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4 years ago when I told my non-techy friends about the risk of using Facebook, Google, allowing full access to photos/camera/location etc, I was a tin foil hat

4 years ago when I told my non-techy friends about the risk of using Facebook, Google, allowing full access to photos/camera/location etc, I was a tin foil hat man. I don’t blame them. Today those same people are the ones discussing and raising their concerns. I think privacy will be the next big selling point of any platform and there is already one company that figured it out; Apple.

flokie 7y ago
You mean one company that figured out marketing that before the rest. Apple is no saint.
- andreilys 7y ago
  Can you point to any flagrant privacy abuses that Apple has engaged in when compared to companies like Facebook?
- reimertz 7y ago
  Fair point. I mean, they where mentioned in the Snowden leaks but they also dismissed it as being false. I want that to be true and have decided to use them for now till something proves me otherwise. edit: lazy was the wrong wording. I spent way more time that I should have, figuring out how to feel secure with my setup. With lazy, I meant that I don’t have the time nor the motivation to set up my own cloud/mail/backup etc right now.
- InTheArena 7y ago
  We can hope that Apple is just as ahead of the curve now as they were then. Apple may have figured out marketing, but let’s not equate that to selling you as a good to other corporations a and governments. There’s a lot I don’t like about their model. I think it’s completely Disingenuous to claim that Apple is paying the App Store developers, as opposed to users buying goods. However their privacy stance is something that should not be subject to whatBoutisms.
- fredthomsen 7y ago
  Apple does it because they can afford to do it not because they care.
kajecounterhack 7y ago
I don't think Google is worse than Apple when it comes to privacy. Google has more of your information by nature of their products (search, recommendations, etc are incredibly personal). Apple sells you mostly non-cloud services, which have an inherently smaller attack surface in aggregate than what google offers in aggregate. What's difficult about the whole situation is you're likely safer using google stuff than entrusting your data to 20 different small services / products that each need updates, each have their own EULAs, each have potentially different approaches to data protection and respecting user privacy. I tried going off google stuff before (owncloud + my own email server + etc etc) and the sheer amount of engineering maintenance needed to administrate it all is incredibly demanding. The amount of stuff google has on me (e.g nest cams, email, browser, youtube, search, photos, android) is scary. But the benefits these things have for my daily life are high, and their stewardship of my data up to now has been really trustworthy. I use takeout to export my data a few times a year. My personal info? Found in a large number of dumps; from LinkedIn twice, from adobe once, from a myriad of retailers many times. If Google lost my data there would be a lot more blowback than "I guess I should just change my password and maybe my phone number..." Google isn't incentivized to sell your data either because that removes their leverage. They're incentivized to _refer_ you correctly. Unpopular opinion puffin: they've done a good job to let people opt-out of data collection, export their data, encrypt data at rest, patch security vulnerabilities actively, etc. There are few other companies I trust to take care of these things correctly. Cloud-based products make our lives easier. Figuring out how to (enforceably) regulate them so that they can be safe for everyone and not misused is more impactful saying "we should do everything on our own devices." (Which is what apple mostly says, because they sell those devices.)

flokie 7y ago

You mean one company that figured out marketing that before the rest. Apple is no saint.

andreilys 7y ago
Can you point to any flagrant privacy abuses that Apple has engaged in when compared to companies like Facebook?
reimertz 7y ago
Fair point. I mean, they where mentioned in the Snowden leaks but they also dismissed it as being false. I want that to be true and have decided to use them for now till something proves me otherwise. edit: lazy was the wrong wording. I spent way more time that I should have, figuring out how to feel secure with my setup. With lazy, I meant that I don’t have the time nor the motivation to set up my own cloud/mail/backup etc right now.
InTheArena 7y ago
We can hope that Apple is just as ahead of the curve now as they were then. Apple may have figured out marketing, but let’s not equate that to selling you as a good to other corporations a and governments. There’s a lot I don’t like about their model. I think it’s completely Disingenuous to claim that Apple is paying the App Store developers, as opposed to users buying goods. However their privacy stance is something that should not be subject to whatBoutisms.
fredthomsen 7y ago
Apple does it because they can afford to do it not because they care.

kajecounterhack 7y ago

I don't think Google is worse than Apple when it comes to privacy. Google has more of your information by nature of their products (search, recommendations, etc are incredibly personal). Apple sells you mostly non-cloud services, which have an inherently smaller attack surface in aggregate than what google offers in aggregate. What's difficult about the whole situation is you're likely safer using google stuff than entrusting your data to 20 different small services / products that each need updates, each have their own EULAs, each have potentially different approaches to data protection and respecting user privacy. I tried going off google stuff before (owncloud + my own email server + etc etc) and the sheer amount of engineering maintenance needed to administrate it all is incredibly demanding. The amount of stuff google has on me (e.g nest cams, email, browser, youtube, search, photos, android) is scary. But the benefits these things have for my daily life are high, and their stewardship of my data up to now has been really trustworthy. I use takeout to export my data a few times a year. My personal info? Found in a large number of dumps; from LinkedIn twice, from adobe once, from a myriad of retailers many times. If Google lost my data there would be a lot more blowback than "I guess I should just change my password and maybe my phone number..." Google isn't incentivized to sell your data either because that removes their leverage. They're incentivized to _refer_ you correctly. Unpopular opinion puffin: they've done a good job to let people opt-out of data collection, export their data, encrypt data at rest, patch security vulnerabilities actively, etc. There are few other companies I trust to take care of these things correctly. Cloud-based products make our lives easier. Figuring out how to (enforceably) regulate them so that they can be safe for everyone and not misused is more impactful saying "we should do everything on our own devices." (Which is what apple mostly says, because they sell those devices.)