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A Day in the Life of Your Data [pdf]
- pwinnski 6y agoApple knows they're going toe-to-toe with Facebook, and they don't seem to plan to lose.
- voteflipper 6y agoWell, it’s because it’s a winning strategy to anyone who remotely gets concerned or paranoid about being spied on.
- ogre_codes 6y agoConsidering how much digital spying happens, it is not paranoia to be concerned about it. If you caught your neighbor peeking in your windows 5 times a day, putting up a fence isn't being paranoid.
- warkdarrior 6y agoThe fence manufacturers and installers would like to remind that all your neighbors are peeking in your windows.
- _qulr 6y agoThis feels to me like Apple creating a convenient Orwellian enemy. They're not even competitors, because Apple doesn't have a social network, Facebook doesn't sell computers, and indeed Facebook is currently among the grossing apps in the iOS App Store, 30% of which Apple gets. If Facebook was as terrible as Apple makes them out to be, why would Apple allow Facebook in their App Store and take 30% of the generated revenue? It's hypocritical for Apple to criticize Facebook. If anything, the App Store made Facebook more popular than ever, so it's a "monster" that Apple helped create. EDIT: My perspective is that the App Store and iOS lockdown have been harmful to user privacy, and Facebook is merely a convenient enemy to distract from the harmfulness of Apple's own current business model. On the Mac, I can install Little Snitch and prevent software from phoning home to both facebook.com and apple.com. I can't do any of this on iPhone. (And indeed, Little Snitch is not even compatible with the restrictive Mac App Store rules, so it has to be distributed outside the MAS.) The iPhone platform is designed such that software like Facebook thrives, and software like Little Snitch cannot exist.
- user-the-name 6y agoApple gets no revenue from Facebook, their app is free and has no in-app purchases.
- _qulr 6y agoPlease check the App Store before you make obviously false and easily refutable assertions.
- user-the-name 6y agoHmm, looks like a recent feature. I doubt it is particularly large.
- _qulr 6y ago> I doubt it is particularly large. Facebook is currently 43 in the list of the top grossing apps. I'm still running iTunes 12.6 which shows these lists.
- user-the-name 6y agoOk, so Facebook is the 43 top grossing app. What exactly do you want them to do? Single them out and not allow them to use IAPs?
- quesera 6y agoI wish you had posted the constructive form of reply, e.g.: Recently, Facebook added in-app purchases for things like X. Because here I am still wondering what the hell X could possibly be.
- avianlyric 6y ago> If Facebook was as terrible as Apple makes them out to be, Where is Apple doing this? Far as I can tell Apple are just saying that people don’t understand how their data is being used, and that companies should educate, and get informed consent. It’s Facebook that’s demonising Apple here, not the other way around. Other than in direct responses to attacks by Facebook, where has Apple even used Facebook’s name?
- quesera 6y agoWhat part of this document is about Facebook and not Google?
- ogre_codes 6y agoFacebook is at least for the moment the company which is vocally fighting this. Google probably just quietly changed their API to use undetectable fingerprinting.
- m463 6y agohas google updated their apps yet?
- sneak 6y agoApple products do a lot of things with your data without asking; this seems like farce to me. I'm all for marketing to one's strengths, but Apple products leak so much data (hardware serial numbers, for example) that this sort of marketing strikes me now as actively dishonest. Apple collects just as much data (sometimes more!) as all of these shady data broker types they vilify in the document.
- djrogers 6y agoCare to share any examples or references of where Apple is being dishonest here?
- sneak 6y agoThe Jobs quote on page 2. All iOS devices and all M1 macs maintain a persistent serial-number-linked connection to Apple at all times, even if you don't use iCloud, don't have an Apple ID, don't use FaceTime/iMessage, don't use the App Store, and have analytics turned off. No indication that this is happening is displayed, and there's no way to turn it off. Your client IP discloses the city the device is in, and the ISP. This means that Apple has a city-level, ISP-level location tracklog of every iOS device and all M1 macs (and possibly intel macs too) by serial number. You're not asked, you're not even told. This is the exact opposite of their headline founder quote on the first non-title page of the doc.
- user-the-name 6y agoAgain, it would be nice if you presented evidence of your claims.
- sneak 6y agoIt's called APNS, and the evidence is in the network traffic of every M1 mac and every iOS device. This isn't a secret, the way APNS works has been documented for years. Would you like a pcap? I can send you a pcap.
- actuator 6y agoIf ads are just restricted to intent based on page/video/query, small advertisers lose out on effectiveness but is this is a big issue for big advertisers? I have read FB engineers comment on HN that FB has a long tail of advertisers. Is that why they are being more vocal out of all companies? In any case, I personally don't have a problem with ads as a revenue medium for companies, just the expansive data mining, especially when it is not communicated to the user clearly. Ads do provide a very good avenue for revenue generation for products where most users won't pay for the service because of competing products or just the frequency in which they use them. On the advertiser side, they do help push information about new products which we might not have known earlier.
- pradn 6y agoIt seems reasonable to me that data collection enables more cost-effective targeting for small businesses. At the same time, it's done involuntarily and has privacy and self-censorship implications. It's likely that reducing user-identified data collection will both be a win for privacy, but also a detriment to the long tail. Of course, when Facebook makes this argument, it seems false, given their long neglect and, indeed, antipathy toward privacy. It also seems false because it uses small businesses to cover for large ones (who probably need less targeting anyway, given their mass-market products.) Tide won't suffer but artisan knitting needles might.
- fsflover 6y ago> If ads are just restricted to intent based on page/video/query, small advertisers lose out on effectiveness Any research proving this?
- actuator 6y agoJust quoting FB's wording and my hunch. As the other commenter gave an example, if you have a niche product which only a fraction of people would be ever interested in, it would help if you can know who those are, and restrict targeting to them. I can search for knitting needles or be viewing a knitting post on Instagram. If an artisan needle seller wants to target his product it doesn't help targeting people who are not interested into artisan stuff. So to maximize the ad budget impact the ads are better left targeted specifically to people who have a higher likelihood of buying artisan stuff. This problem doesn't affect some mass market knitting needle seller.
- monkin 6y agoI’m wondering what kind full page response will Facebook make now. :D
- msoad 6y agoThe regular user just clicks "accept" on every prompt they see. Yes there might be days that privacy is the top news. But most people ignore it. $FB is down because of this new cycle but mark my words. Facebook will make even more billions using data people "clicked accept to share".
- fossuser 6y agoI think Apple will win this war and FB will lose. Nobody cares that small businesses benefit from targeted FB ads except FB and small businesses, customers certainly don’t, users don’t. The small group of users that would care about that is the same group that hates Facebook and Amazon already and won’t be persuaded by FB on this or really even listen. Apple’s argument is clearer and more directly benefits their users. FB and small businesses don’t have the political power to force a win here and their argument isn’t as persuasive as Apple’s. It doesn’t look great for them. I think they’re probably correct about the long tail ads and the benefit to small businesses, but I also don’t care. I’d rather the targeted ad model fail. Ben Thompson argues that if Apple wins this then only FB, Google and other ad monopoly mega corps will be competitive in the ad space because they’re the only ones that can collect information on users in other ways even with Apple’s move to stop tracking. That may be true in the short term. If legislation trends in the CCPA, GDPR direction and users prefer the moves Apple is making then the ad model may start to falter for them too. The sooner, the better.
- ogre_codes 6y ago> Nobody cares that small businesses benefit from targeted FB ads except FB and small businesses, customers certainly don’t, users don’t. This is about Facebook, not small businesses. There is little evidence that small businesses will be significantly impacted by this. I'm sure some ad-supported developer firms will be hit, but most small businesses won't notice this.
- fossuser 6y agoThey get hit indirectly, not because the small businesses sell ads - but because they buy targeted ads on Facebook (and those targeted ads work). Edit: Smaller companies also rely on these IDs because they aren't able to track in other ways in the way that the large companies can. That said, I still think this ad-driven model is bad and if it became non-viable I'd hope long term privacy restrictions would also make it non-viable for the large players too.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
- coreyrab 6y agoThe way Apple paints this is that it's them vs. evil Facebook. Don't get me wrong, Facebook has certainly overstepped several times in their data mining practices, but a lot of these changes will almost exclusively hurt small and medium sized businesses that have been able to inexpensively reach target customers for niche and/or local products.
- newfeatureok 6y agoI'd argue it's impossible to enact any change that would only hurt large businesses and not small/medium sized businesses. Also, for niche products wouldn't keyword advertising be just as effective?
- avianlyric 6y agoJust because you built a business on technologies and techniques that cause social harm, doesn’t mean you have the right to continue using those technologies and techniques after society has decided they no longer wish suffer the harm they cause. Certainly some business will die, but I suspect the vast majority will find other inexpensive avenues of reaching their customers, without having to step on their privacy.
- ogre_codes 6y agoFirst and foremost, no company should benefit from this kind of lopsided non-arrangement to spy/ track me. I don't care if it's Facebook or Bob the window washer, they shouldn't be tracking me this way without permission. Also, I don't agree that this is going to broadly affect small businesses. I accept that it's possible a few businesses in some places will be hit, but there isn't a ton of evidence that it's going to have a broad impact. Facebook still has massive profiles of users to provide a broad set of ad targeting tools. The hair dresser down the corner isn't going to lose sleep over this. Nor is my favorite taqueria or sandwich shop.
- cronix 6y agoNote that this article is from 2010, 3 years before Apple joined the NSA's PRISM program approx 6 months after Steve Jobs passed. Jobs reportedly wouldn't go along with it. The data flow is much different now. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants... How about hardware implants? https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/12/30/the-nsa-reportedly-has-total-access-to-your-iphone https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/12/30/the-nsa-rep...
- hprotagonist 6y agoThe document is dated 28 JAN 20201.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- snet0 6y ago> Note that this article is from 2010 Which article? The one above is new.
- christiansakai 6y agoI wonder which one is easier to implement. A future utopia where every thing is great for everyone or an ad-less society.
- IndySun 6y agoIt's a good pdf by Apple. And clearly aimed at Joe Public. Getting Joe Public to understand some of the damage being done via data mining is not easy. Policing abuse of that knowledge through unenforced laws, business ethics, or guidelines, has failed. Now Governments internationally are going to impose new laws on the giants. It'll level the playing field for those with already with ethical practices, but for sure, greater restrictions will be bound in to the new laws that spoil things for everyone, and it'll be within 12-24 months.
- anonypla 6y ago" If John had used Apple Maps to check the traffic, his location data would have been linked to a random identifier, which is regularly reset and not linked to John. As a result, no one but John would end up with knowledge of his location. " Well, no-one except your cell provider of course which knows precisely where you are anyway and will use and sell this data anyway. " If John had bought the ice cream using Apple Card, his bank would not use his transaction information for marketing purposes. Had he used Apple Pay, Apple would have used on-device intelligence so that John could view his transaction history on his iPhone without Apple obtaining information about where he shopped, what he purchased, or how much he spent. " Without Apple knowing maybe but not without Mastercard/VISA knowing everything anyway?
- ogre_codes 6y agoI'm missing your point here. You seem to be suggesting that just because some data leaks which is outside Apple's control that it's ok for all data to leak? But that makes no sense.
- anonypla 6y agoJust that at least the first statement is technically incorrect. And that the second is a bit misleading IMHO. Edit: And adding that some of the data in question is in Apple's control (the IMEI for instance that could also be randomized/changed).
- IndySun 6y agoYes, as you rightly point out, and although I applaud this from Apple, it is carefully worded. But we knew that. It's for Joe Public.
- ChrisArchitect 6y agoA lot of this is about Google, not Facebook. Why are we talking about Facebook.
- __jf__ 6y agoAre we witnessing a veiled announcement of Apple Search where it would be a key driver for Apple One adoption?
- ChrisArchitect 6y agowhy is this a PDF? Sure for portability or to make it seem like 'official' 'whitepaper' etc....but geez, put it on a website with an added download c'mon
- polishdude20 6y agoI've got a pixel 2 at the moment and it's working alright. I think I'd like to switch to an iPhone next. Which of the older models of iPhone is good? I don't want to spend the large price for the newest iPhone, I'd be happy with a generation or two back. Does this privacy setting affect older generations?
- pchristensen 6y agoiPhone XR is still very good and about half the price of the 12. Has the new design, bigger screen, smaller bezels, FaceTime. I don’t know about this privacy setting, but Apple is good about supporting older phones with new iOS releases, and the changes from XR -> 12 are much less than 8-> XR.
- ndiscussion 6y agoTry iPhone SE, it's the cheapest one with a good processor, and will probably be supported for several more years, I'm still using the iPhone SE first gen from 2016.
- m463 6y agoYour Apple iOS device still doesn't let you: - figure out if and when your apps are active - figure out if your apps using the network - figure out what sites are they contacting - block network access Additionally apple collects tons of data. On iOS it is not blockable. Even coarse data like your zipcode can be used to raise prices. On macos, they may have updated it so the third-party Little Snitch can block apple traffic (untested). Even anonymous data shouldn't be collected without asking. And as google is showing, a fingerprint be deduced from imperfect data.
- solarmist 6y agoSure, it's not perfect, but it still miles a head of everyone else in consumer tech.