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While I knew that the "privacy" stance from Apple in prior years was always a marketing facade to sell more devices, I still continued to believe that they woul

While I knew that the "privacy" stance from Apple in prior years was always a marketing facade to sell more devices, I still continued to believe that they would keep sticking up for privacy as much as possible. It's kind of funny how I am very suspicious of governments and politicians but when it comes to a trillion dollar corporation, I was giving them more of benefit of doubt. I was wrong.

akiselev 5y ago
I don't necessarily think you were wrong to believe in Apple, perhaps just a bit naive about how little "as much as possible" is good for in this context. Apple is a public corporation at the mercy of several superpowers. Economic incentives and the people with the guns make the rules. Full stop. Apple's privacy stance was always one desperate/amibitious business unit or bureaucrat away from complete collapse.
heavyset_go 5y ago
> I still continued to believe that they would keep sticking up for privacy as much as possible. Considering how often Apple gives up customer data without a fight when requested to by the government, I don't really believe that. According to Apple, they respond to government data requests with customers' data ~85% of the time, and 92% in cases of "emergencies"[1]. Apple gave customer data from over 31,000 users/accounts based on FISA requests and National Security Letter requests in the first half of 2020 alone[1]. During that same 6 month period, Apple provided customers' data to the government's data requests (not FISC related) about 9,000 times[1]. [1] https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html
- wyre 5y ago
  I don’t know if the first half of 2020 is a good time frame for sampling as this is when the country had the largest amount of protests in history and the police are going to be making a lot of requests in retaliation. Doesn’t make Apple look any better though. I’m curious about how often Google and Facebook hand over information.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    There's a drop down menu that you can use to see other time periods. The numbers and rates in the July to December 2019 period are similar to 2020's.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > During that same 6 month period, Apple provided customers' data to the government's data requests (not FISC related) about 9,000 times To clarify: The 9,000 figure is the number of individual data requests, but the requests themselves asked for data from a total of ~120,000 different users/accounts. Multiple users' data can be requested in a single request.
istingray 5y ago
I appreciate you saying this, I felt the same way. I was delighted when Apple started selling privacy hard, and hoped it would persist. Their "Mind your own business" [1] ad was a delight - only 2 months ago. Now my question is, which of the annoying characters in the ad is Apple? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w4qPUSG17Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w4qPUSG17Y
- rossjudson 5y ago
  So few people realize this! Say, what is Apple's advertising policy? Hmm. It looks very familiar, doesn't it? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223
7sidedmarble 5y ago
Have you ever considered that the profit motive might be responsible for leading all companies to act unethically? In the future, it's a good reason never to trust them.

akiselev 5y ago

I don't necessarily think you were wrong to believe in Apple, perhaps just a bit naive about how little "as much as possible" is good for in this context. Apple is a public corporation at the mercy of several superpowers. Economic incentives and the people with the guns make the rules. Full stop. Apple's privacy stance was always one desperate/amibitious business unit or bureaucrat away from complete collapse.

heavyset_go 5y ago

> I still continued to believe that they would keep sticking up for privacy as much as possible. Considering how often Apple gives up customer data without a fight when requested to by the government, I don't really believe that. According to Apple, they respond to government data requests with customers' data ~85% of the time, and 92% in cases of "emergencies"[1]. Apple gave customer data from over 31,000 users/accounts based on FISA requests and National Security Letter requests in the first half of 2020 alone[1]. During that same 6 month period, Apple provided customers' data to the government's data requests (not FISC related) about 9,000 times[1]. [1] https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html

wyre 5y ago
I don’t know if the first half of 2020 is a good time frame for sampling as this is when the country had the largest amount of protests in history and the police are going to be making a lot of requests in retaliation. Doesn’t make Apple look any better though. I’m curious about how often Google and Facebook hand over information.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  There's a drop down menu that you can use to see other time periods. The numbers and rates in the July to December 2019 period are similar to 2020's.
heavyset_go 5y ago
> During that same 6 month period, Apple provided customers' data to the government's data requests (not FISC related) about 9,000 times To clarify: The 9,000 figure is the number of individual data requests, but the requests themselves asked for data from a total of ~120,000 different users/accounts. Multiple users' data can be requested in a single request.

istingray 5y ago

I appreciate you saying this, I felt the same way. I was delighted when Apple started selling privacy hard, and hoped it would persist. Their "Mind your own business" [1] ad was a delight - only 2 months ago. Now my question is, which of the annoying characters in the ad is Apple? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w4qPUSG17Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w4qPUSG17Y

rossjudson 5y ago
So few people realize this! Say, what is Apple's advertising policy? Hmm. It looks very familiar, doesn't it? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223

7sidedmarble 5y ago

Have you ever considered that the profit motive might be responsible for leading all companies to act unethically? In the future, it's a good reason never to trust them.