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Google is an ad company. I do not understand why people would choose to use an operating system created by an ad company, designed to harvest their personal inf

• sneak 5y ago
  The iPhone and iPad transmit their fixed and unchangeable hardware serial number to Apple every time you open the App Store, like a permanent supercookie. Apple has just as much reason to harvest your personal information and track you in their App Store as anyone else.
• diogenesjunior 5y ago
  >I'm happy to use an iPhone, knowing my personal information is safe and it reduces my chances of being Harvested by Google LOL. Instead of bowing down to one master, you chose to bow down to the other?
  • hugi 5y ago
    I choose to spend my money on devices from a company that's explicitly and repeatedly stated that their mission is privacy. But if you choose to buy phones from ad companies, it's your decision.
    • harry8 5y ago
      They'll flip the nanosecond it suits them. Their commitment isn't valuable or enforceable or anything other than a dodgy sales pitch. Really. They can encode it in contact in a second and choose not to.
      • hu3 5y ago
        > They'll flip the nanosecond it suits them. Like when Apple dropped end-to-end encryption on iCloud because FBI asked them politely. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive-idUSKBN1ZK1CT https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...
        • meepmorp 5y ago
          https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2021/01/apple-fbi-and-iphone-backup-encryption-everything-you-wanted-to-know/ https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2021/01/apple-fbi-and-iphone-back...
          • hu3 5y ago
            "The encryption keys are stored at Apple’ own servers" Thanks for confirming that there's no privacy in iCloud.
            • meepmorp 5y ago
              You should actually read the article, perhaps after first setting down the axe you're grinding. The details are interesting, and they discuss the Reuters piece you linked to.
              • hu3 5y ago
                I did read the article. It nitpicks on Reuters article but the point still stands. Apple has the keys to iCloud backups. There's no axe to grind because the lack of end-to-end encryption is a fact. Your own link states that. Nitpicking Reuters won't change that. I don't understand this mentality of religiously defending something that's clearly wrong. It will only make the platform you use worse. By the way you should read HN guidelines. Don't comment whether someone read an article. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      • hugi 5y ago
        Sure, they can flip. But currently Apple's business model is based on privacy, and they're going for it HARD. Like, really hard. And I like that. The moment they stop doing that, I won't support them. Meanwhile; have you you seen Google stand up to the despicable behaviour of Facebook? No? I wonder why.
        • encryptluks2 5y ago
          Privacy like tracking your app launches? https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-says-itll-change-how-it-collects-data-on-the-macos-apps-you-launch/ https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-says-itll-change-how-it-coll...
          • hugi 5y ago
            Did you even read the article you linked?
            • commoner 5y ago
              > Now, Apple says it has stopped logging user IP addresses collected by the feature, and will delete previous logs of IP addresses. Without IP addresses, there's far less danger that records of app usage could be tied back to users. https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-says-itll-change-how-it-collects-data-on-the-macos-apps-you-launch/ https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-says-itll-change-how-it-coll... Apple is still tracking app launches in macOS, even though it has said that it will stop logging IP addresses along with that usage data.
            • deleted 5y ago
              [deleted]
            • simion314 5y ago
              Yes fanboys, Apple cares so much about privacy that they sent your app launches unencrypted and with the IP address to their servers, they are only "fixing" it because of bad PR. If you use your brain you can conclude that Apple does not care about privacy enough to hire competent developers, this feature design was clearly insecure and against privacy that my any person with a bit of brain and not emotional invested can see it clear, "privacy is only PR, when it comes to actual implementation is irrelevant" ... though I think you could convince me that there is a chance that we could explain this just with pure stupidity, somehow Apple has such a broken process that stupidity triumphs over sane architecture, then yeah I hope you love the fact you use a product from someone that loves privacy but is to stuipid to offer it to you.
      • imoverclocked 5y ago
        There is a promise in the marketing that customers expect to be kept. Apple has done lots of research and work to create privacy preserving versions of services that competitors simply harvest lots of user data for. Apple has invested heavily in this vein.
        • harry8 5y ago
          It's the work of moments to put it in a contract that data sourced from you cannot be sold or provided to a third party without the law requiring it. They choose not to do this. Apple have invested heavily in their /marketing/ If you believe they won't flip on you the nanosecond it suits them I've got a bridge over here that might interest you... Besides even if you believe the current people controlling Apple, all of them, you can't possibly know who will control it next year let alone in 5 or 10 years. This "I want to believe" garbage is just ridiculous. Seriously. You expect anything you like and Apple won't care a damn if your expectations are trashed for their profit or something else. If they won't put it in a contract it only because they reserve the right to to flip you off. Hard and rough. No other reason.
    • alfongj 5y ago
      Please point to a single source from Apple claiming their mission is privacy.
      • hugi 5y ago
        For me their actions speak volumes. But if you want sources, here's Craig Federighi, Senior VP of software, literally yesterday: "It [privacy] is a value that is so deep in us. Personal information can be used and abused and even weaponized in ways that can be really, really destructive. Often in a way that's not at all apparent to the person who might be giving up that information." and "These devices are so intimately a part of our lives and contain so much of what we're thinking and where we've been and who we've been with that users deserve and need control of that information. Abuse ranges from creepy to dangerous". He says more about privacy in that same interview, recommended listen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G05nEgsXgoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G05nEgsXgoI
        • anoncake 5y ago
          Reminds me of the "We value your privacy" pop-ups Google keeps popping up. A for-profit company will say anything that it believes is profitable. PR statements like the one you quoted convey no information.
    • m4rtink 5y ago
      Unless the device runs open source software under your full control you can't trust any company behind it.
    • stale2002 5y ago
      Well you will continue to be allowed to make these decisions if you want, but after these lawsuits go through, other people will also be free to use other app store as well. Problem solved. You get to keep using apple app stores, and other people can choose something else.
    • marticode 5y ago
      You don't really buy an Apple phone. You give them money and then they decide what software can, will or will not run on the device they hand you down. Apple owns your phone.
• encryptluks2 5y ago
  You may feel you're safer, but there is no proof that Apple implements better privacy practices than Google. There are a lot of different vendors that provide Android without Google services and you can also unlock your bootloader and install a custom ROM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_custom_Android_distributions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_custom_Android_distrib... Last, Google allows you to disable their activity history and other options that may be concerning from your Google Account. Apple has very few options to limit your amount of data sharing.
  • fnord77 5y ago
    there is proof - recently researchers showed google phones send an order of magnitude more data to the mothership than Apple does. Of course that's at this point in time. Tomorrow Apple could turn around and be worse.
    • NorwegianDude 5y ago
      Are you referring to this one that says Apple is collecting more personal details, but is communicating less than Google? "Android sends 20x more data.."? https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/android-sends-20x-more-data-to-google-than-ios-sends-to-apple-study-says/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/android-sends-20x-mo... Take it with a huge grain of salt, but also note that Apple sends more personal data to themself than Google according to that article. Not in the amount of bytes, but in they amount of different data send, according to the article. I think most people would agree that fewer personal details being shared is more important than the amount of data used to communicate. So in that regard Apple is worse. All in all, I think this whole discussion is pointless. Both are collecting as much as they can get away with and both suck when it comes to privacy.
• paxys 5y ago
  It is possible for a company to do multiple things, sometimes even conflicting with each other. Google is an ad company, and a hardware/smartphone company, and an enterprise collaboration company, and a cloud hosting company, and lots more. Similarly Apple is a hardware company which is getting more and more of its revenue from digital sales, subscriptions and even advertising every year. They can and do track their users exactly like Google. It is naive to think that any company at that scale has your best interests at heart. They will do whatever it takes to make more money, period.
  • hugi 5y ago
    > It is naive to think that any company at that scale has your best interests at heart. They will do whatever it takes to make more money, period. Exactly. And Apple makes money of privacy. It's their thing. Google's business model is based on abusing my privacy. Apple's business model is based on securing my privacy. That's why I use Apple stuff and won't touch Google with a 10 feet pole.
    • joshuamorton 5y ago
      > Exactly. And Apple makes money of privacy. It's their thing. Apple makes money by (among other things) appealing to a certain set of privacy conscious consumers. That's different than "making money off of privacy".
      • hugi 5y ago
        How so?
      • colinmhayes 5y ago
        only if you think consumers are idiots.
        • encryptluks2 5y ago
          I thought by making the argument that users shouldn't be allowed to install apps themselves you were making that insinuation and that people supporting Apple's anti-competitive behavior are willfully ignorant.
• fnord77 5y ago
  I have a couple of friends who worked at google. they're always baffled why I would want to block trackers and data harvesters. And I'm baffled why they're baffled. Is the koolaid that strong and that permanent there?
  • rleigh 5y ago
    Yes, it is. I went to interview at Google (a few years back now). Frankly, I was disturbed at the cult-like behaviour and attitudes of the majority of the employees I interacted with. For most of them, it was clearly their first job out of college, and they had no prior experience of working for a large corporate, or any objective perspective about what they were doing, or why. One hopes they will gain a little more maturity along the way, since such people are going to be exploited by their corporate masters without them even realising it.
    • fnord77 5y ago
      "why wouldn't you want your ads personalized?" - that came out of a xoogler's mouth.
• TheDong 5y ago
  It's not quite so black and white as that. It's possible to run open source android phones (including without google play services) which protect your privacy pretty well. As part of android allowing more consumer control, there's a larger culture of open source apps, so you can get further with fdroid. Open source apps are usually pretty unlikely to compromise your privacy and harvest data. On iPhones, it's true that the phone itself doesn't track you as much, but there's other downsides. You're unable to use firefox+ublock origin, so far more websites on iPhone will track you. There are fewer open source apps, so it's quite plausible you get tracked by more apps individually. There's no ability to uninstall default services whatsoever, again unlike android. I think for the default user who doesn't make an effort to search out privacy-preserving software, an iPhone will probably harvest less data. However, for someone who knows how to run LineageOS, install ublock on firefox, and install apps from fdroid, I think you can get a phone that harvests less of your data with android. I also think that there are enough distinct data-points on each side of this argument that it's difficult to claim either is better with certainty.
• imperio59 5y ago
  Apple runs its own Ad network for app advertisements. They conveniently do not need to deal with iOS 14 requirements when it comes to using their users' data to target ads and track app installs in their own network. Can you say monopoly power?
• sfifs 5y ago
  If you're like the majority of people on HN, you're likely (relatively) "rich" - perhaps in top 5-10 percentile of income globally. The other 90% use Androids. They could use "second-hand" iPhones - but those don't work quite as well and stay compatible with the latest apps whereas the latest cheap Androids do.
• 8note 5y ago
  How do you know that apple isn't using your information to sell you things? They sell plenty of things, including these apps
• fogihujy 5y ago
  I'd love to buy an iPhone that is waterproof, has decent battery life, durable screen (that part apparently has gotten better recently, though), can run Firefox (the actual one with proper ad-blocking options) and is generally made to withstand punishment from being used in the field. Until such a beast is released, I'll stick with my (admittedly) crappy and de-googlified Android phone; I simply can't afford to buy a new iPhone 3-4 times a year because they keep breaking.
• arvinsim 5y ago
  Please check your privilege. Not everyone can afford iPhones even if they want to buy one.
• marticode 5y ago
  Your data on iPhone aren't safe from Apple though, a company that relies increasingly on selling subscription and content. As long as you use cloud-hosted service, you trust a company to store your data.