running my own for years on Rackspace, and it works great, except they recently started adding on a $5/month support fee that old accounts like mine had been grandfathered out of. With that, and other price increases over the years, it now costs about twice what I originally paid. I originally picked Rackspace over AWS because Rackspace's cheapest acceptable option was about the same price I had been paying for space on a shared hosting service, and that was about half of the cheapest viable AWS option. But now it looks like AWS is quite a bit cheaper than Rackspace, and it is getting time to build a new server anyway [1], so it is time to consider alternatives. One thing I'm concerned about is IP blacklists. Every time someone posts an article about setting up your own email server, there are comments about this being a pain because spammers will set up service on neighboring IP addresses, and you'll often get caught up when that gets the whole block blacklisted. I've never had that problem at Rackspace. I don't know if spammers just don't use them for some reason, or if they are really good at kicking off spammers...but in the 7.5 years I've been doing this at Rackspace I don't think my outgoing mail has ever been caught in an IP-based blacklist (or had any other delivery problems, for that matter). While I'd like to spend less than I'm spending now, it would not be worth the savings if it makes my mail unreliable. [1] I'm on Debian 8, which is in the last year of long term support. I prefer to built a new server from scratch with the latest and move to it rather than trying an in place update across major distro versions.
  - Yetanfou 7y ago
    The server sits in a special cupboard I made which has servers, a switch and storage on top, drying racks on the bottom. All the way in the bottom is a forced draft fan (meant for modern air-tight homes, low-power and -noise) which pulls the warm air from the top through the drying racks. All the way on top sits a large air filter. This keeps the equipment clean and relatively cool while using the waste heat to dry produce (now filled with mint leaves, later it will be used to dry apple, possibly some jerky, etc). The whole is connected through our gigabit fiber to the outside with a possibility for a wireless backup connection should the fiber go down (which it hasn't thus far). The hardware runs a combination of Debian stable with some unstable packages plus home-grown tools. I've done Debian upgrades on these servers for years, generally without much breakage. That is actually why I moved to Debian from Redhat which I used earlier (before the Fedora days) as upgrading RH was always a hit-and-miss experience compared to Debian. So, in short: my own hardware on my own connection on my own premises, with off-site (and even out-of-country) backup in a reciprocal agreement: I run backups for my brother in the Netherlands and get to put my (encrypted) backups on his NAS.

nickdandakis 7y ago

Except Google is an advertising company and Apple is a consumer electronics and software company. Their objectives are different, and historically, Apple has been one of the most privacy-focused tech companies. Not saying Apple can't use your data, but as far as auth providers go, I'd rank Apple higher than all the other Big Tech Cos.

falcolas 7y ago

Apple doesn't, to the best of my knowledge, monetize data, either through ads or selling it to third parties. I'd welcome a clarification if I'm wrong.

alex_young 7y ago
Yet
ipsum2 7y ago
https://searchads.apple.com/ https://searchads.apple.com/ They're monetizing user data/behavior. One example, I didn't search very hard. > User response is an important signal of ad relevance. If customers don’t tap on an ad, Apple Search Ads will stop showing it to them.
- syntheticcdo 7y ago
  https://searchads.apple.com/privacy/ https://searchads.apple.com/privacy/ I think what you quoted is Apple saying "if no one is clicking on your ad we stop showing it to people".

zepto 7y ago

Only if you think Apple is lying.

slim 7y ago

they also have all your emails coming from that app

toyg 7y ago

The difference is that one is a hardware company making services to sell devices; the other is an advertising company making services to get more data for ads. One of them can live without your data, the other cannot.